Busch Must Avoid Previous Kansas Speedway Pitfalls And Notebook

Busch Must Avoid Previous Kansas Speedway Pitfalls

With a trio of top-five finishes – two of them seconds – and an average Chase finish of 3.0, Kyle Busch very well could be on the way to his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship. Busch’s best previous average finish over the first three Chase races, 12.0, came in 2010.

To maintain the momentum, however, he’ll have to survive this weekend’s round at Kansas Speedway.

The 1.5-mile track has been anything but kind to the 28-time premier series winner. Besides being one of six tracks where Busch hasn’t won, Kansas truly has been a thorn in the 28-year-old driver’s side.

Busch has no top fives and just two top 10s – the best a seventh in 2006 – in 12 visits to Kansas Speedway. His average finish of 22.4 is third-worst in Sprint Cup competition behind two other Chase tracks, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.

The Las Vegas driver has finished on the lead lap just 50% of the time and has failed to complete three starts – among them this season’s STP 400 and last fall’s Hollywood Casino 400 in which his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was felled by accidents.

His Driver Rating of 79.0 is 18th best in the series and 11th among Chase qualifiers. Busch, however, is not deterred by his previous lack of success.

“I’m looking forward to Kansas with the roll we’re on,” he said. “I thought we were running decent there last fall. Actually, I was leading and I spun myself out while I was leading. So, hopefully, we have a good car like that this time around and I don’t make a mistake.”

 

Mantra For Harvick, Gordon, Biffle: Nothing Is Over ’Til We Decide It Is

After three Chase races In 2006, Jimmie Johnson sat eighth in the standings, a whopping 165 points behind then-leader Jeff Burton. That, of course, was under the “old” points structure. Under the current one, that 165 figure roughly equates to 33 points.

Over the next seven races, Johnson slashed that deficit to shreds, winning his first championship.

So for the likes of Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle, there’s a precedent for major comebacks. Over? Nothing is over until they decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Heck no.

A look at the aforementioned three, and how their prospects look at Kansas…

Kevin Harvick: Currently 39 points behind leader Matt Kenseth, Harvick has yet to score a win at Kansas. He has six top 10s at Kansas, but only one top five (a third in 2010).

Jeff Gordon: Currently 39 points behind Kenseth, Gordon won the first two NSCS races ever held at Kansas, in 2001-02. More recently, his results have dipped, with only one top 10 in the last four races.

Greg Biffle: Of the three, Biffle is probably the favorite to take home the Kansas trophy. Currently 41 points behind Kenseth, Biffle has two wins at Kansas, as well as seven top fives and nine top 10s.

 

Spoilers Sporting K.C. Swagger

Throughout the Chase’s nine-year history, Kansas Speedway has often offered a welcome opportunity for non-Chase drivers to enter back into the spotlight.

Joe Nemechek boasts the title as “first-ever spoiler,” becoming the first non-Chaser to win a Chase race – at Kansas Speedway in 2004. The trend continued in 2006 and 2007, with Kansas Chase victories by Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle, respectively.

So we may be in store for a surprise this Sunday in Kansas – but the odds remain heavily in favor of Chasers going 4-for-4 to open the Chase. For one, it’s been almost two years since a spoiler won a Chase race. The last came at Phoenix in November of 2011, when Kasey Kahne won while driving for Red Bull Racing. And secondly, Chase competitors are dominating in an unprecedented fashion. At Dover last Sunday, Chase drivers made up the entire top-10 – the first time in Chase history that has happened.

But two names, in particular, could play the spoiler role on Sunday: Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin, who missed the spring Kansas race with a back injury, won at the 1.5-mile track in 2012, and has three top five finishes there in the last six races. Keselowski won at Kansas in 2011, and has finished in the top 10 at Kansas in four of the last five races.

 

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Etc.

Justin Allgaier, currently sixth in NASCAR Nationwide Series points, will make his second career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start his weekend at Kansas in the No. 51 Phoenix Racing Chevrolet. He finished 27th in his first start, at Chicagoland Speedway in September. … Kyle Larson, currently ninth in NASCAR Nationwide points, will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup  debut the No. 51 Chevrolet at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Oct. 12. In addition, he will run the NSCS race in Martinsville on Oct. 27.  In August, EGR announced that Larson would take over the reins of the No. 42 Target Chevy SS beginning in 2014.