The wheels never stopped turning during the Sprint Cup Series season, and neither did the storylines.

Jimmie Johnson continued his record-setting run, the sport dealt with a soured economy, Mark Martin celebrated a rebirth and NASCAR's drug testing policy pulled two notable drivers off the track.

Safety modifications kept drivers from getting hurt during four wild crashes - three at the Talladega Superspeedway and one at the Daytona International Speedway. Juan Pablo Montoya emerged as a legitimate stock car driver, and that energized a new group of fans. And Kyle Busch and Ron Hornaday Jr. made shambles of the Nationwide and Camping World Truck series, respectively.

Safety, Montoya, Busch and Hornaday, however, didn't make the list of the top-five stories of the season. The winners were:

Follow the money

There were a lot of empty seats - and empty pockets - this year in NASCAR.

Speedways dropped ticket prices, closed grandstands and created new payment plans to get people back to the racetrack. But the sluggish economy made it difficult for fans, sponsors and race teams to show up every week.

The Memphis Motorsports Park and Mansfield Motor Speedway closed; more than 1,000 employees were laid off and several teams merged to spread the sting of doing business.

The Atlanta Motor Speedway cut many of their ticket prices in half and it cut the weekend schedule for the Labor Day weekend race to two days to save teams one day of travel. Everyone seemed to like it, so expect other tracks to do the same in the future.

Jimmie Johnson makes history

There's no way to ignore Jimmie Johnson's record-setting four-consecutive championships. Even more impressive is there's no way to ignore the fact he's the heavy favorite to win it again in 2010.

Johnson dominated with a series-best seven victories and 16 top-five finishes in 36 races to win the championship by 141 points.

During his four-year reign as champion, Johnson's won 29 races and earned more than $60.7 million.

And he's not ready to slow down.

"It's tough for me to really reflect on it when I'm still competing," he said. "Towards the end of my career I'm sure I'll focus a lot more on it, but right now we're just kind of in a rhythm of things, and I hope to keep it going. There's no guarantees it will continue. But I'm just trying to keep the same mindset, same work ethic, same focus and just see how long we can keep this thing moving."

Mark Martin bounces back

Mark Martin tried to retire two other times, only to return. A second-place finish in the point standings this year prompted the 50 year-old driver to sign an extension to stay in the No. 5 Chevrolet at Hendrick Motorsports for at least another year.

Martin won at the Phoenix International Raceway in April for his first victory since 2005. He went on to win five times to put a little pressure on Jimmie Johnson during the Chase for the Championship.

In finishing second, Martin tied Bobby Allison's and Richard Petty's record of five second-place finishes in the point standings.

While winning his first championship remains a priority, Martin also is chasing Harry Gant's record of being the oldest winner in Sprint Cup history. Gant was 52 when he won his last race, so Martin still needs two more years of racing.

As long as he doesn't retire - again - catching Gant remains a possibility.

Drug test gets ugly

When NASCAR suspended Jeremy Mayfield for failing two drug tests, the driver vowed to fight back.

He sunk everything he had by selling off his race team, home and belongings to fight NASCAR in court. So far, the sanctioning body has been able to keep him off the track although he said the failed test came as the result of a mixture of approved medications.

The drug policy got another test when J.C. France was arrested in Daytona Beach, Fla., and charged with possession of crack cocaine. France, the grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France, was immediately suspended by NASCAR from the Grand-Am Road Racing Series.

Don't touch that dial

Television ratings crashed and burned this year. It was easy to assume the sluggish economy would keep people from coming to the track, but nobody expected overall television numbers to plunge. If people weren't at the track or watching on television, where were they?

Ratings for the Chase dropped from a 3.8 rating to 3.5 from 2008 to 2009, according to Nielsen Media Research. Only a handful of races matched or beat last year's ratings, while most saw significant declines.

NASCAR responded by creating standard starting times for 2010. Day races east of the Mississippi River will start at 1 p.m. ET, while races west of the Mississippi will start at 4. All night races will start at 7:30.