Race 17 – Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Preview

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is just over a mile long and is pretty flat. There’s only 12 degrees of banking in the turns and 2 degrees on the straight-aways. The “flat tracks” are tougher to pass on and is harder for the drivers to go fast and keep control. Hopefully we’ll see a good race, but I have a feeling that the late passing could be during the pit stops.

Four with a real shot to win
Jeff Gordon
I know, I know…I almost always pick him even though he’s having a bad year. Well, how great do you have to be for 6th place in points to be a bad year? In his last three races here Jeff has three top 5s. Look for him to keep up the trend. In is career he has 3 wins, 12 top 5s, and 15 top 10s in 26 races with an average finish of 11.6. I smell win number one of 2008.

Denny Hamlin
Denny is just a really, really good driver. In only four races here he has a win, two top 5s, and three top 10s with an average finish of 6.5. It’d be tough not to have him on your team.

Kevin Harvick
Kevin is good on the flat tracks and has a pretty good record here. In his last four races at New Hampshire he has a win and three top 10s. For his career he’s racked up eight top 10s in 14 races. He should be in the top 5 or 10 all race long.

Jimmie Johnson
One top 5 and three top 10s in 3 of the last 4 here. Two career wins, and an average finish of 10.7 at the track make Jimmie hard to ignore. He should be contending for the win on Sunday.

Two others that should do well
Kyle Busch
Kyle has two top 5s including a win in his last four at this track. He’s doing better than anyone could have expected this season, and there’s no reason that success couldn’t continue.

Jeff Burton
Jeff is the poor guy that gets no respect because Kyle is doing so well. Jeff is more consistent and is always around the top 10. He also has four career wins in New Hampshire, seven top 5s and 12 top 10s in 26 career races. Picking him is almost a sure top 10.

Dark Horse
J.J. Yeley
This season has been very rough for Yeley as he’s down in 36th place in points, but I think he can do well this weekend. In three of his last four races here he has a 8th, 10th, and 12th place finish. So far this season 25th has been his best finish (twice), which is pretty bad. Look for him to turn things around and get his first top 10 finish of the season.

Race 14 - Pocono 500 Review and Fantasy Recap

The race in Pocono proved to be more exciting than I anticipated, but that wasn't a hard thing to do. There was actually some good racing from 5th on back, firey wrecks, and other action. Let's hope this can continue into Michigan next week.

How'd my picks do this week? Well, I advised you on the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 8th, and 14th place finishers. On the bad side I also advised you to pick the 35th and 43rd place finishers.

Four with a real shot to win
Kyle Busch - Wrecked early and finished dead last, 43rd
Kurt Busch - Solid 8th place finish
Denny Hamlin - Overcame some issues to finish 3rd.
Tony Stewart - 35th place finish

Two others that should do well
Jimmie Johnson - Pretty good run with a 6th place finish
Jeff Gordon - Not a very good run for Jeff, with a 14th place finish

Darkhorse
Brian Vickers - Great run for Brian, finishing 2nd

Race 14 – Pocono 500 Preview

The boys are on the triangle track in Pocono this weekend. This will be the first of six races that TNT will broadcast. Kyle Petty will be joining the announce crew.

Will this race be more exciting than last week’s at Dover? Probably not. Historically Pocono doesn’t have much side-by-side racing, and I expect it to be extra hard to pass with the new car. Don’t expect much passing for the lead on the track, as the pit crews will probably play a big part in determining the winner.

One interesting stat from NASCAR.com is that “Four of the past five races at triangular-shaped Pocono have been won from the starting row -- twice from the pole by Denny Hamlin and twice on the outside by Kurt Busch.

Now, on with my picks.

Four with a real shot to win
Kyle Busch
Kyle is going to race the Truck, Nationwide, and Cup series this weekend, which mean he’ll be doing a lot of flying. The truck race, Friday night, is in Texas; the Nationwide series, Saturday night, is in Nashville; and the Sprint Cup race is Sunday afternoon in Pocono. Will he be able to hold up to all the racing and flying form city to city? We’ll find out, but one good thing about it is that he’ll probably get out of sponsor commitments, fan meet and greets, etc. that the drivers normally have to do. This will allow him to focus on driving and nothing else.

