Where did the NASCAR season go? Wasn’t it just recently that we convened in Daytona for a season filled with promise and much anticipation?

There was the hiring of Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports, the influx of open-wheel drivers and Toyota making big noise with Joe Gibbs Racing. The Car of Tomorrow was supposed to make racing better and cheaper, new sponsors were beating down the door to enter the sport and tweaks to the Chase rewarding victories were supposed to make the competition closer and promote more aggressive driving.

Of course, nine months can change a lot. Here are three things we learned in 2008 and three more to ponder for 2009:

* Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus are toying with the rest of the Sprint Cup field.

Winning three consecutive championships in today’s NASCAR is amazing. The cars are so equal and there are so few secrets in the garage now, the days of a team entering a season or even a race with a distinct advantage are long gone. Therefore, it all boils down to two things: talent and chemistry.

Johnson is a terrific driver, but how many people would put him at the head of the class in NASCAR right now? Is he better than teammate Jeff Gordon? Would you rate him ahead of Tony Stewart or Carl Edwards? He’s definitely in that class, but only when you pair him with Knaus do you get the greatness.

Johnson’s equipment was identical to Gordon’s this year, but the final scoreboard reads seven wins to zero. Now, would Gordon turn the tables if Knaus were his crew chief? Maybe in a few years, but not right away. What sets Johnson and Knaus apart from the rest is how completely they can work off each other. Knaus trusts Johnson to make the right moves on the track, and Johnson knows his crew chief will make the right calls on pit road.

If you don’t think that’s crucial, just listen on race day as Earnhardt and his crew yell and scream at each other.

* Parity is missing in Sprint Cup.

Did you know that seven drivers who won a race in 2007 did not do so this year? In a 36-race season, that’s an incredible number, especially with the likes of Gordon, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick included.

We also did not see a first-time winner this year. What we did see were three drivers — Johnson, Edwards and Kyle Busch — win a total of 24 races. The rest of the Chase field combined had eight and only Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch won races outside of the top 12 drivers.

What does this mean? It’s certainly not the manufacturers or engines, since Johnson (Chevy), Edwards (Ford) and Kyle Busch (Toyota) drive different makes. The best guess is that the COT, for whatever reason, is a very fickle car, but once you get a handle on it, you’ve got a huge advantage. Busch and his team were the first to do so, Edwards and Bob Osborne caught on and Johnson and Knaus hit on it when they needed it the most.

Everyone else is still searching.

* The races themselves are mostly uncompetitive.

Don’t know if this is solely a product of the new car, but no one can argue the point that the races this season were, for the most part, boring. How many late-race passses can you recall? I bet not nearly as many fuel-mileage gambles or races that were ruined by tire issues (remember Indy?).

Yet NASCAR has said the COT is here to stay and no major tweaks are in the offing. Therefore, teams will still have very few areas they can work with to imrpove handling and we’re likely headed for another season like this one.

OK, that’s what we saw. Now here’s what to watch for:

* NASCAR will feel an economic pinch like no other sport.

When your entire existence relies on businesses being willing to spend big money on your product, it can’t be good when a recession (and folks, that’s what we’re in) hits. NASCAR, which has been living high on the hog for 15 years, is in for some serious changes.

Just look at what’s already happening. Nearly every NASCAR team has cut expenses by letting go staff members. The Wood Brothers, Bill Davis Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing and Petty Enterprises have let big numbers go, while even big-money teams such as Hendrick, Gibbs and Roush Fenway have also cut staff.

We’ve seen mergers, we’ve seen established teams selling off majority ownership to stay afloat and we’ve seen Ford and GM announce that they will cut back support of their NASCAR teams amid the harsh economic climate.

NASCAR itself is in no real danger. It could survive quite well on its nonracing holdings. However, unless NASCAR decides to help financially support some of its smaller teams, we may see much smaller race fields in the near future.

* Pressure will begin to mount for Earnhardt.

If any one driver needs to have a big 2009 season, it’s Junior, who just completed his first season at Hendrick with a last-place finish in the Chase.

Rick Hendrick did not pay millions to get such mediocre results. An argument can be made that Junior’s season wasn’t much worse than Gordon’s. In fact, Junior did win a race while Gordon did not, which may be the only reason Earnhardt won’t catch too much flak this offseason. Imagine if Gordon had won his customary four or five races.

However, anyone who watched the races this year saw just how frustrated Junior became as the year went on, and now it’s clear that he and cousin Tony Eury Jr. just won’t work. Junior needs someone like Greg Zipadelli, a crew chief who isn’t afraid to speak his mind.

He need only to look at what Johnson and Knaus have and how they operate. Johnson drives, gives feedback on what the car is doing and lets Knaus do his job. Junior gives feedback, but he also tries to dictate pit-road calls. If Eury doesn’t make a good call, Junior berates him for all to hear.

Hendrick intervened at one point during the season to get his driver to calm down and let his crew do their jobs, but it didn’t work. It’s clear a new crew chief, a strong one, needs to be hired. I hear Ray Evernham could use a job.

* The schedule, she is a changin’.

One of the most anticipated issues this coming season will be with the Sprint Cup schedule for 2010 and beyond. We could be witnessing the beginning of a major shakeup.

Though much is pure speculation, it is known that Kansas will get a second race and that one of the NASCAR-owned tracks will lose a date. Will it be Martinsville, Atlanta, Michigan or another track? That will be the first domino to fall, but likely not the last.

There is growing support in NASCAR circles to spread the races to other parts of the country and rid most tracks of two dates. Now that certainly wouldn’t include tracks at Daytona, Bristol, Charlotte and Talladega, but if such tracks as New Hampshire, Dover, California, Pocono, Martinsville, Richmond and Atlanta had just one race, it would do two things. One, fans in those areas would be more likely to attend one race instead of having to buy tickets to two events. It would also give tracks elsewhere a chance to show what they’ve got.

Kentucky, Nashville, Colorado and Iowa could get experimental dates, and new tracks could go in big-money markets such as New York and the Northwest.

If NASCAR wants to continue to grow, those are the kinds of hard decisions someone is going to have to make. Enjoy the offseason. Unlike most of the 2008 races, it shouldn’t be boring.

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