Today’s Question: Seven races into the season, Jeff Gordon already holds a lead in the points so large, all he needs to do is start the race at Phoenix to maintain it no matter where he finishes. But even with such a large cushion, he wouldn’t even be the points leader in the playoffs if the season ended today.
Q: Can you please clear up something for me? Since the No. 8 team is shut down, I wonder why NASCAR would not have asked or told Teresa [Earnhardt] to let the number follow Dale Jr. If NASCAR owns the numbers, what’s to stop them from making that call. Now there is another great car number that won’t be on the track, and a lot of us feel that it should still be with Dale Earnhardt Jr. That number will always be identified with him.
The last time Richie Whitt appeared silhouetted in my crosshairs was almost five years ago, when he was a “freelance journalist” in October of 2004. You may remember his “groundbreaking” expose of the group NAMRF (National Association of Minority Race Fans)… or you may not, which is totally understandable as you probably had forgotten all about the clown show that was NAMRF, too.
With the Samsung 500 victory at Texas, Gordon has now posted 82 career Cup Series wins. By comparison, Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, his closest rival in the career win category of drivers competing full-time in NASCAR’s top series, has exactly half or 41 victories to his credit. Even though Johnson has performed at a prolific pace during his relatively short 262 starts at the Cup level – having yet to experience a significant and seemingly unavoidable win-drought in his career – he does not enjoy any significant win percentage advantage over Gordon. With 16-years and 554 starts in NASCAR Cup competition under his belt, Gordon has a winning percentage of 14.86%, a sum just under Johnson’s winning rate of 15.65% amassed since he began campaigning in the Cup circuit full-time in 2002.
After a week off to regenerate the batteries and fatten up on Peeps and chocolate, the series is heading to the desert Southwest. The quirky 1-mile oval outside of Phoenix tests the drivers and the teams to come up with a setup that can handle the tight turns 1 and 2 as well as the sweeping turns 3 and 4. The drivers who succeed there vary – from those who excel at short tracks to drivers who shine on intermediate tracks. Fantasy players have to take into account their team’s history at Phoenix and their momentum heading into the eighth race of the season. Read on to see what the Frontstretch fantasy insiders feel about the week’s race ahead.
It has become sort of a tradition (looking back) that around Easter, this list has usually done something about Easter eggs and the creative places certain NASCAR personalities may stick them – excuse me – perhaps “find them” might be a better phrase. With the ever changing world of sponsorship, we should have plenty of material!
Saturday’s Nationwide Series race saw Joey Logano grab just his second career victory in the series. Is this the confidence builder he needs to get his Cup career on track, or was it simply further proof this series is where he should have been all along?
Something that both the Nationwide and Truck series do share is a two-driver breakaway in the points standings. However, while one of those battles is just heating up, the other threatens to cool down as soon as Kansas in two weeks considering one or both of the drivers involved may not run the full schedule. Which championship in which series am I talking about? Find out by checking out the HOT, WARM and COLD drivers of NASCAR’s second and third biggest series. Not surprisingly, the way things are these days, you will notice a familiar name or two from Sprint Cup on the list.
What was so interesting, you ask? With eight laps to go, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. turned down the track and ran smack into an unsuspecting Joe Nemechek. This resulted in Nemechek’s No. 87 taking a leisurely roll down the frontstretch. Moments later, the car righted itself… still pointing in the right direction! Nemechek immediately put his foot on the gas, bounced off the outside wall and drove away.
Here’s the problem we have. I know many people love Daytona and Talladega. But I am not interested in a speedway that will require the dreaded restrictor plate. Look at the results of any restrictor-plate race and you will see drivers in the top 10 that usually struggle to make the top 25 in any other race. You will also see the best drivers and teams in NASCAR at the bottom of the results, usually courtesy of the Big One. It may be exciting to people, but when the dust clears and the results are skewed in a way they shouldn’t be, that isn’t fundamentally right.
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