The 2010 Sprint Cup trip to Infineon Raceway in Sonoma California proved to be one of those infamous “rat in the blender” messes for many drivers engaged in batting for top 12 Chase positioning. The race was a total disaster for Joe Gibbs Racing. Joey Logano finished in 33rd but it only gets worse from there with Denny Hamlin right after him in 34th and Kyle Busch after an early race mess and much time in the garage in 39th. Martin Truex finished down in the start and park clutter in 42nd.
The day belonged to Jimmie Johnson. Rejoice #48 haters, the four time champ is in 2nd place in the standings, 140 points behind Kevin Harvick.
With twenty races left in the season and ten to go before the chase, let’s look at home the Chase competition shapes up mindful that the most points a driver can gain on an opponent in a race is 161 points. We’ll use that differential to compute who is in the top 12 and sweating and who is below the top 12 and betting.
Matt Kenseth—160
Jeff Burton—95
Greg Biffle—79
Tony Stewart—51
Mark Martin—15
Carl Edwards—0
Dale Earnhardt Jr.—(-57)
Clint Bowyer—(-74)
Ryan Newman—(-82)
Jamie McMurray—(-142)
Joey Logano—(-149)
Kasey Kahne—(-151)
Martin Truex Jr.—(-157)
Martin Truex Jr.—(-157)
Juan Montoya—(-161)
x
Given Fords have no wins, much faith must be put in better results from deployment of the FR9 engine. Others in the picture have been plagued with dreadful inconsistency making it hard to bet on almost anyone in this field. Tony Stewart and Mark Martin are “money” players who should have the sense of driving controllable races to maintain their chances. Kasey Kahne has generally been on an upward trend in recent weeks. Jeff Burton is likewise a driver who does not take insane risks. The rest of the field will be very hard to assess, but August is a month famous for drivers getting on a roll and Tony Stewart is a superb second half driver.
We’ll be watching these teams in the weeks ahead as the series heads to New Hampshire and then Daytona in the next two weeks before hitting a cookie cutter race at Chicago finishing off the current leg of the season before a week off and then the big glamour race at the Brickyard.
Surely today’s race at Sonoma will do nothing to win over those who don’t like road racing but will also have those who do wanting more. Today’s race demonstrated it takes a different skill set to excel at this kind of racing and a number of drivers were shown quite ineffective in that pursuit.
Given Fords have no wins, much faith must be put in better results from deployment of the FR9 engine. Others in the picture have been plagued with dreadful inconsistency making it hard to bet on almost anyone in this field. Tony Stewart and Mark Martin are “money” players who should have the sense of driving controllable races to maintain their chances. Kasey Kahne has generally been on an upward trend in recent weeks. Jeff Burton is likewise a driver who does not take insane risks. The rest of the field will be very hard to assess, but August is a month famous for drivers getting on a roll and Tony Stewart is a superb second half driver.
We’ll be watching these teams in the weeks ahead as the series heads to New Hampshire and then Daytona in the next two weeks before hitting a cookie cutter race at Chicago finishing off the current leg of the season before a week off and then the big glamour race at the Brickyard.
Surely today’s race at Sonoma will do nothing to win over those who don’t like road racing but will also have those who do wanting more. Today’s race demonstrated it takes a different skill set to excel at this kind of racing and a number of drivers were shown quite ineffective in that pursuit.
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