Trouble in Turn2

I’m always a little confused about Michigan. The track is wide and features several grooves, so drivers can find a place where their cars work best. Because it’s wide, that also means the passing can be rather easy. So is it a fun race because drivers like it or a dull one because the passing is so easy there aren’t great battles for position?

One thing I know is that when it follows Pocono it feels like the race flies by. It’s kind of like working out at the gym next to a big, ripped guy. Your lack of size is amplified in that setting. Pocono is a race that feels like you could watch the Ten Commandments, run some errands and then paint your bedroom before the checkered flag flies, while Michigan feels like it’s over before you can finish your chips and salsa.With a tendency for long green flag runs, the race often boils down to the final pit stop or fuel mileage.

Track Fun Fact of the Week: According to wikipedia (and who would question something on the internet?), Michigan International Speedway also hosts the Michigan High School cross country championship, presumably in the infield. Imagine how discouraging it would be to be running along, feeling good about your pace and then you look over and see Greg Biffle turn a few hot laps at 190 mph.

What Happened Last Year

Carl Edwards continued Roush Racing’s utter dominance of Michigan. Martin Truex appeared to have a better car in the final segment but couldn’t quite pull in Edwards. The win was the first for Edwards in 52 races, and was especially pleasing to his motorcoach driver Tom “Yeti” Giacchi. He had made a deal with Edwards in 2006 that he wouldn’t shave until Edwards won a race.

Notes and Fantasy Tips

• Roush dominates here. Roush has won ten races and their current drivers are good (Carl Edwards 1 win, 4 top 5’s), better (Greg Biffle 2 wins, 4 top 5’s) and best (Matt Kenseth 1 win, 7 top 5’s). Ford and Dodge have split the two Michigan wins each of the past five seasons.

  Meanwhile a Chevrolet (or Pontiac for that matter) has not won at Michigan since 2001 when Jeff Gordon took the checkers. There isn’t a great reason why the bowtie hasn’t won, just a fluke thing that happens in sports sometimes.

• Sunday is Father’s Day. Jame McMurray and Crown Royal are running a special paint scheme to tribute McMurray’s dad along with a personalized message:

  

  So McMurray isn’t big on words, but the message is clear. Many parents sacrifice a lot for their kids and it’s exponentially true in an expensive, traveling sport like auto racing.

Champs, Chumps and Sleepers

Champ: Matt Kenseth Kenseth is outstanding at Michigan (11 top 10’s in 17 starts and a 9.7 avg finish). He won the 2006 August race in dominant fashion. Kenseth got out of the gates slowly this year, but is catching up to his teammates.

Chumps: Jeff Burton Burton has avoided trouble and scored a lot of top tens this year. RCR’s intermediate program is a behind Roush, Gibbs, Hendrick, Evernham and even Penske. Burton will struggle this weekend.[Click for more Chumps notes]

Sleepers: Casey Mears Over the last six Michigan races, Mears has the 11th best driver rating (89.0) and 1 top 5 and two top 10’s. At some point he has to run well, right? Right? [Click for more Sleepers notes]

And the winner is…

The easy method would be to draw a Roush-Fenway-Varitek(the joke never gets old to me) driver’s name out of a hat. In that case Todd Kluever is your man. Apparently my Roush Roster is two years old. So Plan B shows that Jimmie Johnson is the man this weekend. I feel it’s also time to institute the “Dale Jr or Kyle Busch could win on any given Sunday” caveat. One is winless and the other has four wins, but both have run in the top five almost every week and led enough laps to prove that a victory from either would not register a surprise.

The final pit stop. It’s cliche to say it means everything in NASCAR, but at Atlanta it was true. The top five entering the pits were Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Martin Truex Jr and Jimmie Johnson, but that’s not what came out. Denny Hamlin stayed out, Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Reed Soreson took 2 tires, completely shuffling the top five. Worse, Hamlin ran out of fuel on the restart inciting all kinds of mayhem. Three of the four best cars all finished with unbelievable versions of heartbreak. It’s a shame for Truex, and Earnhardt Jr’s day was completely bizarre before ending with his 8th DNF. Although Kyle Busch’s frustration was equally warranted, it’s tougher to feel bad for him after hearing the in-car audio of him threatening to wreck the car.

