2003 was the last year of the NASCAR Winston Cup series. Meaning it was the last year of Winston being the Title sponsor before NEXTAL took over. With the change of title sponsor came a few other changes that I still don't like to this day. First of all 2003 was the last year of the Southern 500 at Darlington speedway on Labor day weekend. It was the longest race tradition at the time. The other big change was 2003 was the last year that they did not have a "Chase for the Cup" which is NASCAR's version of the playoffs to help determine the league's champion at the end of the year. In 2003 and every year prior to that, they ran a certain number of races throughout the year, which in this case it was 36 races, they would add up all of the points accumulated after 36 races, and the champion would be whoever had the most points at the end of the year. In my opinion that is most fair way to determine a championship in the sport of racing. The NFL, NBA, etc. is different in that every team in those leagues has it's own special schedule where it is difficult to tell who truly is the best team. However in racing all the teams are competing on the same track at the same time, because of that I don't think there is a need to have "playoffs" to determine the champion at the end of the year, like in the other "Stick and ball" sports. The 2003 NASCAR Cup champion was Matt Kenseth, it was his first and so far only championship in the cup level. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_NASCAR_Winston_Cup_Series