Kyle really hasn’t done much at Pocono in his career with only two top 10s in six career races, but with how he’s running this year, how can you not pick him? The question is, will all of the travel and racing in the other series take his attention away from Sunday’s race? Qualifying 10th is a nice way to start things out. The kid’s on a roll, and I say take him again this week.

Kurt Busch
Kurt has had a horrible season so far, but he’s done well at Pocono, and looks to contend for the win on Sunday. In fourteen races at Pocono he has two wins and seven top 5s, five of which came in his last seven races. He has a 1st and two seconds in three of the last four here, with a 14.6 place average finish. 11th place qualifying position should help Kurt stay in the lead pack early.

Denny Hamlin
With four races at Pocono he has two wins, 3rd, and 6th place finishes which is an average finish of 2.8. Denny is my pick to win the race. At one point this season Denny had four consecutive top 5s, but has finished 24th and 43rd in his last two races. Denny is too good of a driver to have that trend continue. Add that to his great record at Pocono and that makes him my pick to win the race.

Tony Stewart
Tony hasn’t had a great season, but he still finds himself in 9th place in the points which isn’t too bad. He has a good history at Pocono finishing 6th, 5th, 7th, and 3rd in the last four here. In eighteen career races he as one win, five top 5s, and thirteen top 10s. In the last three races of this season Tony finished 21st, 18th and 41st. He’s past due for a good run.

Two others that should do well
Jimmie Johnson
In twelve career races at Pocono Jimmie has seven top 10s, four top 5s, and two wins. The 10.7 place average finish is pretty impress also. Jimmie has three top 10s in three of his last four races at Pocono.

In the last five races of this season Jimmie finished 13th, 30th, 13th, 39th, and 7th. I have faith that Jimmie will buck the trend of good finishes every other race and be able to string two together. I don’t know if Jimmie will contend for the win, but he should be in the top 10. Qualifying 2nd is a good way to start a top 10 run.

Jeff Gordon
Remember after race 9 when Jeff was 14th in points and everyone wrote him off thinking he wasn’t a serious contender for the title? Well, he’s cranked out four consecutive top 10s which includes three consecutive top 5s moving up to 6th in points, and is back in the mix. Jeff finished 4th, 1st, and 3rd in his last three races at Pocono. In 30 career races here he has four wins, fifteen top 5s, and twenty one top 10s with an average finish of 10.2. Jeff should keep rolling and get another top 5 or 10 finish. A poor qualifying effort doesn't help Jeff out any, but he should be able to slowly pick his way through the field and get close to the top 10 in the first 30 or so laps.

Darkhorse
Brian Vickers
Vickers finds himself 16th in points with only two top 10 finishes and five top 15s. It’s not a very good season so far, but he has been impressive in races, leading a lot of laps only to have some bad luck take him out. Pocono can be different for him, as he does have two 4th place finishes in his last four here (qualified 4th for both). Look for him to be in the top 10 on Sunday, as he was able to qualify in the 15th position.

Does Kyle Busch stack up against recent NASCAR greats?

I know I wrote up a full entry on Kyle just a few weeks ago saying that no matter if you love or hate him, he’s good. I still stand by that because he is good, and he’s the best driver in NASCAR right now. I promise you that this will be the last blog entry that I dedicate to Kyle Busch. I’ll mention him for race previews if I think he can win, but outside of that, I’ll be done talking about him this season unless he’s in first place with one race to go in the season, and poised to win the championship.

So what prompted me to post this? Well, during one of the most boring races I’ve ever watched last Sunday at Dover, Darrell Waltrip made the comment that he’s never seen anyone on a run like Kyle Busch is right now. Following that, the announcers gushed over him some more and couldn’t stop talking about how great he is, like no one else has ever done this well so early in their career. It made me ask the question, “Did they forget about this guy named Jeff Gordon?”, who twice has won ten races in a season (1996 & 1997), and thirteen races in one season (1998; 4 in a row at one point).