It probably was a two man race last week, but it’s definitely true now that Tony Stewart had problems and Clint Bowyer could only gain four points on Gordon. There has to be some concern about Texas for Gordon. He typically doesn’t run well there and he didn’t run very well on Sunday at Atlanta. Nine points. That is the difference of between 1st and 2nd.

It’s impossible to tell who will win, but this much is true. The winner will be the better team, not the one that better avoids trouble. Hendrick Motorsports does just build fast cars, but they pay such attention to quality it’s incredible. Johnson and Gordon have both had parts failures, but it rarely happens more than once. Things like wheels breaking on a restart, losing the power steering or blown engines are not regular events at Hendrick (think Jr can wait for 2008?).

Johnson won his 8th race of 2007. No matter what happens in the Chase, it’s long overdue for Johnson to be recognized as one of the best drivers not only today, but ever. He has 31 wins in six years and is only 1 win behind Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart and 4 behind Mark Martin. In his career he has never scored less than 20 top tens in a season. It seems like when someone talks about Johnson, they’re quick to mention his crew chief Chad Knaus, his great team at Hendrick or even his great mentor in Gordon before giving credit to Johnson. He is putting up amazing numbers in an era that is more competitive than it was even ten years ago when Gordon was so dominant.

Other Thoughts

• Advertisers in other sports typically roll out new commercials during the playoffs. If advertisers get more bang for their buck in NASCAR (according to NASCAR), why do they keep running the same stale ads all season? I’m looking in your direction Gillette Young Guns.

  On a related note, I usually tape the race and then fast forward through commercials (it’s not Tivo, but it works). If any sponsors are reading this blog(and they probably aren’t), I almost always stop for two ads, Geico and my homeboy Lauren Wallace and the Napa commercials where Michael Waltrip reads his “fanmail”.

• When ESPN’s Cup coverage started Rusty Wallace didn’t seem to fit. Maybe he tried too hard or just didn’t know how to play off of Andy Petree, but something was off. Things have improved over the season. After Petree explained downforce through the example of sticking your hand out of a moving car window, Wallace responded, “We spent $3million on graphics and you just explained it better for nothing!”

• The wreck involving David Gilliland and Mark Martin looked bad. Like most bad crashes, both drivers walked away. The problem is that the cars get obliterated. I’m curious to see how the CoT will handle damage at 190mph next season.

This race had too many stories to try and cram in one post. I’ll have more tomorrow in my recap of the non-Chasers called The Other 31

If anyone needed evidence of the cookie-cutter phenomenon in NASCAR they could cite Atlanta and Texas as exhibits A and B. The last two years the fall races have run in consecutive weeks and each year a driver has won both races. Carl Edwards used back to back wins to thrust himself into the thick of the Chase in 2005. Tony Stewart won Atlanta and Texas in dominating style and also taking attention away from the Chasers in 2006.

I think one reason is the fact that teams send the same cars to both races. Due to the longer travel, the Texas race makes for a shorter week at the shop. If a team can simply clean up a winning car and put it back on the track next week it doesn’t give opposing teams much time to make improvements. Maybe the CoT will change things next year (and maybe college football will go to a playoff system), but for now the winners of Atlanta and Texas will go hand in hand.

Other Notes

• Bobby Labonte loves Atlanta. In 29 starts he has 6 wins, 12 top fives, 13 top tens, led 958 laps and only four DNF’s. Kyle Busch has never scored a top ten finish at Atlanta. Kevin Harvick won his first career start at Atlanta and finished 3rd later that fall. Since then he has zero top tens in 11 races.

• Keep an eye on tires at Atlanta. Several teams at the spring race had trouble with uneven tire wear. If the track gets any rain prior to the race it could make Sunday (or Monday morning) dicey.

• Jeremy Mayfield will replace Jeff Green in the #66 Chevrolet. Mayfield is the third driver to race in all four current Cup manufactuers in his career. He drove a Ford for Penske, a Dodge for Evernham, a Toyota (yes, he did actually make some races) for Bill Davis and now the Chevy for Haas-CNC Music Factory. Michael Waltrip and Dave Blaney have also driven for the big four, plus stints with Pontiac.

