by Matt Taliaferro and Nathan Rush

Location: Bristol, Tenn.
Specs: .533-mile oval; Banking/Turns: variable (24°-30°); Banking/Straightaways: 16°

2010 Winners: Jimmie Johnson (March), Kyle Busch (August)

2011 Race Length: 266.5 miles/500 laps
Track Qualifying Record: 128.709 mph (Ryan Newman, 2003)
Race Record: 101.074 mph (Charlie Glotzbach, 1971)

From the Spotter’s Stand
Kyle Busch tripled his fun in his Doublemint Toyota at Bristol last August, capping off a historic weekend by winning the Cup race on Saturday after taking the checkers at the Nationwide race on Friday and the Truck Series event on Wednesday — becoming the first driver to sweep all three series in the same week. Rowdy bullwhipped the half-mile concrete bullring, leading 283 laps en route to his fourth career win at Bristol. Busch has won three of the last four runs at the high-stress, high-banked Tennessee track.

Jimmie Johnson spoiled both Busch brothers’ day in March, breaking up Kyle’s streak and upsetting Kurt (278 laps led) for JJ’s first victory at Bristol and 50th win of his career.

Crew Chief’s Take
“Having a car that handles well in the center of the corner off is a key to working through the pack. Track position is a key as well. As the race winds down, most crew chiefs opt for position over new tires, as getting through traffic quickly is next to impossible.

“For a driver, it's like walking a tightrope. If you’re tense, nervous or uncomfortable, you can’t function there. The great drivers say that if you can get settled in and get comfortable, everything seems to slow down, but there aren’t many with the skills to really reach that point. Most of them just say they do.”

Fantasy Stall
Looking at Checkers: Kyle Busch is taking his turn as the Beast of Bristol. It runs in waves.
Pretty Solid Pick: Since Jimmie Johnson doesn’t qualify for “Sleeper” status anymore ...
Good Sleeper Pick: Junior qualifies, though — and makes a nice top-10 candidate.
Runs on Seven Cylinders: Even in his heyday, Bobby Labonte never quite figured out Bristol.
Insider Tip: They’re going to have to go through Kyle, one way or another, and races on the new surface are a lot easier to predict.

Classic Moments at Bristol
In the early- and mid-1980s, the only thing more certain than Darrell Waltrip winning the booing contest in pre-race introductions is his winning trophies at Bristol. Waltrip wins an astounding seven straight at the half-mile bullring between March 1981 and April 1984.

However, the streak comes to an end in August ’84 at the Busch 500. Waltrip leads 144 laps early but is plagued by myriad of issues late in the race. Instead, Terry Labonte battles back from two accidents — one a foreshadowing of things to come in the 1990s with Dale Earnhardt — to break Waltrip’s Bristol streak.

It’s Labonte’s fourth career victory and one that catapults him by Earnhardt into the championship lead. Labonte pulls away down the stretch from Harry Gant to win the 1984 Winston Cup.

Carl Edwards by ASP, Inc.

by Matt Taliaferro

Like every other NASCAR landing page on the web, Athlon Sports has a little fun each week ranking the drivers and teams of the Sprint Cup circuit. Our rankings go beyond how each finished the weekend prior and/or where they sit in the official championship standings.

The rankings you’ll see here represent what we (read: I) think are the strongest overall teams on tour, from top to bottom, based on performance, resources, strength of team/organization, overall talent of driver and, yeah, a tip of the cap to a job well done if they won the last race Think of it as Athlon’s NASCAR version of the college basketball Top 25.

Keep in mind these are subjective, and often done somewhat tongue-in-cheek (depending on my mood), so have some fun with them and take them for what they are: a weekly spin around the circuit, highlighting the best teams and their drivers.

Oh, and our rankings have a cool name … why no one thought of “Horsepower” Rankings before is beyond me. That said, kick back for five minutes of leisurely reading that require no real thought on your part:

1. Carl Edwards  Edwards has three wins and a second in his last five races going back to 2010. It’s like the boy has tiger blood and Adonis DNA. #Winning (I promise, that's the last Sheen reference I'll ever make.)

2. Kurt Busch  The only driver to have recorded three top 10s in the three 2011 races, Busch is somehow flying under the radar while being tied for first in the point standings.

3. Tony Stewart  Smoke just can’t close the deal. For the third consecutive race, he was in it to win it in the closing laps, only to come up short.

