Is Chicagoland a barometer for the rest of the Chase?

Is Chicagoland a barometer for the rest of the Chase?

 

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

 

(September 17, 2011)

 

JOLIET, Ill.—The reshuffling of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule may provide a quicker indication of who’s to be feared in NASCAR’s 10-race playoff.

 

The Chase starts Sunday with the Geico 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, one of five intermediate speedways in the Chase.

 

“I think it’ll be an important race, because it’ll not only show you how good you are or how bad you are, it’ll show you who your competition may or may not be, and it could have a big impact on people’s confidence,” Chase driver Carl Edwards told Sporting News.

 

“If you have a bad race there, it’s going to be tough.”

 

Kevin Harvick, who enters the Chase tied for the series points lead with Kyle Busch, isn’t convinced Chicagoland will be a predictor for the rest of the Chase.

 

“The easy answer would be, ‘Yes,’ ” Harvick told Sporting News, “but I think a lot of the guys would tell you (that) you can go to what your best track is, and you can go to what your worst track is—and we’ve won at some of what we thought our worst tracks were.

 

“It’s so easy to be off at any given racetrack nowadays because there are so many competitive cars. You just never know. It should be a good sign, but it could just be somebody making a small mistake in setting the splitter angle, so you just never know.”

 

 

 

Earnhardt: It’s human nature

 

When you talk to a Sprint Cup driver before practice, you don’t often get a philosophical statement. Nevertheless, discussion of Paul Menard’s late-race spin last week at Richmond gave Dale Earnhardt Jr. a chance to express himself about human nature.

 

Without opining whether Menard spun on purpose to cause a caution and help Harvick, a Richard Childress Racing teammate, Earnhardt said that, in general terms, that sort of incident is bound to happen from time to time.

 

“We’re all human beings, so, yes, things will happen, and things do happen, and things like that probably do go on,” Earnhardt said. “As long as human beings are involved, there will be a certain level of corruption, you know.”

 

 

Stewart: Confidence isn’t high

 

Tony Stewart wasn’t exactly brimming with optimism when he took questions from reporters this week in Chicago.

 

In fact, the two-time Cup champion—the only driver who has won a title before and after the Chase was introduced in 2004—seemed subdued when addressing his chances in the Chase.

 

“I feel like we’re the underdog,” said Stewart, who is winless through 26 races and finished the regular season ninth in points. “We just haven’t been on par this year. We were good enough to get here, but we’ve got to have a revelation to (compete) in the next 10 weeks.

 

“I think, for sure, this is the least amount of confidence I’ve had going into it, but at the same time, you look at it and you go, ‘Well, you’re not expected to do anything with the way we’ve run this year, so anything that we get will be a bonus.’ ”

 

Despite the pessimism, Stewart isn’t giving up on the idea of a third title.

 

“It doesn’t mean that we’re out of it by any means,” he said. “We had two really good weeks in a row (at Atlanta and Richmond). We’ve got two tracks coming up here (Chicagoland and New Hampshire) that are good tracks for us, so it does show that we’ve got potential.”