• One of the most surprising things in recent weeks is the plight of Sam Hornish Jr. Hornish is 0 for 6 qualifying for Cup races. Hornish has good Penske cars and has run more Busch races than other drivers with open wheel backgrounds like Juan Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villeneuve and Dario Franchitti. Somehow Hornish can’t make a Cup race. I still believe Hornish has a great chance to succeed at the Cup level if he chooses to make the switch, but it’s not the start he was hoping for. Adding insult to injury is the fact that IRL teammate Helio Castroneves is excelling at his non-IRL endeavor.

• This weekend marks the one year anniversary of “Foamgate”. Remember when Robby Gordon simply wanted a top ten at Atlanta? He was so desperate he forced a late caution by throwing roll cage padding onto the track, ensuring his car would stay on the lead lap and finish well. Since he hasn’t had a finish better than 19th since Watkins Glen, Gordon might be willing to try anything for a good finish.

• The Sleeper of the Week for Atlanta is Reed Sorenson. The Peachtree, GA native has two career top tens in 4 races and the Ganassi speedway program has been stronger than their CoT program. As always Sorenson and crew chief Jimmy Elledge are always willing to gamble on track position. He won’t win, but does have a chance to run well, spend the majority of the day in the top ten and maybe even steal a top five finish.

• Who will hoist one of the largest trophies I’ve ever seen, plus increase their chances of winning a cowboy hat and 6-shooters? Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards both run well at Atlanta and ESPN will readily tell you what an amazing story that would make. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are too obvious to pick. Dale Earnhardt Jr can’t count on his engine and Tony Stewart is still in a funk. Clint Bowyer is running very well despite both of his teammates basically snoozing the season away. Ready for a wildcard? How about Kasey Kahne? 1 win and 4 top fives in 7 races. It’s time for Kahne to finally break through in 2007 on one of his best tracks.

In the last few years NASCAR has attached itself to several Hollywood films like Talladega Nights, Herbie Fully Loaded and Cars. With TV ratings slumping it’s finally time for NASCAR to go one step further and take the show to the theaters. That’s right it’s Race for the Chase: The Movie. Some will say the sport is completely selling out, but when you think about it, plenty of fans already consider the sport fake and scripted. NASCAR knows what people really want to see: stars with big personalities. Check out this All-Star cast.

Tom Cruise as Jeff Gordon

John Heder as Denny Hamlin

Dolph Lundgren as Clint Bowyer

Kevin Bacon as Kevin Harvick

Carol Burnett as Kyle Busch

Val Kilmer as Carl Edwards

Sherriff Woody as Kurt Busch

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Matt Kenseth

Some were obviously stretches and I struggled to come up with doppelgangers for Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton or Martin Truex Jr. Any ideas?

So, another race, and more of the same. A Hendrick driver won (the 15th time this season), caution flags rained down again, and Dale Earnhardt Jr lost an engine. Just another NASCAR Sunday in 2007. Jimmie Johnson wins his third straight Martinsville race, but only gains 15 points on 3rd place Jeff Gordon. As I wrote on Friday, if Johnson or Clint Bowyer hope to catch Gordon, then it will have to come in small 10, 15 or 20 point chunks. It’s still possible, although Bowyer lost almost 50 points to Gordon at Martinsville. Barring a wreck or engine failure, the Chase is very quickly becoming a two car, one company race.

• Juan Pablo Montoya led 9 laps and finished 8th. It was his first laps led since his win at Sonoma back in June.It was his sixth top ten of the season and now he heads to Atlanta and Texas, both tracks where he scored top tens in the spring. No one is surprised with Montoya’s success on a road course or even a wide open track like Atlanta, but his recent successes at Dover and Martinsville require major driving skills. It’s pretty obvious by now that Montoya has this stock car thing figured out.

• Kurt Busch was the only Chaser not finishing on the lead lap. 9 Chasers made up the top 12. While the beginning of the Chase saw the Chasers finish all over the leaderboard, I expect the top ten to be littered with Chasers over the next few weeks.

• Tony Stewart finished 13th and is now 249 points off the pace. Stewart’s middling performance might be the biggest surprise of the Chase. His season driver rating is 102.6, but during the Chase he only has two races of 100 or better. He is the defending champ of both the Atlanta and Texas races, but things do not look like last year. The team is making more mistakes in the pits and too often simply not running as well as they are used to.

