Put the cowboy hat on, the boots, wranglers, and get ready to Texas two-step. It’s time to drink some Lone-Star beer, put in a skoal, and rodeo on the asphalt of Texas Motor Speedway for this Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race in Ft. Worth. This will be the seventh race of the season thus far, and so far, it’s been rather quiet on the front.
We have Jeff Gordon leading the way in the standings by finishing in the Top 6 just about every week, but he has still yet to win a race since 2007. Clint Bowyer has played the same game, just to a lesser degree and is in second place. Matt Kenseth started the season with a bang by winning two in a row, but he and his entire Roush-Fenway teammates have taken a giant step backwards. The greatest newsworthy event, or at least anything that provided some sort of drama has been Kyle Busch’s verbal jabs at Dale Earnhardt Jr’s lack of success on the track vs. his sales in the merchandise trailers.
This week, we may be able to add some more BBQ spice into the mix at Texas with a few rivalries ready to explode on the track. Of course, it all begins with Kyle Busch and to some extent his brother, Kurt, will be in the mix as well. The two Busch brothers should be considered the favorites this week because of each of their performances on two separate tracks, Las Vegas and Atlanta. Texas is the sister track of both those facilities run on already this season and is very similar as far as distance and banking go. Kyle won in Las Vegas and Kurt won in Atlanta; Kurt’s in dominating fashion.
Last season Carl Edwards was latest of several over the years to be the dominator on these types of tracks. He won at Las Vegas, blew an engine in Vegas, but came back to win in Atlanta. Later in the season, he used all their successful notes to win back to back in the fall in Atlanta and Texas. If someone is on a roll on a specific type track, it usually is a good bet that the success continues to the next.
Now the Dixie Chicks may disagree, but Kyle is likely to be the most hated Busch in Texas on Sunday. He’s playing the villain role quite nice and he won’t have many supporters, but he does have some stats going his way, that also apply to Kurt. In the last three seasons, a single driver has won multiple times on at least two of the three sister tracks of Vegas, Atlanta, or Texas within the first seven races of the season.
Kyle has all the stats and numbers to support he’ll do well at Texas based on the last season and this year. He’s was third and sixth at Texas last year which also included a win in Atlanta. Kurt’s road is a little more bumpy, but progressively better leading to it’s height of where he’s at now.
Penske Racing had their new Dodge engine ready to go last season right about when the Chase started. Since Kurt wasn’t in the Chase, they felt comfortable enough to Dyno-test-like it in race conditions while sacrificing possible positions in the points. They had immediate success with a third in Charlotte, came back a few weeks later finish sixth in Atlanta, but then blew an engine a week later at Texas.
That foresight and sacrifice helped them this year because NASCAR mandated no pre-season testing which would have set them back tremendously had they not started last season. This year at Las Vegas, they blew a cylinder, but still finished a respectable 23rd under the circumstances. Then everything paid off the following week with a powerful performance in Atlanta. This week, the Blue Deuce should be dialed in and ready for Texas. Don’t expect the 25/1 odds that Kurt paid off at some Las Vegas books, but even in the area of 12/1 should be considered good value based on where this team is at right now.
Either way, whichever Busch wins, it’s likely the Dallas area crowd will boo the winning brother with more passion than they would a Football team that hasn’t won a playoff game since 1996. The angry hatred NASCAR Nation has on our Las Vegas brothers, particularly Kyle, is amusing and is definitely adding some El Paso Picante zest to the season.
Some other stories that could evolve this week and create excitement involve Busch and Junior. Someday, Junior is going to catch up to Kyle and punt him. Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray have some tension, or at least McMurray does. That’s a powder keg waiting to blow. The latest is Denny Hamlin feeling a little queezy about Jimmie Johnson’s clean bump-pass at Martinsville last week for the win. It’s hard to hold a grudge against the three-time Champ who is a total gentleman on the track. He deserves a little more respect, but again, I wouldn’t oppose to seeing more clashes in this era of vanillafied NASCAR with all the threats of fines and suspensions.
If looking for contenders to take down the Busch brothers, we can look at the top performers from Las Vegas and Atlanta. Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, and Jeff Gordon all had top 5 finishes in both races. Texas remains one of only two tracks on the circuit that he’s never won at, and of the two, Gordon has had more starts with 16 there than Miami. Because Gordon is the points leader and he’s run so well, a good price over 8/1 is going to be tough to obtain.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is getting better all the time. He was 10th in Vegas and 11th in Atlanta and the team knows that Papa Hendrick is watching them closely and they need to get right fast. Junior loves having Tony Eury Jr be his crew chief, but sometimes its not good mixing business and family because Junior will never give the go ahead to get rid of his cousin because he feels like its stabbing him in the back. Expect at least a top 10 out of Junior this week and a good play in matchups at plus money. In 2000, during Junior’s rookie year, he won at Texas. The moment his proud father came running to the winner’s circle is one of NASCAR’s greats. We had never seen that side of Dale Sr. before.
Brian Vickers presents a nice possibility with possible long shot prices. The 1.5 mile high banked tracks is where the Vickers team has performed their best since the team started. Clint Bowyer is coming close each week, but hasn’t had quite enough; he’ll be in the 15/ 1 range.
Let’s do the Texas two-step with a 1-2 Busch Brothers finish with some ZZ Top blasting Viva Las Vegas in the background.
Top 5 Finish Prediction:
1) # 2 Kurt Busch (12/1)
2) #18 Kyle Busch (5/1)
3) #48 Jimmie Johnson (6/1)
4) #99 Carl Edwards (10/1)
5) #83 Brian Vickers (25/1)
Drag Racing in Las Vegas
As always on the first weekend in Las Vegas, NHRA Drag Racing roars through town in the first of its two annual visits. It still remains by far the best entertainment value in motor sports and Las Vegas because of how close you get to the action. As a spectator, you get to hang out in any driver’s pits, you get to talk to any one of the drivers, and you get all the free autographs you want with complimentary 8 x 10’s provided. I can’t think of anything in sports or entertainment that comes close. If you’ve never been, grabs the kids, wife, and/or girlfriend and have a blast.
