Johnson, Gordon headline NASCAR in Phoenix
Well, two weeks ago we focused on Jeff Gordon’s winless streak and discussed his odds at Texas.
While we expected him to do well, we didn’t think he’d win. Well, he proved us wrong, and more importantly to him is leaving the NASCAR Sprint Cup field in the dust. He’s 162 points ahead on second-place Jimmie Johnson in the standings, and the season isn’t even 1/4th of the way done yet.
If he keeps up this pace the Chase won’t matter. It will be Jeff Gordon and 11 guys driving for second.
Our top pick last week, Carl Edwards, didn’t do too bad, finishing 10th. We got an eighth and 18th place finish from Kyle and Kurt Busch and a 4th and 5th from Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart. So all in all our Texas predictions weren’t perfect, but they turned out all right.
Now in Phoenix, the talk is all about Jimmie Johnson, who finished second in Texas. Johnson is going for his fourth consecutive race win at Phoenix International Speedway. That’s not an easy thing to do.
Only nine drivers have done it, though Johnson is one of them (having won four straight at Lowe’s). The others on the list: Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Bill Elliott, Rex White, Bobby Issaac, Fred Lorenzen, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And none of that means a thing this week, except that you have to take Johnson’s track dominance into account. You also have to take into account Gordon’s season dominance.
But there are some other drivers to watch:
Mark Martin has the most career starts here (having missed just one race at the track) and is also looking to break a long winless streak. He has the most Top 5 finishes here with nine, and a Top 10 finish would be the 400th of his career. We’d like to see him get it here, and we know it’s going to be a long shot, but you can’t discount his experience and success to not include him this week.
Eranhardt Jr. is also a driver you have to keep an eye on. Yes, we know that’s all four Hendricks drivers we have selected, but there’s no reason not too. Junior has started to regain his form. At Phoenix he has two wins and seven Top 10s.
And for a final driver, keep an eye on Kevin Harvick. Also with two wins here, he has six Top 10s and, if you pay attention to things like driver ratings, he’s got the second best rating here, behind Johnson. He swept the two races here in 2006, and the last two years, was out of the Top 10 in the first race, in the Top 10 in the second. He also hasn’t done too much since his second place finish at Daytona, but we think he somehow breaks out of these patterns and sneaks into the top ten here.