• Greg Biffle scored his first career top ten at Martinsville. He has now scored at least one top ten at every current Cup track except Indianapolis and Talladega. The finish was also the third top ten during the Chase, improving his season line to 1, 4, 10.

• As the engines continue to sputter and die, Dale Earnhardt Jr is becoming more upset. From his in-car audio:
  

  The motor’s gotten way way worse. That’s why we’re losing spots! I wish it would just blow up. I’m sick of being out here losing power like this… I’m tellin’ ya, man, I’m sick of this engine (stuff). Have ya got something real old back at the shop that we can run the rest of the year? Something that will at least run. Do you guys give a (expletive), because I sure do!

  Junior deserves to win a race this year not for sentimental reasons, but because he has been at the front of the pack consistently. Atlanta, Texas or Phoenix are all great tracks for the #8 car, but it needs to make it to the last lap under full power.

• Speaking of DEI, it doesn’t sound like the best work environment right now. Three employees were fired this week for, well, actions detrimental to DEI. Apparently the employees hired a plane to fly a banner at Lowe’s Motorspeedway that criticized former car owner Bobby Ginn. I have no idea what is going on or who is right, but it’s pretty obvious that there is some dissent at the Garage Mahal. Long time Technical Director Steve Hmiel also left the company last week, although the reasons were not disclosed.

• After one week in the CoT, the circuit returns to the old, sleek, aero-dependent, no-winged car returns for two races. I can’t imagine how relieved the crews will be after this year is over. Working on two completely different cars and switching models on a near weekly basis must be overwhelming.

“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.

This is from over a month ago, but it was too good to ignore. There is so much potential.

“Helton, Hilton…Hilton, Helton”

“Excuse me, have you seen Kasey?”

“Does this look as awkward as I think it does?”

Your turn…

Credit (I originally found it on Foxsports.com, but it’s no longer there)

The Chase is either 50% full or 50% empty. The answer depends on which driver you ask. Matt Kenseth would probably tell you the season is over and it’s time for Thanksgiving dinner. Kenseth currently resides in the spot normally afforded to the Evernham car that makes the Chase. He sits 12th of 12 Chasers thanks to a 4 race spell that has produced finishes of 35th, 35th, 26th and 34th. If you asked second year driver Clint Bowyer, his response would probably be more optimistic. The way he is running, there is no doubt he is looking forward to the trio of 1.5 mile tracks left on the schedule. Here’s a rundown of the 12 Chasers, how the first half went and how the second half could play out. Be sure to also check out my picks prior the Chase.

1. Jeff Gordon: Life is pretty charmed right now for the #24 car. Two straight wins in dramatic fashion, the points lead and only one finish worse than 5th during the Chase. His low point is an eleventh at Dover, and that’s not very low. Some already want to write his name on the trophy but it is too early. A pit road mistake, a fifty cent parts failure or numerous other things could derail his His next win could come on Sunday at one of his best tracks, Martinsville.

2. Jimmie Johnson: The defending champ has three top fives with a low finish of 14th (Dover, Lowe’s). It’s a pretty good start to the Chase, actually much better than previous years, but he still finds himself 68 points down. That’s still 78 points better than last year, which means he has plenty of time to catch teammate Gordon. He is a threat to win at Martinsville, Atlanta and/or Texas. In other words, this is far from finished.

3. Clint Bowyer: In the first 26 races Bowyer had 0 wins and 2 top 5’s. Bowyer has bested both of those marks with his first career win and two other 2nd place finishes. Even at a race like Talladega where there was concern about the engines, Bowyer and crew chief Gil Martin decided to be conservative and they managed an 11th. With more tracks like Atlanta, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead on the schedule things fit perfectly for Bowyer. If he can pull out a top 15 at Martinsville, that should give him four races to erase 78-100 points.

4. Tony Stewart: If Stewart can score some top fives to make the Chase close, he might look back at the Lowe’s race as the one that kept him in it. With the pit road damage it looked like Stewart was going to finish in the 20’s. With so many cars failing at the end, he snuck into the top ten to gain spots on Johnson and manage the losses to Gordon and Bowyer. He has wins at all five of the remaining tracks and 198 points is not impossible, but he will need a little help.

