It’ll be hard to beat last week’s epic race at Talladega with a first-time Cup winner taking the checkers, but the Capital of the Confederacy of Richmond in the Commonwealth of Virginia will do its best to take it up a notch. Tailgates start early and the intensity of the fans translate well on a nationally televised audience. The intoxicated flavor of this crowd in Richmond under the lights is annually the most rowdy, fun loving live audience on the circuit.

After everyone makes their future wagers on the Kentucky Derby, everything shifts to the NASCAR circuits with wagers abound in Nevada, offshore, and also the simple pool among fans in the stands. The question is who to take amid all the craziness of this season? What driver do we look at to win this week? Do you take the steady pick of a favorite like Jimmie Johnson, a nice mid-long shot like Mark Martin, or the Vegas brothers Busch duo?

The first thing you want to do is look at what happened at Phoenix a couple weeks ago. Mark Martin had the most dominant car in the field. Not only did he sit on the pole, but he proceeded to lead the most laps and win the race despite several cars hunting him down like Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart.

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The reason we look at Richmond the same way as we look at Phoenix is because the two tracks are similar in setup, which also includes New Hampshire on the handicapping chart. All three tracks are similar only in distance and degree of banking on the tracks, However, they are all different in size and configuration. The only supporting evidence is that the crew chiefs usually use the same cars and set-up for each and the fact that there are several multiple winners on these tracks by the same driver over the course of any season.

Just to reflect on that Phoenix race since it is so important to any strategy of wagers this week, Martin rolled, but Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch were just a notch below in their cars. Jimmie Johnson is a three time winner at Richmond, but at Phoenix this time he was somewhat ordinary after he had won three straight races there. He never was in real contention for the win, but he did finish 4th, which is still misleading and a testament to his stellar driving ability.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. played the irregular pit cycle game for much of the Phoenix race and found himself leading several laps in the middle of the race while others followed the pack of leaders with a normal pit strategy. After a great 2nd place finish last week, the Junior Nation has only wet their beak. This is a track where Junior should run strong at as evident by his 3 career wins on the track. Last season he should have won one of the two races in Richmond, but settled for a 15thand 4th. After getting his first top 5 finish last week at Talladega, he could get into that greedy stage and take the quality finishes as they come en route to a position in the Chase.

The hint last season that a Phoenix top performer would do well at Richmond was Clint Bowyer from RCR. Bowyer has finished 2nd in Phoenix behind Johnson and then followed it up with a win in Richmond. If that scenario were to take place again, Tony Stewart would be that guy that does takes the victory lap. He was strong at Phoenix, a track he has always run well at, but didn’t have enough to chase Martin down in the final laps. He has 3 career wins in the Cup series there along with two truck series wins, and several IRL laps for the two years he drove there. If Stewart brings back he car he ran well with at Phoenix, Stewart is he realistic favorite to win this week.

Jimmie Johnson has won 3 of the last 4 Richmond races. Last year he took both Phoenix and Richmond fall races. Jimmie is currently third in points, 64 points behind the new leader, Las Vegas, Kurt Busch.

Kurt is sitting in the points lead for the first time since March 2005. This also marks the first time since 1986 that the top 4 in points are all former Cup champions. Busch, Jeff Gordon, Stewart, and Johnson have combine to win 10 Cup titles.

Kyle Busch has had eight career races at Richmond and has finished in the top 5 on six of those occasions. He has yet to win although he did everything he could to win in this race last season by knocking Junior, who was leading, out of the way. Clint Bowyer, who wasn’t as good as Busch or Earnhardt, was in 3rd place and swooped in like a buzzard for the road kill and got the win. Hopefully we get to see Junior and Kyle mix it up this week under the lights.

Because the race is run in Virginia we have to naturally look at some of Natives. Cancel Elliott Sadler from the small bunch and you’re left with Denny Hamlin and Jeff Burton. Burton won in the fall of 1998 and Hamlin has had solid finishes the last two season just to have a all sorts of issues on pit road and cost him a win. Hamlin led 381 laps in this race last season. He’s been searching for a Richmond win since he began the Cup series. He’s captured a win in Martinsville before, but Richmond is closer to his Chesterfield, VA home and considers this his home track.

TOP 5 Finish Prediction:
 
1) #14 Tony Stewart (12/1)
2) #5 Mark Martin (15/1)
3) #11 Denny Hamlin (10/1)
4) #48 Jimmie Johnson (5/1)
5) #18 Kyle Busch (6/1)

Great show in Talladega
 
The Talladega finale was the most exciting finish in recent motor sports history. Beyond Edwards doing a flip in his car, instead of him flipping off his car, there were several memorable moments. Edwards impromptu Ricky Bobby run from the “Talladega Nights” movie after crashing short of the finish line was classic. Edwards being classy after the race and admitting guilt after Brad Keselowski won for the first time in his five race Cup career made me respect Edwards more than ever.

Keselowski paying off at 40/1 as Field bet finally paid off for those bettors who religiously dump a few bucks on the “Field” every week saying, “You never know”, even though, “You do know” that it will never happen. Well, it happened!

The final show of appreciation for the race goes to NASCAR and the track for their safety precautions. The new COT handled some unbelievable wrecks on Sunday that the older car may not have been able to handle. None of the drivers were hurt. It also tethered most of the parts and wheels so when Edwards spectacular crash came, the fans wouldn’t face death from a Goodyear. As for the track, the catch fence on the front stretch that caught most of the debris from the flying car. I’m no expert, but I have to think a 3400 pound car going 200 mph and hitting an object generates more force than some of our horrific natural disasters. How that fence held is beyond me, but it did, and thousands of fans can be thankful it did.

Hendrick Motorsports goes for 5 in a row, kind of
 
Jimmie Johnson won at Martinsville, Jeff Gordon won at Texas, Mark Martin won at Phoenix, and now Brad Keselowski wins at Talladega. Dale Earnhardt is looking to become the 5th different Hendrick car to win a race in a row. True, Keselowski is not officially a Hendrick driver. But the owner of that car, James Finch, bought the chassis from Hendrick and leased the engine from Hendrick as well. To me, it sounds like a Hendrick car.