“Stealing a quote from Mike, From Kurt Busch doing snow angels in Texas to Kyle Busch trying to kiss the Vegas finish line through his helmet, their victory celebrations still need some work.” I was thinking the same thing when I saw Kyle down on his hands, toes and nose “kissing” the track through the helmet. But hey, whatever works for you Kyle! Personally, I prefer the smoke filled bows and the counting of wins on your fingers. That celebration has a “How do you like me now?” feel to it that I can appreciate. {BTW, it was in Bristol that Kurt did the snow angels.}
Due to faulty engines from Toyota, several Toyota teams required engine changes before the Las Vegas race. While Kyle’s car also required an engine change, it was not related to the issues of the Toyota supplied engines. Joe Gibbs Racing builds their engines in-house.
Kyle’s engine swap meant he would have to drop to the back of the field after putting his car on the pole. However, by the half-way point Kyle was a permanent fixture inside the top five. He was able able to hold off the Chevys of Clint Bower and Jeff Burton to take his first Cup series win in hometown Las Vegas. It was a little saving face for Toyota and the win helped the manufacturer cut into Chevrolet’s lead by 3 points, while leaving Dodge 6 points back in last place in the manufacturer’s point standings.
This Sunday’s race marks the 100th NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS). When I think of racing in Atlanta, I think of either Bobby Labonte’s dominance at the track for a period of time {Bobby has six wins at AMS, the most of any active driver}, or Kevin Harvick’s first Cup Series win. Harvick’s win was an emotional one for everyone as it came only a few weeks after Harvick was put in the car after we lost Dale Earnhardt in Daytona.
Carl Edwards is the early favorite of our Experts Picks to win at Atlanta this Sunday. However, over the last four years Matt Kenseth has a better average finish at AMS at 9.0 vs. Carl’s 12.6. True, Carl has three wins at AMS, but Matt’s back-to-back wins to open the 2009 season make him my pick for Ford’s best hope at a win.
Selecting a top contender out of the Chevrolet camp is very difficult. The first criteria being, Can driver-X beat Jimmie Johnson?” When looking at the loop data for AMS, the answer is No!” Jimmie tops all drivers in eleven categories of loop data stats, including Avg. Start, Avg. Mid-Race Position, Avg. Finsh, Avg. Running Position, # Laps in top 15, Laps Led, Driver Rating and the all important, Avg. Points Gained. Gee, actually picking a Chevy driver is very easy. 
Kyle Busch is the defending race winner for this Sunday’s event at AMS. In the fall race he finished 5th. Those would be his only career top tens at the track in 9 career starts leaving him with an average finish of 18.2. Teammate Denny Hamlin has very similar stats, again only two top tens and an average finish of 17th, though in only 7 career starts. The nod simply has to go to Kyle though. In the last three AMS races he has scored an average of 152 points.
Kurt Busch once again carries the banner for Dodge with his last five finishes at AMS being consecutive top fifteen finishes. We can see a lot of speed at AMS and Kurt is a very good driver on the high speed tracks. He’s sitting inside the top 10 in points after having finishes of 10th and 5th at Daytona and California, respectively. With Dodge’s new engines and possibly a little Busch-Brother-Luck rubbing off from the hugging going on in victory lane back in Las Vegas, Kurt could be a dark horse pick for this weekend.
My Pick To Win?
My sentimental favorite would be for Bobby Labonte to get the win. After coming off his 5th place finish in Las Vegas he is pumped up! And besides, he finished 12th in last year’s event, so maybe… Alas, I can’t do my fantasy picks by my heart. At least not if I want to win.
So, I really think it will be either Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson who wins this weekend. Jeff is on a tear and my gut says to go with Jeff to win the 100th Cup event at AMS. However, the numbers say it’s Jimmie’s weekend. The fact that he tops the charts in eleven stats columns just weighs too heavy for me. Put me down for Jimmie Johnson.”