5. Carl Edwards: Edwards has had a very mediocre Chase. Even when he won the race, he lost 25 points thanks to failing post-race inspection. He was another that stole a top five at Lowe’s thanks to attrition. Edwards is definitely strong at Atlanta and Texas, but he can’t afford any more finishes in the teens from here out.

6. Kyle Busch: He is the perfect example of how bad finishes can hurt more than gathering good finishes. Busch has three top tens, but also has two finishes of 36th or worse. As a result he is 280 points behind. It’s an especially tough situation considering he is leaving in 5 races. He can still win at Texas or Phoenix, or he might lose interest.

7. Kurt Busch: The Chase has not gone as planned for the #2 Dodge. He has led three races but has only one top ten to show for it. Ironically that came at Talladega where he led zero laps. Busch has run very well on a weekly basis nearly all season but has hit a rough patch at the wrong time. He can still win at any of the final five tracks, although Atlanta or Texas is most likely.

8. Kevin Harvick: Let’s be honest, Harvick hasn’t been consistent all year. He has two top tens since Indy and only has 12 all season. Obviously his teammate Bowyer is running very well, but something is not working on the #29 team right now. That said he is still capable of winning at Phoenix.

9. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin’s frustration has seeped through recently and has taken some of the sparkle off his image. First he got into a tiff with Kyle Petty and then got parked for a practice at Talladega. After spending nearly the whole year in the top 5 in points, Hamlin has managed just one top ten result during the Chase. At this point an offseason vacation might be the best idea. Homestead is his best shot to nab a win.

10. Jeff Burton: Burton’s path looks very similar to teammate Harvick. He began the year on fire, but couldn’t regain that pace. A top 5 at Charlotte was a great result, especially after the blown engine at Talladega. He still finds himself mid-pack too much to show a win could happen, although he did win the spring Texas race.

11. Martin Truex Jr: His Chase is a microcosm of the first half of 2007. He has had good cars, nice runs but gets abandoned by the finishes. Dover, Kansas and Talladega all could have reaped more points if not for wrecks and engine failures mostly out of Truex’s control. His consolation is a chance to go back to Phoenix where he has very good in the spring and Homestead where he had a great car in 2006.

12. Matt Kenseth: Kenseth’s last four finishes sound like a quarterback’s audible, “35, 35, 26, 34 hut!” The last time he had three straight races without a top ten was race 12 in 2005 over two seasons ago. Martinsville is not Kenseth’s best track but he does has 2 wins, 13 top 5’s and 18 top 10’s combined at Atlanta, Texas and Phoenix.

Sorry about the lack of words on the blog this week. I hit a writing wall and it didn’t help that less than nothing newsworthy has happened this week. I promise to scrape myself of said wall and will return tomorrow with a Charlotte Preview and a few thoughts. In the meantime Id like to hear your thoughts on the influx of open wheel drivers. Is it good for the sport? Who of the new open-wheelers has the best chance to succeed? Do you care about a driver’s background?

By the way, did you know that Leffler is 5′3″?

After three tries, Carl Edwards finally looks like he’ll win a Busch Series Championship. He has 4 wins and leads the series by 696 points. He could sit out the next four races and still retain the lead. On first glance the numbers look impressive, but does anyone care?

Edwards is having a nice season, but it comes against a very weak Busch field. Kevin Harvick is in third place and has skipped eight races. This year only 13 drivers have entered 80% or more of the Busch races. Among those, only 5 are Cup drivers. David Reutimann, and David Ragan are still fledging Cup drivers and can’t be considered Buschwhackers at this point. Kevin Harvick won the 2006 title by 824 points. He scored 9 wins, 23 top 5’s and 32 top tens. 32 top tens in 35 races is ridiculous. Not only that, but the 2006 Busch field was probably the strongest field ever. Seven Cup drivers raced in 34 or more races and filled 8 of the top ten points positions.

Harvick won the title by more points, won more races and did it against superior competition. If Harvick was a big fish in a small pond, Edwards is a whale in a kiddie pool. It’s a pretty simple equation: He is a good driver with the best equipment that is running the full schedule. To put it another way, someone has to win.

This isn’t meant as a criticism of Edwards. He loves racing cars. That is why he races full time in the Busch series or spends his free time racing dirt cars. The next time you see an article or hear an announcer praise the amazing season, remember that Harvick did it, and did it better against a significantly tougher field.