It’s time for another Brad Keselowski win, and Texas might just be the place. [Mark Walczak Photo]
by Dan Margetta and John Wiedemann
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rolls into the Lone Star state as the Texas Motor Speedway hosts the AAA Texas 500 Sunday afternoon.
AAA Texas 500 Texas Motor Speedway 500 miles (334 laps) Sunday, Nov. 2, 3 pm ET ESPN, 2 pm ET
PRN, Sirius XM Ch. 90
The Texas Motor Speedway is another of the 1.5 mile tri-oval type circuits that make up the majority of the Sprint Cup schedule. So far this season, races on these types of tracks have been dominated by the Penske and Hendrick Motorsports teams. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s victory at Martinsville last week as a non-chaser means that at least two positions in the Homestead final four will now be filled by points and there are just two automatic berths available for the Chasers should they win here at Texas or next week at Phoenix.
It’s the middle event of the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup and here are some drivers to keep your eyes on, and guess what – they are all Chasers …
Brad Keselowski
(Dan Margetta): Once again in this Chase, Brad Keselowski finds himself with his back against the wall, on the brink of elimination, with the only way of advancing being to capture a victory. He faced a similar scenario two weeks ago and responded with a ‘Hail Mary’ win at Talladega. Can he do it again? While he has never won at Texas, this year’s statistics say he can as he has three victories this season on 1.5 mile tracks similar to Texas. He finished 15th here earlier this season after a speeding penalty on the final pit stop while teammate Joey Logano won but Keselowski has been a factor on every 1.5 mile circuit this season. He’s listed as a 5-1 favorite because it seems when Brad Keselowski is backed into a corner, he comes out swinging and it’s very tough to keep him and this team down. He doesn’t make a lot of friends along the way but Brad Keselowski gets the job done and with victories at Las Vegas, Kentucky, and Chicago already this season, the Texas 1.5 mile circuit is the best scenario for Keselowski to punch his ticket into the Homestead finals.
“Yeah, it’s still tough to do,” Keselowski said. “It’s not like we’re just gonna go and guarantee a win at Texas and Phoenix, but it’s also not impossible, and we’ve got the team … to pull it off.”
Joey Logano
(John Wiedemann): Currently in a “glass is half-full, half-empty” position in the standings, Joey Logano is just four points behind standings leader Jeff Gordon. On the other hand Logano is 3 points ahead of Denny Hamlin in fifth place in the standings. Logano won the spring race at Texas and has a 4.2 average finish in the seven Chase races so far with two wins and 1 finish outside of the top five, 11th at Talladega. Throughout the season so far, Logano has averaged a fifth place finish at 1.5 mile tracks with two wins. Logano’s biggest competitor this weekend may just be his teammate Brad Keselowski. Team Penske has been strong all season but probably the strongest on the 1.5 ovals. The question is, what if the two teammates are battling for the win that one needs more than the other, kind of like the end of the Martinsville race last weekend… it could get real interesting.
Kevin Harvick
DM: Like Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick also finds himself in the elimination danger zone after being in the wrong place at the wrong time at Martinsville, in need of a victory to advance forward in the Chase. Harvick won the last race on a 1.5 mile track a few weeks ago at Charlotte in somewhat dominating fashion so a strong run here at Texas should not be a surprise. He has yet to win at Texas but does have three top five finishes and based on his performances on the 1.5 mile tracks lately, he’s listed as a 9-2 favorite. Earlier this season at Texas, he finished a disastrous 42nd and absolutely cannot afford another bad luck run. Understandably frustrated after last week’s Martinsville race where he finished 33rd, Harvick and the #4 team need to be able to show they can put their emotions aside and get down to business at Texas to step up for a much needed victory. The trend this season is for this team to beat themselves and when emotions are let to run the show, the opportunity for mistakes escalates. Kevin Harvick needs to realize that this week at Texas and focus on getting to victory lane.
