Top 5 and 5 to watch: Atlanta

Top 5 and 5 to watch: Atlanta


By Bill Marx

Sporting News NASCAR  Service

Here's a look at the top five drivers in the Sprint Cup Series standings and five drivers to watch in Sunday night's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. All statistical references are for Sprint Cup races at Atlanta unless otherwise indicated. Driver rating is based on the past 11 races at the track.

1. Kevin Harvick, 81.1 driver rating. Two of Harvick's four top fives came here in 2009, and he finished ninth in March. Everything points to another top 10 or even his second win. His first was one of the most famous in NASCAR history—in the No 29 Goodwrench Chevrolet in 2001 in his third Cup start.
2. Jeff Gordon, 101.8. Gordon finished 18th in March for only his second finish outside the top 10 in the past five years. None of those eight top 10s was a win, though, and that continues to be Gordon's problem: Great finishes, no wins. He has four wins at Atlanta , the last in 2003.
3. Kyle Busch, 88.7. In 2008, Busch won and finished fifth. Those are his only top 10s in 12 starts. He finished 25th in March. There are five intermediate tracks in the Chase. A strong finish Sunday sends a strong message. A weak finish casts doubt that the No. 18 team is championship material.
4. Carl Edwards, 99.4. Edwards has three wins but finishes of 37th and 39th in his past two starts. Much of the focus will be on Edwards' feud with Brad Keselowski and what happened in March. But that was five months ago, and in racing time, a lifetime ago. Edwards wasn't competitive early in the season. He is now. His first win since 2008 is a real possibility.
5. Denny Hamlin, 94.5. In his past three starts on intermediate tracks, Hamlin has a win, an eighth and a second. But Hamlin is winless since that win at Michigan in June with three finishes of 34th or worse. That kind of wild inconsistency will sink him in the Chase. He has three top 10s in 10 starts at Atlanta .

Five to watch:

12. Clint Bowyer, 81.8. Bowyer has an odd record at Atlanta : four sixth-place finishes and five finishes from 20th to 29th. He leads Jamie McMurray by 100 points and Mark Martin by 101. A fifth sixth-place finish should just about sew up a spot in the Chase.
13. Jamie McMurray, 71.6. McMurray's average finish of 20.9 in 16 starts doesn't bode well. He has four top 10s and no top fives. But as wins at Daytona and Indianapolis prove, McMurray has the car to pull off a top-five finish. If he has any chance of catching Bowyer, he needs a top five while Bowyer stumbles to a finish in the 20s. Say McMurray finishes fifth and Bowyer 25th. That's a 67-point difference (with no laps led by either). If that happens, Richmond becomes very, very interesting.
14. Mark Martin, 85.7. Martin needs that same scenario to play out, but the No. 5 team hasn't shown nearly the punch of the McMurray's No. 1 team. Martin has two wins and 14 top fives in 49 starts, but he also has 15 DNFs, including three for crashes in his past eight starts. One of those crash DNFs was in March. If that happens again, there will be no miracles for Martin in 2010.
15. Ryan Newman, 71.0. Newman shares the Atlanta pole record with Buddy Baker (seven), but Newman hasn't done much with the great starting positions. He has one top five in 17 starts and a 17.9 average finish. If ever Newman needed a second top five, it's Sunday. He trails Bowyer by 118 points.
16. Kasey Kahne, 93.3. Kahne is 136 back. He needs everything to fall in place to make the Chase for the second year in a row. History in Atlanta —not in past Races to the Chase—is on his side. He has two wins and six top fives in 13 starts. He won this race last year and finished fourth in March. He must make it three top fives in a row for any chance at making Richmond relevant for his No. 9 team.