4. Ryan Newman  If you said you realized Newman was running fifth in the standings on the strength of two top 5s (and that he led the most laps in the Daytona 500), you'd be lying.

5. Juan Pablo Montoya   Another early-season surprise, Montoya has two top 10s and is tied with Edwards for third in the standings. He's first in the Twitter standings, though, with 276,821 followers.

6. Jeff Gordon  The right side of his car has been taking a lot of abuse this season. Three races, three crumpled fenders. Of course, he still managed to win one of those.

7. Kyle Busch  Ran eighth and second in the first two races, then blew up in Vegas. Despite the two solid runs, he dropped from first to 14th in the standings with the 38th on Sunday. That’s harsh.

8. Jimmie Johnson  In Johnson’s last eight Vegas starts he has four wins and four finishes of 16th or worse. Not sure how to quantify that.

9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Junior Nation showing measured optimism after consecutive top 10s with new crew chief Steve Letarte. The smart money says he’ll be good at Bristol, too.

10. Denny Hamlin  Hamlin’s face is off the milk carton after a seventh at LVMS. Honestly, it was a quiet seventh, so maybe his mug is still there.

11. Kevin Harvick   Last year at this time Harvick was leading the point standings. This year? Not so much.

12. Mark Martin  He looked like an older version of Kyle Busch in winning the Nationwide race in Vegas.

13. Paul Menard  Don’t tear up your equipment and log some solid finishes — just what the new owner likes.

14. Martin Truex Jr.   Truex and crew chief Pat Tryson are only getting stronger at Michael Waltrip Racing.

15. Kasey Kahne  Clearly still learning the ropes with his new team, but things look good so far.

Just off the lead pack: AJ Allmendinger, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte

Photo by ASP, Inc.

by Matt Taliaferro

In Las Vegas, the hand you’re dealt doesn’t have to be great, just better than those you’re playing against. Such was the case on Sunday, when Carl Edwards outran a dominant Tony Stewart, who fell victim to a pit road penalty that dictated his strategy for the remainder of the event and ultimately doomed his chance at a win in the Kobalt Tools 400. Edwards, in turn, led the final 22 laps and cruised to a 1.2-second win at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“I think Tony was the car to beat all day,” Edwards said. “That car was just lightning fast. But those guys (Stewart’s crew) took two tires with 60 or 70 laps to go, and he took off, so Bob (Osborne, crew chief) said, ‘Hey, let’s try it, let’s take two tires.’ We came in, we pitted, the guys did a great job — I barely beat Juan Montoya once we got back on the race track — so this pit stop was key. If it would have been a half-second longer we would not have won the race.”

Ah, yes — back to Stewart. As Edwards referenced, it was his miscue — or rather, his misfortune — that set the tone for the remainder of the race.

Stewart started 15th, but worked his way into the lead on lap 99 and imposed his will on the field from there, leading 124 laps until a caution on lap 151 changed the complexion of the race. During the ensuing round of pit stops, Stewart pulled a lug wrench air hose out of his stall and was issued a pass-through penalty for taking equipment outside his pit box, dropping his No. 14 Chevy out of the lead and into 27th on the restart.

When a caution on lap 195 precipitated another round of yellow-flag stops, Darian Grubb, crew chief for the No. 14 team, made the call for two tires when the majority of the field took four in an effort to gain track position. Stewart won the battle off pit road as a result, and pulled away from the field when the green waved with 66 laps remaining.

When the fuel window re-opened with 32 laps to go, Stewart again hit pit road and was forced to take four tires, while others who had taken four on the previous stop — namely Edwards, Juan Pablo Montoya, Marcos Ambrose and Ryan Newman — took two. That relegated Stewart to third when the stops cycled through, and handicapped his track position.

“I honestly think we had the car to beat today, we just gave it away,” Stewart said. “I don't know what happened on the pit stop there, but we had a miscue and had a penalty and had to go to the back, and unfortunately it kind of dealt our cards for us. Darian made a good call getting us the track position back, but it also showed everybody else that they could do it, too (take two tires), and we couldn't run two and a half runs on a set of left-side tires.”

Stewart’s assertion was accurate, as Bob Osborne, crew chief for Edwards’ No. 99 Ford, made the final two-tire stop based how the No. 14 pulled away from the pack in clean air with two tires.

