The Biggest NASCAR Storylines Ahead of the Sprint Cup Series at Martinsville II
What a real mind-bender.
NASCAR goes from its biggest and baddest track one week to its smallest and tightest the next.
Martinsville looms just as large for the Chase drivers as Talladega did. Only the wrecks at Martinsville happen more often and at a slower speed.
“Martinsville can be as crazy as Talladega if things start getting out of hand,” Kevin Harvick said during his media availability before the race at Talladega. “It’s just a matter of, like every other weekend, you’ve just got to put it all together.”
With the Chase down to eight drivers, the stress level gets moved up a notch, but so does the excitement, as every lap of this three-race Eliminator Round will matter. There’s no room for error when the space at the big kid’s table keeps getting smaller and smaller.
Jimmie Johnson makes history this week, but not in the way he’d like to do it. Hendrick Motorsports is down to one driver in the Chase, and somehow, Joe Gibbs Racing still has two—one of them winless this season.
These stories and more will be what everyone is talking about in the week leading up to the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 on Sunday.
The Gang of 8 Heads into the Eliminator Round
1 of 7
It takes eight to do three to get to four.
That’s some crazy math, but it’s where the Chase stands as the Eliminator Round begins.
Eight drivers, led by Joey Logano, will battle over the next three races—Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix—to decide which four get to race for the championship at Homestead. Along with Logano, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski will have to be as close to perfect as possible. Same goes for their race-day pit crews.
This is when it gets more than real for everyone. The entire season and a chance at the title hinge on these next three races.
“We all hit the reset button as soon as we leave this track,” Keselowski said during his post-race press conference at Talladega on Sunday. “The six wins that we have mean nothing. Everyone has zero points within the top eight.
“Got to get in that top four, then get to Homestead and really deliver. That's going to be a huge challenge, and we know that.”
History in the Making; A Chase Without Jimmie Johnson
2 of 7
For the first time in the history of the Chase, Jimmie Johnson will be an absolute non-factor for the championship.
I’ll admit that back in 2011, when he finished the season sixth in points, he really was out of contention after the debacle at Charlotte, where he finished 34th and pretty much sealed his fate. That was a tough time, considering Johnson had won the week before at Kansas.
Now, it doesn’t matter if he wins the remaining four races. He’s out. He’s a non-factor. He’s not in contention. And to be honest, it not only feels odd to write it, it’s going to be odd to hear it being said over and over for the remaining four races.
"You are not going to win every championship battle you enter," Johnson began in a post-race media interview at Talladega. "We would like to. I’ve raced for 30-something years, and I’ve really only won six big championships, so the numbers show that you don’t win a lot of championships. We will be back next year."
Racing pundits and fans have talked all season long about how the change in the format for the Chase was designed specifically to break Johnson’s stranglehold on the title.
They may have been right.
Junior Looks to What Might Have Been
3 of 7
This hasn’t been Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s best season as a Sprint Cup driver, although it’s sure felt like it. His best season was arguably in 2003, when he ended the year third in the points. It was the last year the champion was chosen using the old format.
The following year, in 2004, Junior won six races and scored 16 top five-finishes but stumbled in the Chase races, specifically Martinsville and Atlanta. Then, just like now, you could have one bad race but never two. He finished fifth in points.
This year, his three wins and 11 top-fives won’t stand out as his best ever, but as an overall driver, Earnhardt Jr. delivered 32 outstanding performances. Even when his car wasn’t that good, he was, and he often used sheer will to make his car better when it needed to be.
Some may say that this was his final shot at the title, as this is his last season with Steve Letarte running the show.
I say no. There’s still a championship to be won. And Earnhardt still has a race win left this season. I’m thinking Homestead, where it’ll grab the biggest headlines.
What do you think?
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Joe Gibbs Racing; Decidedly Title Contenders
4 of 7
In what may yet stand as one of the greatest shows of smoke and mirrors in modern Sprint Cup history, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth have somehow moved on to the Eliminator Round of the Chase. Hamlin has one win this season (Talladega in the spring), while Kenseth is winless (after winning a series-high seven last year).
Kenseth readily admits that his team isn’t real championship material.
