Halfway through the 2003 Winston Cup season, it’s time to hand out midterm grades:

Grade: A+. Matt Kenseth (No. 17)

Kenseth won the third race at Las Vegas and has six other top-five finishes. His worst finish is 22nd, at Martinsville, and that’s why he has a 165-point lead in the championship standings. Anybody thinking about taking the 2003 title away from this team needs to get to work, because it’s hard to imagine this team giving it away.

Grade: A. Bobby Labonte (No. 18)

Labonte won at Atlanta and finished second at Martinsville, California, Richmond and Michigan. He has 10 top-five finishes, three more than anyone else, and also won three poles. Rough finishes in the first two restrictor-plate races and 37th-place results at both Darlington and Texas have put him 327 points behind Kenseth.

Grade: A-. Kurt Busch (No. 97) and Ryan Newman (No. 12)

Both drivers have three victories while nobody else has more than one, but between them they also failed to finish a total of nine races (five for Newman and four for Busch). That has them both buried in the points race, but that’s water under the bridge now. The best Busch and Newman can do is keep winning.

Grade: B+. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 8) and Jeff Gordon (No. 24)

These drivers each have earned a win and notched seven top-five finishes. Earnhardt Jr. has one more top-10 finish than Gordon (11) but has also failed to finish one more race than him (2). Earnhardt Jr. had good cars in the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, but finished 36th and 41st after experiencing mechanical problems in both races. Gordon slapped the wall while leading the Darlington race and finished 33rd. Kenseth’s team hasn’t made those kinds of mistakes, and that’s the reason these two guys have some catching up to do.

Matt Kenseth receives the highest midseason marks for his seven top-five finishes and placing 14 times in the top 10. He also has a 165-point lead in the Winston Cup points standings.

Grade: B. Tony Stewart (No. 20), Ricky Craven (No. 32), Robby Gordon (No. 31), Michael Waltrip (No. 15) and Jimmie Johnson (No. 48)

Each of these guys has a victory, and that’s what racing is all about. Each driver also has sputtered at times, though, meaning they’ve all fallen short of putting things together in a way that would earn them the top grades. Waltrip is fifth in the points standings, higher than almost anyone would have predicted in the preseason. Craven’s unforgettable win at Darlington is the season’s singular highlight moment.

Grade: B-. Bill Elliott (No. 9), Jeff Burton (No. 99), Terry Labonte (No. 5), Sterling Marlin (No. 40), Mark Martin (No. 6), Elliott Sadler (No. 38), Rusty Wallace (No. 2), Kevin Harvick (No. 29)

The minus for each of these teams is because they won a race so far this season. Harvick ranks the highest among this group in the points standings, seventh, while Martin leads the group with five top-five finishes and seven top 10s. Sadler also has seven top-10 finishes, but his team seems to have a mild case of the inconsistency flu that has hit Dale Jarrett’s team more severely at Robert Yates Racing.

Grade: C+. Greg Biffle (No. 16) and Joe Nemechek (No. 25)

Biffle’s win in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona and Nemechek’s victory at Richmond gives these teams a bit of a bump, but aside from those two days these teams really haven’t done much else. The victories, at least, are something to build on.

Grade: C. Jeremy Mayfield (No. 19), Dave Blaney (No. 77), Ward Burton (No.22), Jamie McMurray (No. 42), Casey Mears (No. 41), Ricky Rudd (No. 21), Jimmy Spencer (No. 7)

These teams have performed just average thus far. Mayfield’s team actually has pulled itself up to this level with good runs the past three races. Spencer and Blaney have, at times, turned a few heads their way, but neither has been able to sustain anything. Rudd, like Mayfield, has been trending upward in the past three weeks. He might have the brightest second-half prospects in this crowd. McMurray and Mears get a little extra credit for being rookies. Both show promise.

Grade: C-. Dale Jarrett (No. 88), Johnny Benson (No. 10), Todd Bodine (No. 54), Kenny Wallace (No. 23) and Jerry Nadeau/Mike Wallace (No. 01)

This group is quite the mixed bag. Jarrett would have been lower except for his win at Rockingham in the second race of the season. That team basically is starting over and there’s nothing harder to do in the sport. Nadeau’s injuries from his crash at Richmond have kept the No. 01 team from realizing its potential, but the reasons for Benson’s team’s struggles are less obvious.

Grade: D. Steve Park/Jeff Green (No. 30), Jeff Green/Steve Park (No. 1), Kyle Petty (No. 45), Ken Schrader (No. 49), Tony Raines (No. 74) and Jack Sprague (No. 0)

There aren’t many positives to talk about here, other than the pair of Daytona poles won by the No. 30 team with Green in February and Park in July. That driver switch seemed to do very little for either team.

Grade: F. Christian Fittipaldi/John Andretti (No. 43), Larry Foyt (No. 14), Johnny Sauter/Mike Skinner (No. 4), Brett Bodine (No. 11) and Derrike Cope (No. 37)

It’s hard to imagine things getting worse for these teams. Out of provisionals or out of sponsorship dollars, either way the hole just keeps getting deeper. It’s sad to see Petty Enterprises and Morgan-McClure teams fighting so hard just to stay alive, but unfortunately, that’s their current reality.