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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Talkin’ Smack With Pedley & Jensen
Denny Hamlin desperately wants and needs another Martinsville victory...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted March 25, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Denny Hamlin needs a good run at Martinsville. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Welcome to this week’s edition of Talkin’ Smack.

For the second week in a row, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads back to its roots with some short-track racing, this time at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. And they will be joined this week by the always entertaining NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams, who’ll race in Saturday’s Kroger 250.

Here to talk a little smack about this weekend’s racing at Martinsville and the NASCAR season to date are Jim Pedley, founder of www.RacinToday.com, and SPEEDtv.com Editor In Chief Tom Jensen.

In the immortal words of NASCAR officials, “Have at it, boys!”

True or false: Denny Hamlin wins again at Martinsville on Sunday.
PEDLEY: False. That team has has some things it needs to get sorted before anybody can start thinking Hamlin will win a race again. Some of Hamlin's problems can be traced to bad luck this season, some have more earthly explanations. But win this week? Not happening. Not even at his home track.

JENSEN: True. Look at the numbers: Since the fall 2006 Martinsville race, here’s where Hamlin has finished at the South Virginia paper clip: Second, third, sixth, first, fifth, second, first. Hamlin is going to get his season turned around on Sunday and win the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500. And if he doesn’t, he’s damn sure going to come close. Hamlin will be relaxed, confident and fast on Sunday.

True or false: Dale Earnhardt Jr. makes the Chase.
JENSEN: False. Again, look at the numbers. Yeah, through five races, Earnhardt is an impressive eighth in points. But that’s heavily skewed because of his runner-up finish at Daytona. In the four races since then, Junior has had an average finish of 17.5. Worse yet, he hasn’t led a single stinkin’ lap since then. Not one. That’s not how you make it to NASCAR’s playoff round. Until he starts regularly leading races, I don’t think he’s got what it takes to make a title run.

PEDLEY: True. The crowd of those who think Dale Earnhardt Jr. has what it takes to win a Sprint Cup championship continues to thin. I'm sticking around a bit longer. There have been just enough signs over the last two seasons to indicate that when the luck improves, the driver will win.

At what race will we here drivers complaining about the spoilers?
PEDLEY: The honeymoon ends at Texas. That is when passes for the lead will become as rare as they were in the days before wings were put on the cars. The spoilers have been tested what, four times by 50 cars and the big talk coming out of the tests has been about how cool they look.

JENSEN: I say it won’t even get that far. By Phoenix, there will be one or two guys — or more — pissin’ and moanin’ about how well they used to run on the one-mile desert oval. We already had Carl Edwards complaining about how slow he was in Wednesday’s test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. It’s only a matter of time before the pity party breaks out.

What driver is most likely to have a meltdown this weekend at Martinsville?
PEDLEY: Juan Pablo Montoya. Things are not going as planned for Montoya and his team this year. He is 26th in points and needs a podium. That means he could be pushing like crazy this weekend. Martinsville is not a good place to push like crazy. Crazy needs room. Martinsville has very little room.

JENSEN: I’m going to say Tony Stewart. The two-time NASCAR champion usually runs great at Martinsville, but he’s been in a foul mood all year. When Stewart’s a powder keg waiting to explode, sooner or later, someone will light the fuse. And it’s likely that fuse will get lit on Sunday.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

Jim Pedley is a veteran, award-winning sports journalist who has worked at, among other places, the Boston Globe, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Kansas City Star. Pedley spent more than 10 years covering auto racing for the Kansas City Star. Pedley can be reached at jpedley@racintoday.com

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

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