Three’s A Charm:

Three’s A Charm: Sadler, Stenhouse And Dillon All Chasing The Title

A championship battle among the top three in the standings has broken out and with 12 races in the books, only 14 points separate the trio. Nothing fires up the competition in the NASCAR Nationwide Series like fresh pavement and high speeds, and this week the series heads north for the Alliance Truck Parts 250 on a freshly repaved MIS.
RCR’s Elliott Sadler is 12 points ahead of second-place Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and 14 points up on third-place Austin Dillon heading into the weekend.  Sadler’s consistency has been the key to his success: He has rallied off two poles, two wins, six top fives and a series-leading 10 top-10 finishes.
Sadler will be a force to be reckoned with at Michigan. He has made seven starts at the 2-mile speedway, posting four top 10s, including a seventh-place performance in last season’s event.
Stenhouse, on the other hand, must rebound. He has posted two consecutive finishes outside the top 25, resulting in the loss of the standings lead to Sadler. But Michigan could be the perfect remedy for Stenhouse. Jack Roush, his team owner, bases his Roush Industries in Livonia, Mich., making this a "home" race. He was arguably the strongest car in this race last year before being overtaken by his teammate and 2007 series champion Carl Edwards on Lap 116 of the 125-lap event. He finished 13th in his MIS Nationwide debut in 2010.
Let’s not forget Dillon has crashed the party as well. Dillon, a Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate, is just two points behind Stenhouse, and though he has yet to post his first series win, he has six top fives and nine top 10s this season. Dillon will pull double duty this weekend, making his second career NSCS start for RCR in the No. 33 American Ethanol Chevrolet. Dillon won the pole and finished fifth as a NASCAR Camping World Truck rookie at Michigan in 2010.
While Sadler and Dillon have more momentum heading into this weekend key NASCAR pre-race Loop Data categories point to Stenhouse as the driver to watch. Stenhouse is ranked third in the series in Driver Rating with a 108.8. He leads the series in Average Running Position at Michigan with a 7.076. 

Logano Can Give Toyota First Series Win At Michigan

With Kyle Busch primarily focusing his NNS efforts on his Kyle Busch Motorsport’s No. 54 Toyota, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Joey Logano, has assumed the position of JGR’s NNS patriarch. It’s a role in which Logano seems quite comfortable.    
Logano looks to build on his series-leading four wins – three in his last four races – Saturday at Michigan. He’ll also try to increase the lead of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing in the Nationwide Series owner standings, which currently is 34 points over Sadler’s No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Logano comes in savoring his second career NASCAR Sprint Cup victory last Sunday at Pocono.
 A win by Logano – or any other Toyota driver in the field – would be a big one. Toyota has yet to win at Michigan in the NNS. Different manufacturers have been represented by the last three winners. He was sixth in this race last year, running in the No. 20 JGR Toyota.

Little Gator Bites Back

Although he finished a career-best third in the 2011 NNS standings, Justin Allgaier was disappointed with his overall season. He felt, in his first year with Turner Motorsports, that he’d be a serious challenger for the championship. He did lead the points for three weeks and won his second career race. But Allgaier never truly got untracked.
Through the first nine races of 2012, it seemed as though momentum was still eluding Allgaier. He started with a 33rd-place finish at Daytona and, though he recorded four top-10 finishes in the next eight races to climb into the top 10 in the points, he couldn’t find the consistency needed to move in the standings.
But the pendulum may finally be swinging in Allgaier’s favor. He finished sixth at Iowa, his best result since last fall at Atlanta when he also was sixth. He followed that up with an eighth-place run at Charlotte and two weeks ago at Dover, logged his first top-five finish since last July, when he was fourth at Nashville. This is the first time since 2010 he has put together three consecutive top 10s. At Michigan, he’s got an average finish of 8.0 with one top five.
Allgaier headed to Macon Speedway in Macon, Ill., on Tuesday night for NASCAR Night of Stars 2 to pilot his No. 31 BRANDT dirt modified car.

NASCAR Nationwide Series, Etc.

 NNS teams return to action this week at MIS, the first of what will be a 16-race stretch in the schedule. The teams will receive extended practice time on Michigan’s new surface. Three practices are scheduled on Friday, the first from 8:30-9:50 a.m. EDT. Qualifying order will be based off the last two practice sessions. … Brad Keselowski, the 2010 series champion, returns to the series at MIS for the first time since Charlotte, where he won his first race of the year. A native of Rochester Hills, Mich., he’s won two of the last three races at his home track. … Brad Sweet’s entry in the No. 38 Turner Motorsports Chevrolet marks the first time he’ll have run consecutive races in his NNS career. Sweet comes off his first career World of Outlaws win for Kasey Kahne Racing, last June 8 in the Clay County Cup in Spencer, Iowa.