“It definitely didn't hurt the decision-making process to see them (Stewart’s team) run extremely well with two tires,” Osborne said. “So yeah, I guess I was taking notes. Their car was very good regardless, and I thought our only opportunity was to leapfrog them on the racetrack and hope we were able to hold them off.”

Edwards did just that, leading the rest of the way for his second career win at LVMS. Stewart rebounded to finish second, while Montoya, Ambrose and Newman rounded out the top 5.

Stewart has been in position to win all three races thus far in the 2011 season, but has yet to close the deal. A similar two-tire stop at Phoenix ruined his chances last week when many in the field took four, and he lost his drafting partner after restarting second in a green-white-checker finish in the Daytona 500. Does he take solace in the fact that he now holds a tie for the points lead and is close to finding Victory Lane?

“I probably should, but that's not in my makeup,” Stewart said. “I mean, it kills me to throw a race away like that, especially at a place we haven’t won at yet. This was a big deal today, and when you lead that many laps (163 of 267) and have a car that’s that fast and you lose it … I’m sure tomorrow when the emotion dies down we’ll look back and say it was a great weekend, but man, it does not sit good right now.”

Stewart will have to wait to turn his near-misses into a victory, as the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit takes one week off before returning to action at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 20.

Photo by ASP, Inc.

by Matt Taliaferro and Nathan Rush

Location: Las Vegas, Nev.
Specs: 1.5-mile tri-oval; Banking/Turns: 20°; Banking/Tri-Oval: 9°; Banking/Backstretch: 3°

2010 Winner: Jimmie Johnson

2011 Race Length: 400.5 miles/267 laps
Track Qualifying Record: 188.719 mph (Kurt Busch, 2010)
Race Record: 146.554 mph (Mark Martin, 1998)

From the Spotter’s Stand
Jimmie Johnson’s four of a kind beat Jeff Gordon’s pair — of fresh tires, that is — in a classic Las Vegas heads up showdown that came down to strategy on the final pit stop of the 267-lap dance.

Although Gordon (219 laps led) had the big stack for most of the day, he and crew chief Steve Letarte limped in with a two-tire move late, while Johnson and Chad Knaus went all-in with quads when the chips were on the line. The move allowed Johnson to burn rubber past Gordon on Lap 251 before popping bottles of champagne to celebrate the fourth win in his last six trips to Sin City.

But at least Gordon didn’t lose a tooth or have a run-in with a tiger and Mike Tyson. Right?

Crew Chief’s Take
“As with any ‘cookie cutter’ track, downforce, track position and clean air will all play a major role in how a team gets around Las Vegas. It’s surprising how rough the track is, seeing as how they just repaved it a few years ago. Unlike the other Speedway Motorsports tracks (other than Bristol and Sonoma), it doesn’t have that Bruton Smith blueprint of a tri-oval that’s squared off. When Vegas was redesigned, they didn’t just go back to the drawing board. It was more like they improved the track without tearing it completely apart.”

Fantasy Stall
Looking at Checkers: Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus like to pile up a couple wins early so they can test during the summer, thus the four wins in nine starts.
Pretty Solid Pick: Matt Kenseth always factors, regardless of who’s on the pit box.
Good Sleeper Pick: If not for a vicious wreck in ’08, Jeff Gordon would have six straight top-6 runs.
Runs on Seven Cylinders: Juan Pablo Montoya. You’ve been warned.
Insider Tip: Hendrick and Roush typically jump out of the gate fast once the boys leave Daytona.

Classic Moments at PIR
NASCAR’s annual trip to Sin City takes a sinister turn in the 2008 UAW-Dodge 400.

Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth dominate the second half of the event, and it appears the two Roush drivers will settle the race between them. However, Kurt Busch’s hard crash — Tony Stewart had suffered the same violent impact earlier in the day — bunches up the field for a five-lap shootout led by Edwards.

On the restart, second place Dale Earnhardt Jr. spins the tires, allowing Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth to drive past. When Gordon washes up the track in Turn 2, they make contact, sending Gordon’s car hard into the inside wall.

Edwards goes on to the win, but is found to have a detached oil lid cover in post-race inspection. The win stands, but Edwards is docked 100 points for the infraction.
 

Photo by ASP, Inc.

by Mike Neff

Generally speaking, everyone points to the 1979 Daytona 500 as the seminal point in the evolution of NASCAR as a sport of the masses. The famous end to that race, when Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed on the final lap, only to brawl afterward (along with Donnie’s brother, Bobby) forever etched the sport into the fabric of America.

