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If you're not a Jimmie Johnson fan, you more than likely couldn't wait for the 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup season to end.

It finally did last Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway and probably won't go down as one of the more memorable campaigns in NASCAR history.

Johnson's dominating season should be remembered as special, but the entire body of work that made up NASCAR 2007 wasn't.

In no particular order, some of the highlights and lowlights that we'll look into during our off-season reviews include:
• Johnson's ten wins and four straight victories during the Chase helped him become the first driver to win consecutive titles since teammate Jeff Gordon turned the trick a decade ago.
• Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s announcement he would bolt DEI for Hendrick Motorsports rocked the racing world in mid-season and set-up an all-star squad like none before for Hendrick in 2008.
• The Daytona 500 ended in a photo finish but will be remembered for NASCAR's inconsistency in enforcing its rules.
• The Kansas Chase race ended in more of the same kind of controversy with red flags, cautions flags, shortening the race on the fly and the winner not crossing the finish line first.
• The long-awaited debut of the "Car of Tomorrow" didn't end the sport as we know it, as some predicted, but didn't really help the competition much.
• The return of ESPN and ABC to the NASCAR television fold left viewers angry and frustrated with missed coverage and what seemed like nearly 100 announcers per race - most with no NASCAR experience whatsoever.
• TV ratings overall as well as on track attendance dipped with the television audience figures dropping at a somewhat alarming rate.
• Bill France, Jr. passed away in June leaving behind a legacy that brought NASCAR from a regional attraction to a national phenomenon.
• Merger mania hit NASCAR with teams entering into partnerships with each other as well as bringing in wealthy outside investors from other walks of the sports and business worlds.
• Toyota's entry into NASCAR's top division started in a disastrous fashion with flagship team owner Michael Waltrip getting caught for using an illegal fuel substance at Daytona and then subsequently failing to qualify for more than half the schedule while the other Camry entries also struggled to simply make races.
• The open wheel world invaded NASCAR in a big way with Juan Pablo Montoya leading a charge that included former Indy 500 winners Dario Franchitti, Sam Hornish, Jr. and Jacques Villeneuve all coming to stock cars along with Patrick Carpentier and former F-1 driver Scott Speed.

It's all in the rearview mirror now but 2007 was a wild ride to say the least.

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It's hard to believe that the media would actually write about itself in respect to what a lousy job they did in broadcasting the races. The announcers for a large part were terrible in my book. Most of them shouldn't even be allowed near a karaoke machine, in the shower, on a deserted island ... with no power !!!