Dickies 500

Will This Be The Week?

Only three races to go and it looks like the battle between Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson just tightened up. This could be the week that one of these drivers takes a commanding lead heading into the final 2 weeks of the season. Which one will it be? I’ll answer that in a little while.

My Pick To Win Texas

First, my pick to win this weekend is Matt Kenseth. Matt had one of the best cars last week at Atlanta. After starting in the back because they had to change transmissions after qualifying, Matt moved to the front of the pack in a hurry. Texas is very similar to Atlanta and Matt finished 2nd here in the spring race.

Who to Watch at Texas

Martin Truex Jr. had one of the cars to beat last weekend also but got caught up in an accident at the end of the race when Denny Hamlin’s car stalled out on a restart and Martin got into the back of him because he couldn’t see him until it was too late. Martin also ran won at Michigan this year and this track will play out similar to that.

Carl Edwards won at Michigan this year also and finished 2nd at Atlanta last week. Carl will also be at the front of the pack come the end of the race and will be in a position to win. This is another 500-mile race and the Roush/Fenway engines have been very good this season.

Now the Jimmie and Jeff question gets answered. If anyone takes a good lead this weekend it will be Jimmie Johnson. Jimmie has finished in the top 10 six times in his 8 starts at Texas. Chad Knaus just seems to have such a great handle on these mile and a half tracks that it is hard to bet against him.

Jeff Gordon on the other hand has been getting better this year on these tracks but this team could make that fatal mistake that would cost him his 5th championship. Jeff finished 4th at Texas this spring and 9th here last fall but the 3 races before that left a lot to be desired by this team.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has always run well at Texas but I can’t pick him because of the engine troubles this team has had this season. Dale lost an engine at Texas earlier this year and after a great run last weekend ended up with a totaled car when he lost a wheel during the green, white, checker restart. Wait until next year when he is with the Hendrick teams.

Tony Stewart has seemed to lose a bit of his momentum during the Chase this year and I wouldn’t doubt that it has a lot to do with Gibbs going to Toyota next season. Tony has put negotiations for a contract extension on hold for now, citing that he wanted to concentrate on the Chase without having negotiations interfere with his driving. I really don’t think he wants to stay with Gibbs unless the Toyotas run much better next year than they did this year.

Yahoo! Fantasy Picks

Group A

• Matt Kenseth (starter)
• Carl Edwards

Group B

• Denny Hamlin (starter)
• Martin Truex Jr (starter)
• Kurt Busch
• Ryan Newman

Group C

• Reed Sorenson (starter)
• Dave Blaney

Pep Boys Auto 500

Still A 3 Horse Race

It’s still a 3 horse race heading into the last 4 races of the season. However, I don’t really see Clint Bowyer having much of a chance just because of how strong the Hendrick teams have been all year. Clint is peaking at the right time but will need some bad luck to happen to Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon to overtake them. Jeff is going to have to run well on the intermediate tracks to hold his lead over Jimmie and all 3 of these drivers have to stay out of trouble on the track and hope they don’t have any mechanical problems. Anything happening over the next 4 races could be devastating.

My Pick To Win Atlanta

This week we head back to Atlanta where Jimmie Johnson won this spring. Jimmie has 2 wins, 2 runner-up finishes, a 3rd, 4th and 6th place finish at Atlanta over his last 8 races there. His worst finish there in the last 8 races was 16th. For this reason I am picking him to win this week.

Who to Watch at Atlanta

Jeff Gordon has done pretty well here lately himself. Jeff has 11 top 10 finishes in his last 15 starts at Atlanta. What more can I say about the Hendrick teams this season? Once again these are 2 of your best picks this week. This is another 500-mile race, which will be tough on engines but the Hendrick engines have run well all year.

Clint Bowyer finished 6th in Atlanta this spring but his other 2 starts yielded him finishes of 27th and 25th at this track. Another downside to Clint’s chances are the engine problems that the RCR teams have been having this season. At least this isn’t a COT race where they lost a majority of their engines at Charlotte a few weeks ago but it is still 500-miles.

Tony Stewart finished 2nd to Jimmie this spring and won this race last year. Tony has 11 top 10 finishes in his last 12 races at Atlanta, which should put him in contention once again this weekend. They have been a little off their game during the Chase but this team can strike at anytime.

Carl Edwards has 2 wins and 5 top 10 finishes in 6 races at Atlanta. Carl has run well all year at similar tracks and won at Michigan, which is just a little longer. The Roush/Fenway engine program has been just as good as the Hendrick program this year when it comes to durability. Look for Carl to come away with another top 5 finish.

Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle have the Roush/Fenway power under their hoods also and like this type of track. Matt has struggled during the Chase but should run well over the final 4 races of the season. Greg is getting better every week like he does every year when the season is winding down. I won’t be surprised to see him win another race this year yet.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has 9 top 10 finishes in his last 12 starts at Atlanta and has a 66 point lead over Ryan Newman for the 13th spot in the standings. The only downside to Junior this weekend is the fact that he has one of the DEI/RCR engines also in a long race.

Yahoo! Fantasy Picks

Group A

• Jimmie Johnson (starter)
• Jeff Gordon

Group B

• Clint Bowyer (starter)
• Casey Mears (starter)
• Kurt Busch
• Ryan Newman

Group C

• David Ragan (starter)
• Dave Blaney

Dark Horse

• Jamie McMurray

Stay Away From

• Kevin Harvick

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Subway 500

Then There Were Two

Clint Bowyer has been putting up a valiant effort to stay in touch with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson during the Chase this season. This weekend at Martinsville that could all change. Both Gordon and Johnson are virtually unstoppable at Martinsville. Over the last 10 races at Martinsville the duo has recorded 7 wins, 14 top 5’s and 19 top 10’s between them. Clint on the other hand has finished 22nd, 23rd and 22nd in his 3 starts there.

My Pick To Win Martinsville (and the Championship)

This spring Jeff Gordon won once again at Martinsville and he will sweep here this year while winning his 3rd straight race and virtually lock up his 5th championship. Jimmie Johnson will give his teammate everything he has to try and slow down his momentum without wrecking either one of them.

Who to Watch at Martinsville

Tony Stewart still feels he has a chance at catching these 3 drivers but I think it is just a pipe dream. Tony did finish 2nd to Jeff this spring but has to go almost unblemished or hope for a lot of bad things to happen to all 3 of the drivers ahead of him.

Denny Hamlin has been posting some gains since the beginning of the Chase when he had a terrible start. Denny is currently 9th in the standings but could move all the way up to 5th over the next 5 races. Denny has 3 top 10 finishes in 4 starts at Martinsville and this is one of his favorite tracks on the circuit.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is trying to hold onto 13th place in the standings. After 5 straight top 5 finishes from 2002 to 2004 Dale has struggled a little bit at the track with only 1 top 10 finish since then. He needs to hold onto all of his engines for the rest of the year if he wants to stay in the top spot for the non-Chase contenders.

Kyle Busch has been running very well over the last few races and like Denny Hamlin, Kyle excels at these short flat tracks. Kyle has 3 top 10 finishes in the 5 races he has run at Martinsville.

Kevin Harvick runs pretty well at Martinsville but this team needs to find out why they are losing so many tires. The car is either cambered wrong or the air pressures are too low for the style of racing that Kevin does. It seems when the tires are fine the engines have been going south for this team. Lately.

Matt Kenseth has really fallen off during the Chase once again this year. Every year at the beginning of the season they start out like the championship team they were only to have everything go away once everyone else gets in the swing of things.

Yahoo! Fantasy Picks

Group A

• Jeff Gordon (starter)
• Jimmie Johnson

Group B

• Denny Hamlin (starter)
• Kyle Busch (starter)
• Bobby Labonte
• Ryan Newman

Group C

• Reed Sorenson (starter)
• Dave Blaney

Dark Horse

• Bobby Labonte

Stay Away From

• Martin Truex Jr

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Bank Of America 500

Talladega…No Surprises

Talladega went pretty much like I expected. There were only 2 Ford’s and 1 Toyota in the top 20 after the race. The Dodge teams were the only ones that seemed to really step up after the testing sessions that were run at Talladega and the Hendrick teams had the edge. The RCR/DEI engine woes continued and they have to figure something out for next year because this year it is already too late.

This week we head to Charlotte and another 500-mile race. Jeff Gordon leads Jimmie Johnson by 9 points, while Clint Bowyer started to slip out of contention and now sits 63 points back. This is not insurmountable and all Clint has to do is continue with his hot streak to get back in the thick of things. After that, Tony Stewart sits 4th a whopping 154 points out of the lead. The only way that he gets back in is if Jeff and Jimmie have a major problem during one of the next few races.

My Pick To Win Charlotte

My pick to win at Charlotte this week is the master of Charlotte, Jimmie Johnson. Jimmie has 5 wins, two 2nd place finishes a 3rd place finish and 11 top 10 finishes in his 12 races at Charlotte. There is no one better at Charlotte right now and this is pretty much a no-brainer.