Most current fans don’t realize that the ’79 race was not the first race covered flag-to-flag, though. That distinction falls to a 200-lap race held at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in 1971. However, the race that very well could be more important than either of those is the 1981 spring race from Rockingham, which was the first broadcast by ESPN. While that race was not shown live, it was the first one carried on what today is self-glossed as the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” and laid the foundation from which all modern television broadcasts are based.

Bob Jenkins was the play-by-play announcer along with legendary radio broadcaster Eli Gold. Interestingly, Gold replaced longtime radio voice Barney Hall, who decided to back out of the broadcast at the last minute. Along with Jenkins and Gold, Ned Jarrett was patrolling the pits for the fledgling sports network and expanding his already established broadcasting career, which ultimately played a factor in his election to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

The race itself included some compelling storylines from several of the biggest names in the sport. Cale Yarborough dominated the race early, leading the most laps before slipping at the end to finish second. Richard Petty looked to have the race in hand, but needed to stretch his fuel to the finish. When Petty’s tank ran low with just three laps to go, he was forced to pit and ultimately came home in third place. Darrell Waltrip capitalized on Petty’s misfortune to snare his second victory in a row and one of 12 race wins en route to his first Winston Cup title.

That first broadcast on ESPN set the stage for all of the innovations that would come in race broadcasting, most of which evolved from the network itself. Thursday Night Thunder brought us the first in-track camera decades before “Digger” came to FOX. While CBS installed the first in-car cameras, which at the time were the size of a small child, it was ESPN that implemented high-definition cameras that are utilized for every angle from the over-the-wall crew cams to the main cameras shooting the races. In-car communications, race line-up scrolls, draft track and telemetry have all been advancements in the technology that brings the race experience to the fans — and it all started from those ESPN broadcasts of the ’80s.

When today’s race fans turn on the weekend show they expect to know exactly how many laps are completed, who is on the lead lap, how far behind the leader their favorite driver is running, along with myriad other statistics. When the folks at ESPN broadcast that race in 1981, they were just figuring out how to post the top 5 names on the screen when the broadcast went to break. There were many times in those first years of coverage that the announcers were not even sure who was leading a race.

During the infamous North Wilkesboro race in 1990, NASCAR scoring was still a manual system, and a miscue by the race director caused the pace car to pick up Dale Earnhardt instead of Brett Bodine as the leader of the race during a caution period. Bodine was able to get fresh tires before NASCAR realized its mistake and the tire change gave Bodine the advantage to win his only Cup race. Now live timing and scoring is fed directly into the race broadcast thanks to the efforts of all of the different broadcast partners of NASCAR.

Obviously, modern technology has made more information available to race fans both on their own and through the television broadcasts. The television partners of NASCAR have made many notable advancements in production in their efforts to try and bring better products to the viewing audience. And every one of those advancements is a direct result of the initial seeds that were planted in Rockingham on a chilly March weekend in 1981 by the pioneers at ESPN.
 

Photo by ASP, Inc.

by Matt Taliaferro

Like every other NASCAR landing page on the web, Athlon Sports has a little fun each week ranking the drivers and teams of the Sprint Cup circuit. Our rankings go beyond how each finished the weekend prior and/or where they sit in the official championship standings.

The rankings you’ll see here represent what we (read: I) think are the strongest overall teams on tour, from top to bottom, based on performance, resources, strength of team/organization, overall talent of driver and, yeah, a tip of the cap to a job well done if they won the last race Think of it as Athlon’s NASCAR version of the college basketball Top 25.

Keep in mind these are subjective, and often done somewhat tongue-in-cheek (depending on my mood), so have some fun with them and take them for what they are: a weekly spin around the circuit, highlighting the best teams and their drivers.

Oh, and our rankings have a cool name … why no one thought of “Horsepower” Rankings before is beyond me. That said, kick back for five minutes of leisurely reading that require no real thought on your part:

1. Kyle Busch  Hard to argue with eighth- and second-place runs to kick off a new season. What's not hard to argue with is what Cale would have to say about Kyle's wedding being shown on the Style Network.

2. Carl Edwards  Looked to have the car to beat in Phoenix, but that’s why they run 500 miles — actually, 500 kilometers, for some reason. He’ll be a handful in Vegas.

