Did NASCAR deserve a 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award nominee?

NASCAR’s nominee for the 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award is the only one of the four drivers nominated for it who did not win a championship last year.

The four nominees for the 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award were revealed earlier this week, and they include one driver from each of four different racing series. But only three of them actually won championships last season.

The winner of this award is set to be announced at the 2019 ESPY Awards award ceremony on Wednesday, July 10. This award ceremony is set to be broadcast live on ABC from Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California from 8:00 p.m. ET to 11:00 p.m. ET.

Formula 1‘s Lewis Hamilton is a nominee after becoming a five-time champion last season while IndyCar‘s Scott Dixon is a nominee after becoming a five-time champion last season as well. NHRA‘s Steve Torrence is a nominee after winning his first championship in dominant fashion last season.

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Meanwhile, NASCAR‘s Kyle Busch is a nominee after…finishing in fourth place in the championship standings last year.

So a driver who did not even finish in the top three in the Cup Series championship standings is in the running with three other elite drivers for the right to be considered the best driver.

With that in mind, did NASCAR even deserve a nominee for this award?

Busch had the best season as a whole last season, even better than champion Joey Logano. He won a series-high eight races (tied with Kevin Harvick) and scored the most points while Logano won only three races, but because of how the playoff format works, it was Logano who was crowned champion.

However, given the history of NASCAR nominees for the Best Driver ESPY Award, the fact that Logano was not the nominee suggests that NASCAR should not have even had a nominee at all.

The first time a NASCAR driver was a nominee for this award was in the third year of this award and the third year of the ESPY Awards in general back in 1995. At least one NASCAR driver has been a nominee for it in each and every year since then.

Only one time in these 24 years has the reigning champion not been nominated for this award.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was nominated for it in 2014 while 2013 champion Jimmie Johnson, whose 2013 championship was his sixth career Cup Series title, was not. However, Earnhardt Jr. at least won the Daytona 500 in 2014, something Busch did not do this season.

Even with that logic in mind, it still isn’t 2019 Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin on this year’s ballot; it’s Busch.

There have been instances where other non-Cup Series champions have been nominated for this award, most recently in 2017 when Martin Truex Jr. was nominated, but they have always been nominated along with the Cup Series champion, sans Earnhardt Jr.’s case five years ago. Johnson, who won the 2016 championship, appeared with Truex Jr. on the 2017 ballot.

The fact that Logano was not deemed good enough to be a nominee for the 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award despite the fact that he won the 2018 Cup Series championship illustrates that NASCAR did not even deserve to have a nominee for this award, and the fact that the driver who beat out Logano as a nominee for this award finished in last place in a four-driver championship battle in the Championship 4 further illustrates it.

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Did NASCAR deserve a nominee for the 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award? If so, was Kyle Busch the right nominee, or should the nominee have been 2018 Cup Series champion Joey Logano?

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