I know all of this hype isn’t Kyle’s doing. He’s been pretty modest throughout all of the success he’s had this season, so don’t think I’m bashing Kyle himself, I’m just pointing out the fact that the media is conveniently forgetting about some other drivers that have done better than him this early in their career.

Jeff has gone on to be one of the greatest drivers in the history of NASCAR with four championships, in which the first one was in his 3rd full season in the sport. Kyle sure didn’t do that. Jeff would have six championships if NASCAR didn’t change to the “Chase” format, but since this is real life, we can’t play the what-if game, so Jeff only has four championships.

Another driver the announcers seem to forget about having hot streaks when he was new to NASCAR is Jimmie Johnson. He finished 5th in points his rookie year, without the chase! How impressive is that? He won three races his rookie year in 2002 as well. The next two years he finished 2nd in points, and then 5th in points in his fourth year of racing. Kyle is positioning himself to win a championship this season, but he finished 20th in points his rookie year, and last season, his third full season, he finished 5th in the standings, his best showing so far.

You can look at the table I have below comparing Kyle’s first four full-time seasons against Jeff and Jimmie. Yes, I know, 2008 is his fourth season, and not complete yet, but to compare to Jeff, they have about the same number of races under their belt. As you can see, Kyle is worse than Jeff and Jimmie in the following categories:
Average starting position, Average finish position, Wins, Top 5’s, Top 10’s, Average points position at the end of the season, and Kyle averaged more finishes of 30th or worse.

One thing Kyle has on his side is age. He started his career two years younger than Jeff, and seven years younger than Jimmie. With that fact he has the opportunity to race more seasons than Jeff and Jimmie and potentially win more races and championships. Will he actually be able to do it? It won’t be easy, but I’ll say this, if he doesn’t win the championship this season, then I don’t know when he would. He has everything rolling and going his way. He has four wins already, and only one finish of 30th or worse, which means he’s avoiding (and not creating) wrecks this season.

Something unique about Kyle’s run is that he’s dominating on all three of NASCAR’s major National circuits: Craftsman Truck, Nationwide Series, and Sprint Cup. Neither Jimmie nor Jeff did that, but I’d argue that they were busy focusing on winning the championship that people care about, and their records show it. No doubt Kyle’s run is impressive, I’m not trying to take that away from him, but let’s focus on one championship in the circuit that matters, and not beat up on sub-par competition in the trucks and Nationwide series.

Like I said to close my previous blog; when Kyle starts winning championships we’ll be able to say he's one of the greats in NASCAR. Until then his impressive runs of top 5’s and races won are good, but it really just means that he had some good races, and didn’t win the big prize.

Race 12 - Coca-Cola 600 Review and Fantasy Recap

It took a while for the cautions to come, but once they did, they came in bunches last night. The first 200 laps or so were pretty uneventful without much passing, but the last 100 laps got more exciting and the racing action picked up. Some drivers got lucky on gas mileage and managed to salvage a top 5 or 10 finish. Overall, it was a decent raced, but hopefully the teams figure out the new car and start to learn how to pass like they could with the old car.

So, how'd my recommendations do?
Four with a real shot to win.
Kyle Busch - He ran up front all night as expected and finished a strong 2nd behind Kasey Kahne.
Jeff Burton - Jeff was in the top 10 most of the night and finished 6th.
Jimmie Johnson - Jimmie ran pretty good, staying in the top 10 or 15 most of the night, but a blown engine didn't allow him to finish the race and he took home a disapointing 39th place.
Carl Edwards - Carl was pretty quiet last night, but did manage to take home 9th place.

Two others that should do well:
Kasey Kahne - You can't do any better than winning the race. Kasey was strong all night.
Denny Hamlin - Hamlin got caught up in some of the trouble, but did manage to take home 19th place.