“We haven't run well the last couple weeks,” Kenseth said in the post-race press conference at Talladega, where he finished third. “The first round (of the Chase) we ran okay. Last couple weeks we haven't run well.
“I feel like my team is more than capable. But our performance hasn't been as good as the top three or four guys.”
Kenseth is a smart racer, as is Hamlin. It’s doubtful, however, that both will move on to the finale in Homestead. Although he is winless, Kenseth has been better these last few weeks.
But wait, you can’t count Hamlin out.
Maybe the Joe Gibbs teams have us all fooled, and this has been planned all along, and they are both peaking at just the right time.
Or...maybe not.
Has Roush Fenway Racing Hit Rock Bottom?
5 of 7
To say that this has been a forgettable season for the Roush Fenway Racing organization is a huge understatement. All three drivers have been serious underachievers since Daytona in February. And despite being in the Chase and having two wins this season, Carl Edwards has been quick to offer that he’s not quite sure how his team is doing it with what it's got.
The Roush Fenway cars haven’t been as good as the rest of the competition. When Edwards won his two races—Bristol and Sonoma—the circumstances were strange in both. He has always been good at Bristol, and he muscled his way to Victory Lane; however, Sonoma was a gift—to a driver who could imagine that he’d win a road course race in the Sprint Cup Series but didn’t expect it to happen.
Greg Biffle, who signed a contract extension with RFR in late summer, can’t wait for the checkered flag at Homestead and for his nightmare of a season to end.
And then there is Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who spends much of his racing these days in the back of the field, where he can keep an eye on his girlfriend, Danica Patrick.
When Stenhouse Jr. failed to make the field at Talladega this past weekend, a track with a long history of success for both Ford and team owner Jack Roush (who nearly lost his life in a flying accident in 2002 near Talladega), it was the low point of an ugly season for a once-great organization.
Longtime fans of team owner Roush (including this writer) are left to hope that next season will be some kind of massive turnaround for this listless organization. There’s a ton of talent at RFR. And even the departure of Edwards for Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the season shouldn’t stop this group from heading back up the ladder of success in 2015.
After all, the organization really has nowhere else to go but up.
Hello, Newman
6 of 7
Is he in, or is he out? Apparently, he's still in.
Ryan Newman's Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet failed to pass post-race inspection Sunday night at Talladega.
According to Jeff Gluck of USA Today, NASCAR has ruled that Newman's car, which was initially determined to be too low in the rear after the race, had suffered damage during the race to the extent that it failed post-race inspection.
NASCAR sent out a tweet Tuesday to announce the news.
A penalty that could have included a loss of 27 or more points had the potential to put Newman out of the Chase.
And Now for the Rest of the Story...
7 of 7
In case you may have missed them, I'd like to remind you that there are still 35 other drivers on the race track Sunday afternoons during Sprint Cup races.
They’ve become the blurred background behind the Chase drivers. They’re the other cars and crews filling up the garage stalls. They’re the other drivers working hard to win one of the four remaining races.
But it is difficult to get noticed when the media, especially the television media, treats you like you’re the wallpaper behind what’s going on.
If you weren’t a Chase driver during Sunday’s television broadcast of the Talladega race, your name was mentioned only if you happened to be occupying space on the track in close proximity to one of the Chase cars.
Remember when Kyle Larson was the next best thing since...wait, that’s the other guy. Anyway, you know what I mean. Maybe there’s just too much focus on the Chase drivers these last 10 races, and for the rest of the field, with sponsors that are still paying until Homestead, maybe we in the media need to give them all just a little more love and attention.
Guys like Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose, Casey Mears, AJ Allmendinger (who was in the Chase for the first round), Austin Dillon and David Ragan.
There, I feel better already. I’ve done my part to keep those guys in the public eye.
Wouldn’t you just love to see one of the non-Chase drivers win one of the four remaining races? It could happen!
All quotes are taken from official NASCAR, team and manufacturer media releases unless otherwise stated.
Bob Margolis is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association and has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, the NHRA and Sports Cars for more than two decades as a writer, television producer and on-air talent.
On Twitter: @BobMargolis
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
