Top 5 and 5 to watch: Richmond

Top 5 and 5 to watch: Richmond


By Bill Marx
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

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

1. Kevin Harvick, 114.0 driver rating. Harvick has 10 top 10s in his past 11 starts, including his only victory, which came in this race in 2006. Harvick finished third in May. He has 30 bonus points, 20 fewer than Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin. All three are strong at Richmond.
2. Jeff Gordon, 99.5. The 10 bonus points Gordon would get for winning his first race of the year is secondary to simply winning a race. Only Harvick has more top fives this year, and Gordon's recent record at Richmond parallels his season: He hasn't finished worse than ninth since 2006, including four top fives. He led 144 laps and finished second in May.
3. Kyle Busch, 114.1. Busch won in May for his second win in 11 starts. His record at Richmond is phenomenal: Nine top fives plus finishes of 15th and 20th. He won from the pole in May, leading 226 laps.
4. Tony Stewart, 98.2. Stewart's three wins in 23 starts came early in his career, but he still has 15 top 10s. He finished 23rd in May and 17th last September. In his previous four starts, Stewart finished second three times and fourth. Stewart won last week and has the car and confidence to make it two in a row.
5. Carl Edwards, 79.5. Even though Edwards is winless, no driver has been stronger over the past three months. He finished second last week for his seventh finish of seventh or better in the past eight races. Edwards hasn't excelled at Richmond—his one top five in 12 starts came in May—but he is peaking and knows he has nothing to lose and a lot to gain Saturday night. In fact, so does everyone except 12th-place Clint Bowyer. We should see a great race.

Five to watch:

6. Jeff Burton, 86.8. Virginia-born Burton can erase a season's worth of frustration with a win Saturday night. His lone win in 32 starts came in 1998. He finished fourth in May for his 15th top 10.
7. Jimmie Johnson, 87.0. Johnson has three wins, two of them coming in this race, which is a message-sender going into the Chase. He finished third last week, ending a string of subpar performances that maybe suggest this might not be Johnson's year. But if he is strong Saturday night, the messages will flip to business as usual, and doubters beware.
10. Denny Hamlin, 117.4. Hamlin said his Chase started in Atlanta, and he went out and won his first pole of the season and dominated early, leading 74 laps. Then his engine failed. Now the recurring "reliability issues" have returned. Hamlin grew up in the Richmond area, and this race is very important to him. He has one win in nine starts but easily could have more wins, including in 2008 when he led 381 of the first 382 laps before cutting a tire and finishing 24th.
12. Clint Bowyer, 93.7. Bowyer has a 117-point lead over Ryan Newman for the final Chase spot. It would take a calamity beyond all calamities for Bowyer to miss the Chase. The most points a driver has made up to make the Chase at Richmond is 55 by Jeremy Mayfield in 2004. One of Bowyer's two career wins is at Richmond, and he is too strong there—10.2 average finish and no finish worse than 18th—for him to miss the Chase.
13. Ryan Newman, 93.8. Newman needs a miracle. Is that going to happen? No, but as my father would say, "That's why they're called miracles." Newman has one win and 11 top 10s in 17 starts, so he knows his way around the track. Simply put, he needs win No. 2 and something bad to happen to Bowyer.