Darkhorse:
Reed Sorenson - Reed got down a lap early and was unable to get competative, finishing 23rd.


Fantasy Update:
It was a big points week for several teams as browngw, rauch_racing, browere, and buckeye65 all got 700 points.

Highlife's lead over buchsmoto rose to 31 points. There's a 216 point lead over 3rd place jusmony, and 372 point lead over 4th place speedy.

Less than 200 points seperate 4th place from 15th place.

There's still 14 races until the chase begins, so everyone is still in it. Next week's race is the Dover 400.

Happy racin' and good luck!

Race 12 – Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte - Fantasy Preview

The Sprint Cup circuit has its longest race of the season this Sunday night with 600 miles/400 laps around the 1.5 mile Lowe's Motor Speeday in Charlotte. NASCAR.com says this is the longest motorsports race on an oval track in the world. Let's take a look at some drivers you should pick for your fantasy team.

Four drivers with a real shot to win:

Kyle Busch
He’s the point’s leader, and seems to be able to win at any track. Historically, Kyle hasn’t done too well here with only two top 10’s in eight races, although the top 10's were in two of his last three races here. He should be able to get another top 10 finish or better. In the All-Star race last weekend Joe Gibbs Racing experimented with a new engine package, and it didn’t work out too well for Kyle. Don’t expect that to happen again on Sunday night. Kyle should do well, and battle for the victory. ...Oh yeah, he also is sitting on the pole for the race. If it's as difficult to pass Sunday night as it was in the All-Star race, then don't look for Kyle to give up the lead for a long time.

Jeff Burton
The man running second in points struggles to get the respect he deserves, but I’ll give it to him this week. He’s done very well at Charlotte in the past. He has two wins, seven top 5’s, and thirteen top 10’s in 24 career races. Three of the top 10’s have been in the last four races. He should be a front-runner all night. A pretty good 14th place qualifying position should keep him in the lead pack to start the race.

Jimmie Johnson
Talk about pure domination at his sponsor’s track. In thirteen career races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway Jimmie has eleven top 10 finishes including five wins! He averages a 6.8 place finish at the track. He qualified 10th for the race, and looks like he's ready for a good run in the race. It’d be tough to go against his career numbers at the track.

Carl Edwards
Carl dominates on the 1.5 mile ovals, and Charlotte is no exception. In six career races here he has three top 5’s and five top 10’s. He doesn’t have the wins that Jimmie does, but his worst finish was only 15th, and he averages a 7.1 place finish. Carl had a poor qualifying effort, starting in 30th, but don't panic Edwards fans...he's qualified 22nd and 28th before and was able to finish 3rd and 8th. He should be able to pick his way through the crowd Sunday night. We know there's plenty of time.


Two more that should do well:

Kasey Kahne
He won the All-Star race and is full of confidence, and it showed with a very good qualifying run earning him the outside pole. Kasey didn’t start his career out very well at Charlotte though. In his first four races here he didn’t have a top 10 finish and averaged a 23.3 place finish. The past four races have been more kind to him. He has two wins and one 8th place finish averaging a 8.3 place finish.

Denny Hamlin
In five career races at the track Denny has three top 10’s with two of them coming in his only Coca-Cola 600's. He should be solid again in this weekend’s race.


Dark Horse

Reed Sorenson
Reed has only started four races at this track, but he does have some success on it. He has twelve career top 10 finishes, two of which have come here. So far this season he only has one top 10 finish, with a 5th at Daytona. After that it’s been pretty much downhill for Reed. With last week off I think he’ll have a clear head, more focus, and compete for a top 10 finish. Qualifying in the 17th starting spot will help Reed with this.

Good luck this week, and happy racin'!

Race 11 – Darlington Recap and Fantasy Update

Well, the track was much faster with the new surface, and there were quite a few drivers that got their “Darlington stripe”. Kyle Busch hit the wall a couple times late in the race while leading, but it didn’t stop him from running away with the win.