Jeff Gordon
JW: It seems like it is impossible to pry Jeff Gordon from the top of the standings, and that is where he is again following his second place finish at Martinsville. But, the battle is close at the top and just like at Talladega, no one is safe. For a long time, Texas was the one lone track on the schedule that Gordon could not find his way to victory lane. Gordon finally got the Texas win in 2009, but since then his results have been mixed with more bad than good runs. The low point was last year with two finishes of 38th place. The silver lining in those dark clouds was Gordon’s run this season in the spring Duck Commander 500 at Texas. Gordon started 12th and led 40 laps on his way to a runner up finish. For the majority of the race Gordon ran in the top three and led at the end after a two tire GWC pit stop until Joey Logano made a last lap pass to take the victory. With two tires or no tires, if Gordon is leading at the end on Sunday, he will not let anyone by – no matter what. If the race has a green-white-checker finish at the end, you can bet it’s going to end with a wreck.
Matt Kenseth
DM: The Texas Motor Speedway is one of Matt Kenseth’s favorite tracks and his record here proves it with two victories and 13 top five finishes. He owns the best average finishing position here and has the best driver rating at this circuit. While a win should look promising statistics wise, victories have been hard to come by for Kenseth in 2014 as he still seeks his first trip to victory lane this season. The team has improved their performances on the 1.5 mile tracks and he’s listed at 10-1 odds this week for Texas. A Texas victory and a ticket to the Homestead finals would also be welcome for Kenseth as it would force the threatened retaliation from Kevin Harvick to occur in the championship event which could lead to dire consequences from the sanctioning body for the aggressor. The best path to a Matt Kenseth championship runs through Texas’ victory lane and for a team that has been knocking on the door for that first win all season, it’s definitely not out of the question.
Ryan Newman
JW: Look who is still here. Not many picked Ryan Newman to be in the final eight and after just one race in the Eliminator round he is just three points out of the lead. Newman has consistently improved during the Chase and scored top ten finishes in the last five races as well as top five finishes in the last two. Newman struggled at Texas in the spring, starting eighth and falling to sixteenth by the time the checkers flew. It’s going to take a better run this weekend. Races like Newman’s last two 1.5 mile track runs would help. At Kansas, Newman started 17th and climbed up the leaderboard all day long to finish sixth. And at Charlotte, Newman raced most of the race in the top ten before finishing seventh. With the standings as tight as they are, a top five run is necessary at this point to remain in the mix for the final-four ticket to run for the championship. The way that Newman has been running, a top five run should be in the cards this weekend in Texas.
Carl Edwards
DM: While most “experts earlier this season, this group has surprisingly seemed to grow stronger and they remain in the hunt for the Sprint Cup. Edwards has three Texas wins on his resume however, the last one came in 2008. Edwards finished 14th here earlier this season and while the team was off a bit on the 1.5 mile tracks then, they have improved their performance in recent weeks. Edwards is listed at 30-1 odds this week but all the “lame duck” talk has been a motivator for both driver and team and they seemed to have found a purpose in the final weeks of the season. Realistically Edwards probably needs a victory in the next two races to advance forward but if there is a driver and team poised to steal one in the next two weeks and enter Homestead as a surprise finalist, it’s Carl Edwards and the #99 group.
“It’s not what we wanted,” Edwards said post-race after finishing 20th at Martinsville. “We’ll go to Texas and go for the win. We’ll go to Phoenix and go for the win there and that’s all we can do.”
Denny Hamlin
JW: With almost a 14th place average finish in the Chase races, it is somewhat surprising to see that Denny Hamlin is still in the mix for the Championship. Expect that to continue and not be much of a surprise anymore. Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole has had an inconsistent season and Hamlin has been the poster child. Just look at the “cookie cutter” tracks. Hamlin averaged 21.4 in the first five 1.5 mile track events on the schedule. But in the last four, starting with the Atlanta Motor Speedway race at the end of August, the tide has turned for Hamlin with all top ten finishes and an average run of 6.25 at the mile and a half speedways. Hamlin swept the wins at Texas in 2010 and has nine top ten finishes in 17 races, but only one top ten since those wins. This weekend seems about time to capture another top ten, or what the heck, maybe even a victory.