Winless Drought Ended, Junior Focuses On Championship
For Dale Earnhardt Jr., "when" has become "what’s next?"With a four-year, 143-race victory drought decisively broken last Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, Junior can shift his focus on both long-term and immediate goals.
Earnhardt and crew chief Steve Letarte – who also ended a lengthy non-winning streak, 115 races dating to 2009 – are in the thick of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship hunt. Matt Kenseth, who finished third at Michigan, retains the standings lead, but Earnhardt’s victory cut the margin to four points. The last time Earnhardt held the points lead was October 2004.
Solid understates the No. 88 Chevrolet team’s performance 15 races into the 2012 season. Earnhardt and Letarte have a series-leading 12 top-10 finishes and have completed all 4,648 scheduled laps.
"I want to try to win a championship. That’s what you run the whole season for and our team has really, really good speed now," said Earnhardt, who qualified for last year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup™ after a two-year absence and finished seventh. "We ran well last year in the Chase, but we weren’t in the battle for the championship.
"If we can put together this type of performance in the Chase, I don’t see why we can’t consider ourselves with an opportunity to challenge for the championship. I've never had bonus points for the Chase. So that's neat."
Which brings Earnhardt to the immediate – Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 on Sonoma’s 1.99-mile road course. While the 37-year-old veteran has run well at Watkins Glen International, posting a pair of top-five finishes, Earnhardt is still waiting to break through at the Northern California layout with a trio of 11th-place finishes his best in 12 starts.
"We have to go to Sonoma and figure out how to get around there and how to get my first top 10 at that place," he said.
Last year’s Sonoma race was a complete bust. Earnhardt wound up 41st after accident damage caused his car’s engine to overheat.
Standings Squabble Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This
Roush Fenway Racing vs. Hendrick Motorsports.Former champions Matt Kenseth vs. Jimmie Johnson.
Ford vs. Chevrolet.
What’s not to like about the current state of the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship battle?
Eleven races remain until the lineup for NASCAR’s post season is finalized, but the top four spots on the current leaderboard is about as good as it gets.
RFR’s Kenseth, the 2003 series champion and this year’s Daytona 500 winner, carries a four-point lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. into Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350. Kenseth’s teammate, Greg Biffle, who headed the standings for much of the year, is a close third followed by Johnson, a two-time winner in 2012.
Of note, each member of the quartet occupied a top-five finishing position in Michigan.
Sonoma’s road course, however, is another story. Kenseth, Earnhardt and Biffle have yet to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup road race. Johnson won at Sonoma in 2010.
Roush Fenway Racing has just a single win on the 1.99-mile layout – Mark Martin’s 1997 victory. Hendrick Motorsports leads all winning organizations at Sonoma with six victories.
While Chevrolet leads all manufacturers at Sonoma with 10 victories, the automaker has gone to Victory Lane just once since 2006. Ford’s last win, by Ricky Rudd, came in 2002. Dodge has been the manufacturer of note with three wins in the last six races, including Kurt Busch’s first-ever NASCAR Sprint Cup road racing triumph a year ago.
Once Gordon’s Playground, Sonoma Now A Challenge
Once upon a time, Jeff Gordon owned Sonoma’s road course, winning five times, including three victories in a row between 1998 and 2000.Times – along with the NASCAR Sprint Cup car and race procedures – have changed.
Now, Gordon, a native of the nearby community of Vallejo, calls the 1.99-mile track "a challenge."
His last victory came in 2006 before the introduction of the current car. "The new Chevy Impala came along and it changed everything," he said. "We’re not able to shift things (weight) around as much as we used to. This car doesn’t change direction as much. It made it a little more challenging to drive and it’s really leveled the playing field."
The competition, Gordon agreed, also is deeper. The series’ two road races, at Sonoma on Sunday and in August at Watkins Glen International, once were an afterthought for many teams. No longer.
"When I started, maybe half the field took short track cars to the road course and adapted to it," said Gordon. "Now, pretty much every car is a special car for a road course."
Then came double-file restarts. The right line for one corner can put a driver in the wrong line for the next.
"You have to push and shove a lot more to get that position after a restart," he said, explaining why Sunday’s race could resemble a short track scrum at Martinsville Speedway. "After a restart, that’s nowadays where the excitement comes on the road course."
Bowyer, Keselowski Could Be ‘Next Up’
Sonoma has a habit of anointing first-time NASCAR Sprint Cup road race winners – five straight and counting.Either Clint Bowyer or Brad Keselowski could see his name added to the list on Sunday.
Bowyer has proved to be a fast learner. In six starts at Sonoma, the Kansan has yet to finish off the lead lap. He’s notched fourth-place finishes three times, most recently in 2011. Bowyer has a Sonoma Driver Rating of 85.1, third best among drivers in the current top 10 in the points standings. Bowyer has a series-high 455 green flag passes on the 1.99-mile layout since the inception of the Loop Data statistic in 2005.
Keselowski isn’t a road course rookie but hardly a veteran, by any measure. He’ll make just his third Sonoma start on Sunday, but can reflect on last year’s 10th-place performance as a positive harbinger.
What sets Keselowski apart from other non-winners is his near victory at Watkins Glen International last August. The Michigan native, driving with a broken ankle, finished second, losing the lead to Marcos Ambrose with two laps remaining.
Keselowski, like Bowyer, is battling to hold onto a Chase qualifying position. He enters Sunday’s race 10th in the standings, with two victories.
Montoya, Gordon Hope To Crash ‘Wild Card’ Party
A mostly forgettable season brightened last weekend when Juan Pablo Montoya finished eighth at Michigan International Speedway. The finish was only his second among the top 10 through the year’s first 15 races.A brighter side: Montoya scored enough points to reach the top 20 (19th) and eligibility for a Chase "wild card." Joining him was Jeff Gordon (20th), who recorded his 400th NASCAR Sprint Cup top-10 finish. Next task: Win, as much as possible. Both Gordon and Montoya are past Sonoma winners.
After race No. 26, the top-10 drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points standings will earn a spot in the 12-driver Chase. Spots 11 and 12 will go to those drivers outside the top 10 with the most wins, provided they are in the top 20.
Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman are the current "wild card" holders, 12th and 13th, respectively, in points. Joey Logano (15th) and Kasey Kahne (16th) also have won a single race.
Carl Edwards, Paul Menard, Marcos Ambrose and Jamie McMurray are the remaining drivers in positions 11 through 20 still seeking their first 2012 victories.
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