The racing action wasn’t that great last night, but it wasn’t really expected to be with the higher speeds. Once a driver got the lead it was pretty tough to pass them. Dale Earnhardt Jr. made mention of it in the post race interview, saying it was almost impossible to pass. This should change as the new surface gets broken in and speeds slow down a bit.

So, how’d my recommendations do?
Four drivers with a real shot to win
· Jeff Gordon – Strong 3rd place finish, but didn’t have close to the car needed to win….but then again, no one had a car to compete with Kyle Busch.
· Jimmie Johnson – Had a pretty uneventful night and finished 13th.
· Ryan Newman – Disappointing night for Ryan. Got a couple laps down early, but made it up to about 24th, then had more issues and finished 37th.
· Dale Earnhardt Jr. – Strong all night, and finished 4th.

Two others that should do well
· Greg Biffle – Greg was running strong, but mechanical failures had him finish dead last.
· Denny Hamlin – Strong 7th place finish.Dark Horse· Martin Truex Jr. – Martin was in the top 10 most of the night, and even cracked the top 5, but after a late race incident with Denny Hamlin he wasn’t able to hold the good position and fell to a 14th place finish.

Fantasy Update
We have a new leader! Highlife passed buchsmoto and now leads by only 16 points. After that it’s 220 points to 3rd place jusmony.

Browere made a big move, up 8 spots, to get into the top 10, and mouse moved up 3 spots to 13th, only 25 points out of the last chase spot.

Other movers:
· Hollydiaz got the high point total of the week, and moved up the most spots, 14, to 20th place.
· Smoke20 moved 8 spots in the wrong direction, dropping to 25th place.
· Amped Up and SkidRow lost 9 and 10 spots with their bad weeks.

Misc Notes:
11 races down 15 to go until the chase begins.
· Right now there’s only 112 point difference between 12th and 21st place.
· From 22nd place to 36th is only a 107 point difference

It’s still wide open and anyone can make the chase, so don’t give up now. There’s no points race next week, as it’s the All-Star race in Charlotte, so enjoy the week off, and be ready to pick your drivers for the Coca-Cola 600 on the 25th. Don't forget that the next Eliminator begins with the Coca-Cola 600!!

Good Luck!!

Race 11 – Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Preview

Another Saturday night race, this time at Darlington Raceway. The recently repaved 1.366 mile oval should be faster than normal. Look for speeds to be up, and possibly the number of drivers sliding into the wall early.

Back in early March Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman, and Greg Biffle did some tire testing at Darlington for Goodyear. Could this give them a bit of an edge since they have a few more laps on the new surface than other driver?


Kyle Busch
With his strong run last week, Kyle Busch was able to pass Jeff Burton in the standings to regain the top spot he once held after the 5th race of the season. He’s only raced at Darlington three times, with just one top 10 finish, so it doesn’t look too good for him Saturday night. However, Kyle has four straight top 10 finishes, three of them in the top 3, so momentum is on his side. The new surface will also be fast and slick, which are conditions Kyle loves. Will the momentum and new surface carry him to a top 10 finish or better on Saturday?

Jimmie Johnson
After climbing up to 4th in points a couple weeks ago, Jimmie has had some mediocre runs at best, and has slipped a few spots to 7th. I expect Jimmie will be back to his dominating self this week. He has eight career top 10s in only nine races. He should be running up front all night.

Jeff Gordon
Jeff has looked good in some races and didn’t get the results due to wrecks, but had the opposite happen last week when he wasn’t running very good, but found himself in 9th place when the race ended. Expect all that to be different this week. Jeff has absolutely dominated at Darlington in his career. He has seven career wins, fifteen top 5s, and eighteen top 10s in only 27 races. Look for Jeff to be challenging for the lead the entire race.