3. Kurt Busch  Wonder if the tux Kurt wore in Kyle's wedding had a little Shell Pennzoil patch on the lapel. Actually, I wonder if Kurt was even in it …

4. Jeff Gordon  With the “monkey-off-my-back” win out of the way, Gordon and crew chief Alan Gustafson can go about racking up a handful more — and I'll bet they will.

5. Jimmie Johnson  Mr. Five Time follows up a disappointing Daytona with a fitting Phoenix, where he got back to business by finishing third.

6. Kevin Harvick   Like Johnson, Harvick put Daytona behind him, rolled up his firesuit sleeves and went about scoring a top 5 in Phoenix to set the earth back on its axis.

7. Tony Stewart  He’s so close, but just can’t close the deal. At Daytona he lost the draft, at Phoenix a two-tire stop when others took four burned him. This is not a good time for Smoke to be going to Vegas.

8. Mark Martin  Martin and new crew chief Lance McGrew aren’t on the Gordon/Gustafson level yet, but they’re close, and all Martin ever asks is to be put in a position to race for a win. Looks like that’s coming.

9. Ryan Newman  His last three visits to Phoenix have netted results of first, second and fifth. Prior to that he averaged a 22.6-place finish in 15 starts. How do you explain that?

10. Denny Hamlin  This team is better than its results thus far, but through two races it seems a 2010 hangover is making it hard for Denny and the boys to get out of bed and back to racing.

11. Dale Earnhardt Jr.  His 10th-place showing at Phoenix was very encouraging. Let’s see what Vegas holds ...

12. AJ Allmendinger  Can he keep up the 10th-place average finishing position? That’s a tall order.

13. Clint Bowyer  Very good team. Very bad luck. Clint and the boys will rebound.

14. Jeff Burton   See: Bowyer, Clint.

15. Kasey Kahne  Could Kahne be the driver to turn Red Bull Racing around? He only has one year to make it happen.

Just off the lead pack: Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Paul Menard, Juan Pablo Montoya

Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattTaliaferro

Jeff Gordon and Alan Gustafson by ASP, Inc.

by Matt Taliaferro

Jeff Gordon looked and sounded more like an unlikely 20 year-old Daytona 500 winner than a 20-year veteran with four titles in Phoenix International Raceway’s Victory Lane. But when a driver, particularly one as decorated as Gordon, has just snapped a 66-race winless skid, yelling, “Pinch me man, pinch me!” is understandable.

Charging past Kyle Busch with nine laps remaining in the Subway Fresh Fit 500, Gordon pulled away from the field to the delight of the crowded grandstands on Sunday to record his first win since April 2009.

“I drove in easy to try to get a good run off of two and not let him do the swap-over,” Gordon said of the race-winning pass. “I kind of felt him on my right side and my car got real loose and we banged a little bit and slipped the racetrack and my spotter said ‘clear,’ and I drove off and I looked up and he was three or four car lengths behind me and I'm like, ‘Yes, let's go.’ Then it was just putting some laps to go.”

Busch held on for second, while Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman rounded out the top 5.

The win, Gordon’s 83rd career Cup victory, tied him with Cale Yarborough for fifth all-time. It was also his first with crew chief Alan Gustafson, whom team owner Rick Hendrick paired with Gordon in an extensive driver/team swap during the offseason.

Despite leading a race-high 138 laps, the weekend was not without its tenuous moments for Gordon and crew. None of Hendrick Motorsports’ four entries qualified higher than 20th, a fact that had Hendrick worried on Saturday.

“I don't know about them (Gordon and Gustafson) but I was sure down after I got off the plane yesterday afternoon (after qualifying),” Hendrick said. “I talked to them and they said, ‘We are pretty good, we are good in race trim, the car feels good. We just didn't have the speed and I think we'll be OK today.’”

While they did have the speed, Gordon thought they were a far cry from OK when he was involved in an accident on Lap 60. However, the damage turned out to be largely cosmetic, and once racing resumed, the car picked up where it left off, slicing through the field.

“I thought we were done,” Gordon said of the wreck. “When I hit the wall, I hit it hard over there, when Carl (Edwards) had his problems and just went in him outside of (turn) three and he just drifted up — not his fault, I think he had a left front tire go down or something — and put us in the wall and I thought we were done.