Who to Watch at Lowe’s

Carl Edwards has finished in the top 10 of all 4 races he has run at Charlotte where his best finish has been 3rd twice. Carl seems to have a good handle on these mile and a half tracks and could be the guy fighting Jimmie at the end of the race.

Points leader, Jeff Gordon, has really struggled at Lowe’s lately. He hasn’t won here since 1999 and has a best finish of 24th in his last 5 races at Charlotte. This could be Jeff’s big test in all of the races that are left on the schedule this season. The team has been running better at the intermediate tracks this season and this is one he really needs to run well on to keep pace with Jimmie.

Tony Stewart is one of the better drivers at Charlotte of all the Chasers. Tony finished 6th this spring and was the highest finishing driver of all those that made the Chase this season. This was also at a point of the year that this team was struggling a little bit trying to get a win.

Matt Kenseth has always been good at Charlotte too. This team has struggled a bit lately and they are not running like they were earlier in the year. However the Roush/Fenway teams have been getting better lately with Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle winning races recently.

Denny Hamlin has run well at Charlotte during his short career. Denny has 3 top 10’s in 4 races run at Lowe’s and would like nothing better than to move up a little bit in the standings. He is 262 points out of the lead and that is too much to overcome but he would still like to end up in the top 5 and that is achievable.

The Bad Engine Blues

I would like to tell all of you Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans that things are looking up but with all of the engine failures last week at Talladega I think you are going to have to wait until next year before you see Dale win another race. I don’t have any confidence in any of the RCR/DEI cars with the engine package that they have right now. That includes all of the Chase drivers using these engines. Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Martin Truex Jr. are in dire straits right now.

Yahoo! Fantasy Picks

Group A

• Jimmie Johnson (starter)
• Jeff Gordon

Group B

• Casey Mears (starter)
• Jamie McMurray (starter)
• Kurt Busch
• Denny Hamlin

Group C

• JJ Yeley (starter)
• Reed Sorenson

Dark Horse

• Bobby Labonte

Stay Away From

• DEI/RCR Drivers because of the engines

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UAW-Ford 500

My New NASCAR Rule

After everything that happened this past weekend and everything that could have happened NASCAR needs to make a new rule for next season. All races in the Chase will be run in their entirety. I’m sure that there was a lot of lobbying going on with NASCAR throughout the day by all of the teams in the Chase. I think that it is only fair for the drivers in the Chase to know how long the race is going to be instead of taking chances to try and gain the most points in non-racing situations.

If all of the drivers knew that the race would have been run the full 267 laps no one would have had to gamble on fuel, track position or anything else. The top 12 drivers would have actually raced for a win. Not only did this cheat all of the Chase participants but the fans as well. I for one hate to see a race won on lucky strategy because of Mother Nature. They raced for 26 weeks to see who the best driver was; now let them finish it the way it was meant to be!

The Chase Wildcard

This week we head to the real wildcard in the Chase at Talladega with restrictor plates in a COT for the first time. Once again NASCAR hasn’t decided on the size of the restrictor plate yet so the teams are all left to guess as to how they want to get their cars ready for the race next weekend.

There are only 3 drivers in the Chase that are close to the top. The other 9 drivers are over 100 points out already. During testing for the race at Talladega this weekend the Ford teams were all very slow with the COT. The only other make that was slower were the Toyotas but none of these teams are in the Chase.

So, I have to go with the best COT teams this weekend, which will be the Hendrick teams. That means that after this weekend the Chase could be down to 2 drivers. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. You can bet that you will see these two guys drafting together a lot this weekend and then they can battle each other for the championship the remainder of the year.

My Pick To Win Talladega

I’m going to pick Jeff Gordon to win over Jimmie Johnson in a coin toss. Both of these guys are good no matter what their cars are like before a restrictor plate race and you won’t see one of their teammates pulling out to pass them at the end and causing a big wreck.

I don’t really know what else to tell you this week. They have never run a COT at a restrictor plate track before so it will really be up in the air as to who will run well. Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth are all very good at plate tracks but like I said, if the Ford’s don’t come up with some speed by this weekend they might be drafting in a pack behind the Chevy drivers with no chance of catching up.

All I can tell you to do is go with the Bowtie Brigade this weekend and hope that it works out that way. Next week I can give you better insight as to what will happen in Charlotte. Sorry folks but you know as much as I do about this weekend’s race now.

Yahoo! Fantasy Picks

Group A

• Dale Earnhardt Jr (starter)
• Jeff Gordon

Group B

• Casey Mears (starter)
• Martin Truex Jr (starter)
• Kurt Busch
• David Gilliland

Group C

• Johnny Sauter (starter)
• JJ Yeley

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