NASCAR Podcast
5 Wins = #1 Chase Seed For You! (unless Jimmie wins Atlanta and/or Richmond)
Should Matt Kenseth clinch a Chase top-10 position, his five victories – worth three points apiece when the standings reset – would make the 2003 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion the No. 1 seed when postseason competition begins Sept. 15 at Chicagoland Speedway.
Martin Truex Jr. enters this Sunday’s race on the top 10 “bubble” but enjoying the best of all possible worlds under the circumstances. Truex is just two points up on Kurt Busch but with one victory holds a potential Chase Wild Card should he fall out of the top 10. Kasey Kahne (12th) provisionally holds the first Wild Card and is the only driver ranked 11th through 20th with two victories. The second Wild Card currently belongs to Indianapolis winner Ryan Newman (14th).
Kyle Busch hasn’t clinched a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup – at least not yet. But his third victory of the year at Watkins Glen International gave the Las Vegas competitor bragging rights to the season’s third-best victory total – three – and a potential nine Chase bonus points when he inevitably lands a top-10 Chase berth. Busch should be a potential winner again this week having captured the Pure Michigan 400 in 2011. He finished fourth when NASCAR’s premier series visited MIS in June. Another favorite: Kevin Harvick, winner of the track’s August race in 2010. Harvick finished second to Greg Biffle in June.
Brad Keselowski faces pressure on several fronts. The Pure Michigan 400 is a home race for the Rochester Hills, Mich. native, who finished second and third, respectively, in the past two August events. Keselowski was among the big movers over the weekend in upstate New York, his runner-up finish to Kyle Busch vaulting the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup champion to eighth in the standings. He leads 11th-place Kurt Busch by 11 points. Without a victory, Keselowski doesn’t have the luxury of a potential Wild Card Chase entry.
Jimmie Johnson is the first competitor to qualify for the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The five-time Sprint Cup champion is the only driver to have qualified for all 10 editions of NASCAR’s post season, and the earliest to clinch a Chase spot since Jeff Gordon also clinched at Watkins Glen in 2007. Now Johnson has a surprisingly daunting task ahead of him: Solve the riddle that is Michigan International Speedway. Michigan is one of five active tracks at which Johnson has not won. The others are all tracks that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series visits once per season: Chicagoland, Watkins Glen, Kentucky and Homestead.
The Final Lap Weekly 