“I came into pit road and Alan orchestrated those guys fixing it and he said, ‘No, man, I think it looks all right.’ They dropped the green and it felt OK.”

A 14-car melee littered the backstretch on the ensuing restart, but 11 laps after the clean up was complete, Gordon sprinted to the lead for the first time

“We only made a half-lap and they wrecked on the back straightaway and they all came to pit road and we were sitting there like fourth. And then we drove up, took the lead or something not too far after that and I was like, wow, this is (an) unbelievable sequence of events and turnaround. And I knew at that time, we had a car that could win.”

Getting the win came down to a restart after the event’s eighth caution period with 22 laps remaining. Tony Stewart led the field to green with Busch at his side and Gordon in arrears. Busch, with two fresher tires than Stewart, quickly jumped out to a sizable lead. But Gordon’s machine proved to be at its best in crunch time. Moving up to Busch’s bumper, Gordon loosened up the Toyota as the two raced out of Turn 4 and made the decisive pass.

“When you put pressure on a guy that's leading and you start creeping up on him, you see them trying harder and harder and hanging the car out ask doing things that allows you to gain more confidence in your car and what you're doing,” Gordon explained. “All I was thinking about was don't make mistake. Take advantage of him in the areas that your car is strong and his isn't and that's what I did and I was able to get to him and I got to him off of four and he slipped up a little bit and I got my nose underneath him.

“You know, the way it worked out, I got by him way easier than I thought that I would.”

The wins for the Gordon/Gustafson combo may not be any easier to earn as the season unfolds, but if Sunday’s performance is any indication, they’ll certainly be more plentiful.

Photo by ASP, Inc.

by Matt Taliaferro and Nathan Rush

Location: Avondale, Ariz.
Specs: 1-mile oval; Banking/Turns: 9° and 11°; Banking/Frontstretch: 3°; Banking/Backstretch: 9°
Tickets/Info: www.phoenixraceway.com

2010 Winners: Ryan Newman and Carl Edwards

2011 Race Length: 500 km/312 laps
Track Qualifying Record: 186.293 mph (Casey Mears, 2004)
Race Record: 155.912 mph (Bobby Labonte, 2000)

From the Spotter’s Stand
The desert ended droughts for both Ryan Newman and Carl Edwards last season. Newman had gone 77 races since winning the Daytona 500 in 2008 before taking the checkers — after taking two tires rather than the full four — at Phoenix in April. Meanwhile, Cousin Carl hadn’t back-flipped after a Cup win in 70 races prior to squeezing every last drop out of his fuel tank and dusting runner-up Newman by 4.77 seconds to take back-to-back Cup and Nationwide wins at the one-mile Avondale oval in November.

After winning four out of five in Phoenix, Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and the 48 had a “down” year — with fifth- and third-place finishes and just 113 laps led.

Crew Chief’s Take
“Turns 1 and 2 are completely different than Turns 3 and 4 at Phoenix, which makes it difficult to find the right balance in the setup. Many teams run a short-track package with brakes that will last the duration. A dogleg in the backstretch is unique to the circuit. Abusing the right-side tires is easy to do at Phoenix, and even more so with the new car.

“Certain drivers — Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch come to mind — sort of know the tricks there. It takes a pretty talented driver to be willing to experiment out there, and Phoenix rewards the ones who find the tricks.”

Fantasy Stall
Looking at Checkers: With apologies to Dover and Martinsville, this may be Jimmie Johnson’s best track.
Pretty Solid Pick: We’re not sold on the Mark Martin/Lance McGrew pairing, but they’ll be good here.
Good Sleeper Pick: The RCR boys are usually pretty tough on the flat tracks.
Runs on Seven Cylinders: You may want to steer clear of the Red Bull drivers.
Insider Tip: Denny Hamlin had the November edition of this race won until he was forced to hit pit road for a splash of gas. And after a disappointing Daytona, this team will be looking to redeem itself.

Classic Moments at PIR
For the first time in 13 years, The King returns to Victory Lane. Bobby Hamilton, driving Richard Petty’s No. 43 STP Pontiac, leads 40 laps in the 1996 Dura Lube 500 at PIR to earn his first career Cup win.

Hamilton loses the lead on pit road, falling to fourth for a lap 266 restart, but he blows by Mark Martin and Terry Labonte within seven laps, and gets by Geoff Bodine 10 laps later to secure his first of three career cup triumphs.