Ryan Newman
This team has been up and down all season, and can’t seem to keep a good streak going. They’ve finished 1st at Daytona and 43rd in Phoenix. They’re sitting 11th in points right now, and must string together 5 or 6 consecutive top 10s to solidify themselves in the chase. They currently have two top 10s in a row, and should have a third one after this race. Ryan has finished in the top 10 here in the last 3 races, and has 6 career top 10s in 9 career races.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Jr. continues to put a solid season together. Every time I think he’ll have an off week, he proves me wrong and runs well. Last season it seemed like he mailed in a couple races, but this year he seemed focused every race, for the entire race. In an interview on April 3rd Jr. said, “It’s good to have other people you’re motivated to please.” Guess he was sick of Theresa. Look for him to stay motivated and please Hendrick Racing again this week.

Four drivers with a real shot to win
· Jeff Gordon – 1st, 2nd, 2nd in last 3 – 7 career wins, 18 career top 10s, 15 top 5s, in 27 races. How can you go against that success?
· Jimmie Johnson – 3rd, 4th, 7th in last 3 – 8 career top 10s in 9 races with 2 wins, 5 top 5s. He’ll make up for the 30th place finish last week.
· Ryan Newman – 4th, 6th, 5th in last 3 – 6 career top 10s, 5 top 5s, in 9 career races. Flyin’ Ryan likes to go fast, and the new surface at Darlington will be fast.
· Dale Earnhardt Jr. – 8th, 5th, 8th – 4 consecutive top 10 finishes, 6 career top 10 in 13 races. He’s gonna win soon enough…

Two others that should do well
· Greg Biffle – 2 Wins in the last 3 here. Tough to go against wins, but we’ll see if he can keep it up while contract talks are ongoing.
· Denny Hamlin – 2nd, 10th in only 2 races here. He injured his hip playing basketball this week, but he won’t feel that once the adrenaline kicks in for the race.

Dark Horse
· Martin Truex Jr. – 11th and 14th place finish in his only two races here and coming off a season best 5th place finish at Richmond, Martin should have confidence on his side for this race.

Crown Royal 400 at Richmond Review and Fantasy Recap

This looked like a pretty boring race for 350 laps as Denny Hamlin absolutely dominated, leading close to every lap. It seemed that the only suspense would be, who is going to finish 2nd, until his right front tire started to go down. If it weren’t for the bad luck Denny would have run away with the win.

The last 40 or so laps of the race were worth the wait. There was lots of aggressive, side-by-side, racing and lots of drivers trying to fit into spots that they couldn’t, causing some impressive wrecks.

After Denny went out, and Dale Jr. and Kyle Busch’s wreck Clint Bowyer seized the opportunity to take home his second career Sprint Cup victory. Kyle Busch was able to hold of Mark Martin at the end for 2nd place.

The surprise finish of the race had to be Reed Sorenson finishing 10th, a solid run for that group, and his best finish since coming home 5th at Daytona.

How'd my picks do?
4 With a real shot to win.
Kyle Busch – After he and Jr. got together, he was able to hold off Mark Martin for 2nd.
Jimmie Johnson – Jimmie had a strong run going before he got caught up in a wreck and finished 30th.
Denny Hamlin – Talk about domination. If anyone deserved to win, he did, but an untimely flat tire in the last 40 laps of the race cost him the victory, and he ended up with a 25th place finish.
Kevin Harvick – Harvick was in the top 10 all night, and finished 6th to cap off a solid run.

2 others that could do well
Tony Stewart – Solid run with a 4th place finish.
Jeff Gordon – Solid run with a 9th place finish

Sleeper
David Ragan – David was able to keep up with the leaders most of the night, and finished a respectable 17th, but getting caught up in an early wreck cost him a chance to finish in the top 10.

On the fantasy side of things buckeye65 & highlife got the high point total with 601. Buchsmoto now only holds a 22 point lead over highlife.

Big movers of the week:
Nascar_nut – Up 9 spots to 29th. Can they make it all the way into the chase?
Browngw – Up 8 spots to 12th, back in the chase, after forgetting to change his drivers last week.
Hollydiaz – Moving the wrong direction, down 10 spots to 32nd. Looks like holly forgot to dump Ken Schrader.