Trouble in Turn2

“The Big One’s” destruction at Talladega is all about large numbers of cars taken out as efficiently and swiftly as possible. Compare that to Martinsville’s more subtle destruction. The paperclip shaped track takes inattentive drivers’ cars out one at a time. It’s more about quality than quantity. A fender bender here, a pit road dust up there, it’s usually something that seems rather tame at the time. The initial sting rarely renders a car immobile, but as the race progresses it leads to other problems. A bent fender becomes a tire rub which always ends in a flat tire. An air duct that was smashed on pit road suddenly causes red hot brake rotors or the engine to overheat. Cars involved in wrecks leave debris that later find their way into engine and transmission parts. It’s never the first blow at Martinsville that is fatal, but over the course of the afternoon plenty of cars will get KO’d just the same. Other tracks like Darlington may get more credit for being devastating to drivers, but Martinsville can not be overlooked either.

For Chase drivers with legitimate Cup aspirations Martinsville has not been a friendly place in the past few years. In 2004 Dale Earnhardt Jr entered the race 24 points behind Kurt Busch. With Martinsvile, Atlanta and Phoenix on the schedule it was the prime chance for Junior to reel in Busch. Instead transmission trouble and a wreck left Jr in 33rd place and 125 points behind. Last year Jeff Burton entered Martinsville with 4 top tens and a 45 point after 5 Chase races. Then an engine failure resulting from a pit road mishap left him in 42nd place. He didn’t recover and only scored one more top ten the rest of the season. For those that think Jeff Gordon is running away with the Cup, don’t forget about Martinsville.

News and Notes

• Busch/Nationwide/unCup Series driver Brad Coleman is leaving Joe Gibbs Racing for Brewco. The main reason is seat time. By all accounts the 19 year old Coleman is a big time prospect. He has 3 top 5’s and 5 top 10’s in only 15 Busch races in 2006. Just like fellow Gibbs development driver Aric Almirola, Coleman could not get a full time ride in 2008. It’s hard to understand why Gibbs would pass on top talent in favor of running his Cup drivers in the second-tier series. Sponsors surely played a part, but it’s hard to imagine that was the only reason because Coleman has personal sponsorship from Carinos. If Gibbs is planning on expanding to four cars in 2009, it would make sense to groom a young driver next year. Maybe those plans have been put on hold or Gibbs is betting everything on Joey Logano. Either way it’s another example of Cup teams ignoring potential Cup drivers for seemingly no good reason. Gibbs has now let two young drivers with Cup potential go, will it haunt them?

• For the first time since 1984, a Cup race at Martinsville will not include Ken Schrader in the field. Bill Elliott will drive the #21 car while John Andretti is in the #49 ride. In 45 career starts Schrader has 18 top tens and an average finish of 17.2. Proving his undying talent at short tracks, he started 4th in the spring and finished a workmanlike 19th. While Dale Jarrett and to a lesser degree Ricky Rudd will get proper farewells, it appears that Schrader might not receive the same tributes. That doesn’t mean Schrader’s fans won’t notice.

• The Chase is not over despite what some might say. It’s also not true that only calamity will stop Jeff Gordon. Gordon has a 68 point lead over 2nd place Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer is only 10 more points behind Johnson. 68 points is the difference between finishing first and 13th place. Finishing in 13th place is a decent day, far from disaster, and it would be fairly easy to “attain”. A late flat tire, pit road penalty, a wrong adjustment, or even getting shuffled backwards in a fuel mileage race could all result in a mid-teen finish. The other point to keep in mind is that the lead doesn’t have to evaporate in one race. A 78 point deficit with five races left is an average of 16 points per race. Johnson and Bowyer are both running well enough to win in the coming weeks. A win automatically gets you a minimum of 10-15 points of second place. It’s a 35 point disparity from 1st to 5th. Gordon has finished outside the top ten 6 times and only once was it for a DNF. A big wreck or blown engine is possible, but it’s much more likely to be a small mistake that opens the door. Gordon has run incredibly well all season, but a small mistake or a sudden slump could prove costly. If it happens Johnson and Bowyer are standing by waiting to pounce.

• This week’s sleeper is David Ragan. Last year he was involved in several incidents leaving Tony Stewart to call him “A dart without feathers”. This spring he finished an incident-free 15th. The year has been filled with crashes, but Ragan has also shown improvement when he stays on the track, and out of the garage. Look at his results at Richomond, a similar track that also ran the CoT. He finished 20th and 3rd, and also did well at Loudon (15th, 19th).

• Martinsville is a place where the best drivers of all time have won. And once a driver wins one race, they usually win several more. Of the top ten winningest drivers, only Bobby Allison and Ned Jarrett have failed to win a race at Martinsville. Seven of the top 11 drivers have won multiple grandfather clocks. In other words, you haven’t completed your career resume without at least one Martinsville win(and if it were up to my, a true driver would also have to eat at least one Martinsville hot dog too). I expect that to continue this week, which means that one of nine drivers entered in the race will win. Since both John Andretti and Dale Jarrett need to make the race first, they are doubtful. Ricky Rudd is not 100% and may not race with his injured shoulder. That leaves six drivers with varying degrees of likeliness. Bobby Labonte and Jeff Burton have wins, but not enough car currently to win (although watch out for a top 5 from Labonte). Kurt Busch has run well this year, but Bristol is more of his signature. That brings us to three final drivers. Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart have won 8 of the last 9 races. During that span the trio has combined for 18 top 5’s and 24 top 10’s. They have also finished 1-2-3 three times. That’s some tough evidence to dispute. Since one of the tenets of this blog is basing my opinions on stats as much as possible, it is very hard to go against numbers like that. That’s why I think Johnson will win with the other two following closely behind.

Let me know your picks for Sunday.