“I’ve told a lot of people, there’s Dale Earnhardt fans or Bill Elliott fans, but when those guys fall out of the race, they’re still Richard Petty fans,” Hamilton says. “I thought it was pretty cool to win this race for him.”
 

Photo by ASP, Inc.

by Mike Neff

Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500, but that doesn’t mean he’s the early favorite to win the Sprint Cup championship. Listening to talking heads from ESPN to Bob’s Big Boy, Bayne is not only poised to win every race this season, but he very well could be the next Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon all rolled into one squeaky-clean driving machine. The Sprint Cup Series has the longest season in professional sports and if history has taught us anything over the last 30 years, it’s that the winner of the Daytona 500 is about as far from a lock to win the championship as it can get.

Gordon and Johnson are the only champions in the last three decades to win Daytona and also take home the title. For the most part, the 500 has been a curse more than a blessing, particularly over the last few years. Since Johnson’s win in 2006, only Kevin Harvick has parlayed a Daytona 500 win into a Chase berth — and even then he finished 10th in the 2007 standings, while failing to visit Victory Lane again that season.

Bayne has wisely decided to stick with the original plan for the 2011 season: running a full Nationwide schedule and competing in around 20 Cup Series races for the Wood Brothers. Bayne is still only 20 years old and has only competed in 51 Nationwide races to go with two Cup starts. The experience he’ll gain running for a title in NASCAR’s Triple-A division will go a long way in preparing him to run a full-time Cup schedule in the future.

So since Bayne isn’t going to run away with the Cup Series this year, the question turns to what can be made of the rest of the field, and who is going to claim the title in 2011? Only three drivers who were in the Chase last year managed to finish in the top 10 of the Daytona 500, while six drivers finished 27th or worse — including Johnson and Harvick.

The retooled points system penalizes bad days more than it rewards good ones, with a greater disparity between a first-place finish and last on a percentage basis. The old point system paid 190 for winning a race and 34 points for finishing last, or 17 percent of the winner’s total. The new system gives first place 43 points and last place one, which is only two percent of the winner’s points. Therefore, a couple of finishes in the bottom three or four spots make the climb to Chase contention extremely difficult.

With Bayne’s decision to run for the Nationwide title this year, Carl Edwards is the points leader at this juncture, with 42 points to his credit. Conversely, Harvick blew up early in the 500 and came home 42nd which, by virtue of leading a lap, means he earned only three championship points. In order for Harvick to catch Edwards he’ll have to finish a spot in front of him in every race between now and the Chase while leading laps in half of them without Edwards leading any. That may not be too big of a hill to climb, but should Harvick have another dismal finish at Phoenix, he’ll face a very difficult task to make it back to the top of the mountain.

Harvick isn’t the only driver with a tough row to hoe. Johnson, Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Burton and Greg Biffle are all outside the top 20 in points. Mind you, these drivers were in the playoffs last season, and the majority will be there once again, but disappointing seasons have happened before, making the pressure to avoid another bad finish high. And with a new, unfamiliar points system, there are bound to be some wrinkles as the year unfolds.

The best thing about putting Daytona to bed and heading to Phoenix is that the drivers feel they control their own destiny. Restrictor plate tracks are a crapshoot where ending the day wadded up is just as likely as going to Victory Lane. It’s a good bet that most of last season’s Chase participants who had serious trouble at Daytona will begin their climb back towards the top. However, they may not be able to catch Edwards. Don’t forget the Daytona runner-up was the first to cross the finish line at Phoenix last fall before he went to Homestead and notched a second-straight win to cap the season. His performance earned him the praise of the media during the offseason — he’s the trendy pick to knock Johnson off his championship perch — while signifying the return of the Blue Oval gang after an extended slump.

There is so much excitement leading up to the Daytona 500 and once the race ends, that energy can cloud fans’ and media members’ judgment about the rest of the season. Sure, it’s exciting to see a legendary racing team visit Victory Lane for the first time in nearly 10 years, and with a humble young driver in his second Cup start, to boot. However, his trip into the Phoenix wall in Friday’s first practice session was a jolt of reality.

It is just as easy to see perennial Chasers stumble out of the blocks and wonder whether they’ll be able to contend for the title. Just remember that Daytona is a plate race and anything can happen. Now that the schedule turns to Phoenix we’ll get a little better idea of who improved over the winter and who is bound to take a step back.