NASCAR at Kansas 2016: Preview, Prediction for the Hollywood Casino 400
Now that the clouds have risen from Charlotte Motor Speedway and Jimmie Johnson emerged victorious for the first time in 25 races, we can turn our canny eye toward Americaโs breadbasket: Kansas.
Your correspondent ranked Johnson somewhere near the bottom of the most recent power ranking in spite of the recent speed Hendrick Motorsports has shown as a collective since the Chase for the Sprint Cup started.
"Nobody ever gave up, we know what a champion Jimmie is," said team owner Rick Hendrick, per Holly Cainโs NASCAR.com story, "I've never taken the champagne bath in 30-something years, so it was like our first race (victory) again."
Which invites the question, tangential as it may be, what was Hendrick doing during those lush Jeff Gordon and Johnson championship runs? Anyway, many drivers are in serious trouble heading to Kansas, drivers like Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano.
They havenโt hit the panic button yet, but with only two races to go in this round, some of those desperate drivers wonโt be afraid to scrape up their cars or get lax with a lug nut or two.
Weโre not in Kansas anymore? Strike that, we sure are. Read on for this weekโs preview and prediction ahead of the Hollywood Casino 400 (2:31 p.m. ET, NBC).
Round of 12 Driver Standings and Round of 8 Bubble
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1. Jimmie Johnson, Winner (+36)
2. Matt Kenseth, +31
3. Kyle Busch, +27
4. Brad Keselowski, +25
5. Kurt Busch, +24
6. Carl Edwards, +20
7. Martin Truex Jr., +19
8. Denny Hamlin, +3
9. Austin Dillon, -3
10. Chase Elliott, -3
11. Joey Logano, -6
12. Kevin Harvick, -8
Is Jimmie Johnson Back?
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Johnson is making it very hard to predict things around here and, like, how dare he?
Ever since Fontana, his last win before Charlotte, he was, to put it mildly, mediocre.
Then the Chase started, and he led a bunch of laps at Chicagoland and Dover. In reply to that he sped down pit road and then had too many men over the wall. This was like tripping over his shoelaces.
How could he win at Charlotte given his 2016 performances?
โThere wasn't any fist pounding per se, but what we did do was try to get together with all the heads of state, let's say," said Johnson's crew chief Chad Knaus, perย Cain. "... what we were trying to do was identify where our weaknesses were, and once we started to hone in on where we thought we needed to get some gains, we started to allocate the resources to where we needed it.โ
Is Johnson a favorite now?
We can safely look ahead to the Round of 8, a trifecta of tracks including Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix where Johnson has a combined 18 wins, eight of which came at Martinsville.
Now that the No. 48 team no longer has to worry about Kansas or Talladega, Homestead looks awfully good from here.
Is It Already Time to Panic for the Bottom Drivers?
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If this were any other round, that would be an unequivocal "no." With Talladega waving its sickle from the elimination slot, Kansas has taken on a certain do-or-die tenor.
So letโs meet our bottom four drivers: Harvick, Logano, Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon. We may as well lump in Denny Hamlin because heโs only three points to the good.
Harvick sits in last place, but heโs only eight points back of Hamlin.
The picture looks prickly when you get beyond Hamlin. Martin Truex Jr. has a sizeable lead from P7 in the standings: 19 points to the good. As it stands, Hamlin is chum in the water for the four sharks circling his cage.
After Charlotte, Harvick lost power, but not confidence, in his car and team.
"I hate it for everybody on our Busch team. They made some great adjustments today and got our car back where we needed to be to run up front and everything was going fine," Harvick said, per George Diaz of theย Los Angeles Times. "Lots of things can go wrong, and today they did."
Loganoโs troubles were far more external, as he got involved in a crash.
"We're not out by any means," Logano said. "Things happen. It's part of racing, but we're not out. We're not gonna die. This team is resilient. We've proved it before and we'll just have to go out and prove it again. We just have to have two flawless races. It's something we can make up."
To Loganoโs credit, he swept this round a year ago, most famously winning this very race by wrecking then-leader Matt Kenseth, thus knocking over a lead domino that resulted in Kenseth plowing Logano into the wall at Martinsville.
Harvick has a win apiece at the next two tracks, while Logano has three.
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Denny Hamlin Opens Door for Bottom Four
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The big takeaway from the Bank of America 500 was Hamlin opening the door to the bottom four drivers.
The top seven are clear of the cutline by 19 or more points. Hamlin, who sits in eighth, is a mere three points better than Dillon and Elliott. Hamlinโs late engine failure with 26 laps remaining in the BofA 500 kept the possibility alive that one of those bottom drivers (Harvick, Logano, Elliott, Dillon) could point into the next round.
Had Hamlin finished the race, the bottom four drivers would no doubt be in a win-or-go-home scenario.
Hamlin had a curious season. He won the Daytona 500 then about disappeared until Watkins Glen, making more hay as a pit-road violator than as a title contender.
He somehow manages to squeak his way back into the top 10 when the race is on the line, and with two wins at the next two tracks, heโs just as likely to win and put that engine failure behind him.
If thatโs the case, nobody below him will point in and they will go to Alabama needing to win at a plate track whereโdun, dun, DUNโanything can happen.
Dark-Horse Pick: Kasey Kahne
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Despite that confused, often vacant look you see on Kasey Kahneโs face, heโs been one of the best drivers since Darlington.
During that stretch of racesโa span of six tripsโKahne has finished no worse than 12th, with five of those races coming inside the top nine.
He exits Charlotte with his best finish of the season (3rd) and has a total of four top-10s in five Chase races.
Looking at the standings, Kahne ranks highest among non-Chase drivers and has performed far better than many Chase drivers.
A win will do wonders for this teamโs confidence going forward into 2017.
And the Winner Is...Joey Logano
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We saw last year what a non-desperate Logano was capable of at Kansas.
With a win already in his back pocket, Logano sent Kenseth from P1 to Revenge City by way of Anger Town.
Logano has not come close to hitting that little red panic button, but the pressure is far greater now than it was just a few days ago.
Logano said in Bob Pockrassโ ESPN.com story:
"We're going to quite possibly our best racetrack. I think Charlotte and Kansas are our two best racetracks, so I felt very confident going into this round and I had a very good car today.
I'm looking forward to getting to Kansas and seeing what we've got and seeing if we can break through to get a win, but, if not, a solid points day. We can manage with what we've got, but we can't afford to make any mistakes with Talladega coming up.
"
That reeks of a certain confidenceโnot hubris, per seโyou want from a driver heading into a pressure-packed situation.
If youโre Kenseth on the lead in this race, you may want to pull over.
All stats courtesy of Racing-Reference.info.
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