JENSEN: Hitting The Homestretch

Sprint Cup

JENSEN: Hitting The Homestretch

Two races remain before the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup cranks up...

Tom Jensen | Posted August 30, 2010 Charlotte, NC

SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)

After 24 races, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is about to hit the homestretch, with the final two weeks of the regular season coming up at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night and then at Richmond International Raceway six days after that.

Last weekend was the fourth and final break in the schedule, which will end with 12 consecutive races between now and the week before Thanksgiving.

Barring any major turnaround, the top 12 drivers in points right now likely will still be in the top 12 after Richmond. Twelfth-place Clint Bowyer leads Jamie McMurray by 100 points and Mark Martin by 101, so the final Chase slot is Bowyer’s to lose.

When the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins, each of the 12 drivers will have his point total reset to 5000, plus 10 points for each regular season race victory. As of right now, Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson each have 50 bonus points, with Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch on 30 each.

Six drivers in the top 12 — Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth and Bowyer — have not won a race all year long. In fact, Burton, Bowyer and Edwards are winless since 2008.

While the top 12 is pretty much a done deal, nothing else is at this point.

As of right now, Harvick has a whopping 279-point lead over Gordon, but even if he wins the next two races, Harvick’s best-case scenario is entering the Chase in a three-way tie for the lead with Hamlin and Johnson.

Although he’s had a good season, second-place Gordon has only one finish better than 10th in the last five races, a sixth-place run at Pocono. In the other four races in that stretch, Gordon has led a total of just two laps.

Kyle Busch is red-hot. Currently third in points, Busch won the most recent Cup race at Bristol and has won four consecutive races in NASCAR’s top three divisions. But he’s been known to struggle in the Chase.

Also red-hot at the moment is fourth-place driver Edwards, who has an average finish of 5.43 in his last seven Cup starts and worst finish in that time of 12th at Bristol. On the other hand, Edwards has led just six laps all season.

Hamlin? He’s got five victories on the season, but none in his last nine starts, when his average finish has plummeted to 19.22. Twice in the last three races, he’s finished 34th or worse, not a good omen.

Stewart has had a good summer in his second year as a co-owner/driver in his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet. Before smacking the wall and finishing 27th at Bristol, Stewart had finished ninth or better in nine of the previous 10 races.

Burton should have won at least three races this season, but has been unable to seal the deal, scoring just four top-five finishes, one each coming home second, third, fourth and fifth.

Kenseth was 10th at Bristol and fifth the race before that at Michigan. Prior to that, however, came a streak of nine consecutive races outside the top 10, not what he was looking for.

My SPEED is devoted to the passionate fans who celebrate motorcycles, motorsports and the automotive lifestyle.

And then there’s the utterly bi-polar season of four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson: Five victories on the year, but five finishes of 22nd or worse in the last seven races.

Kurt Busch has been almost as erratic: His last 10 races have produced three top-three finishes and four of 26th or worse. That’s not the direction he wants this time of year.

Greg Biffle is someone who has huge upside at this point in the season. After struggling early, Biffle has one victory, three top-fives and four top-10s in his last five starts. The only place he didn’t run well was Watkins Glen, a place he’s fought with in the past. And there are no road courses in the Chase.

Bowyer, meanwhile, has run better than he’s finished most weeks, although he’s done better in that department than either McMurray or Martin of late, which is why he’s 12th at the moment.

Add it all up, and what do you get? A whole truckload of questions. And it will take the next 12 weeks before we get the answers. So hold on, the best part of the season is still to come.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR

CUP: 2014 NASCAR Hall Of Fame Class A Family Affair
Dale Jarrett will join his father Ned in the NASCAR Hall of Fame...…
CUP: Tim Flock, Maurice Petty Lead 2014 Hall Class
Tim Flock and Maurice Petty were two of five legends voted into the…
CUP: Voting Day At NASCAR Hall Of Fame
The next five members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame will be voted in…