NASCAR at Phoenix 2015: Complete Preview and Prediction for CampingWorld.com 500
Kevin Harvick’s win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this past Sunday couldn’t have come at a better time. For after his first career win at the 1.5-mile LVMS, Harvick now heads to a race track at which the Sprint Cup Series may as well automatically concede yet another win to him.
Or maybe it should rename Phoenix International Raceway as "Harvick International Raceway" given that the defending Sprint Cup champion has won there six times. That’s six of his 29 career Sprint Cup wins, including wins in the last three races at PIR and four of the last five.
And one other stat of note: Harvick has now finished in the top two in each of his last six races (dating back to last season), with three wins and three runner-up finishes.
Let’s take a look at how Sunday’s race in the Valley of the Sun will shape up.
By the Numbers: Phoenix International Raceway
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CampingWorld.com 500
Place: Phoenix International Raceway
Date: Sunday, March 15
Time: 3:30 p.m. ET
TV: Fox, 3 p.m. ET
Radio: Motor Racing Network, Sirius XM Ch. 90
Distance: 500 kilometers (312 miles, 312 laps)
Defending race winner: Kevin Harvick
Youngest Phoenix winner: Kyle Busch (11/13/2005—20 years, 6 months, 27 days).
Oldest Phoenix winner: Mark Martin (04/18/2009—50 years, 3 months, 9 days).
Defending pole winner: Brad Keselowski, 139.384 mph (03/01/2014)
Youngest Phoenix pole winner: Kyle Busch (04/22/2006)—20 years, 11 months, 20 days.
Oldest Phoenix pole winner: Mark Martin (03/03/2013—54 years, 1 month, 22 days).
Track Notes
— 20 drivers have won poles at Phoenix, led by Ryan Newman with four.
— Race record: Tony Stewart (118.132 mph, 11/07/1999)
— Qualifying record: Denny Hamlin (142.113 mph, 11/09/2014).
— There have been 37 NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Phoenix International Raceway from 1988 through 2014.
— 23 different drivers have won at Phoenix International Raceway, led by Kevin Harvick with six victories.
— Jimmie Johnson has the most top-five finishes (14) at Phoenix.
— Jeff Gordon has the most top-10 finishes (22) at Phoenix.
Statistics courtesy NASCAR media relations.
Key Storylines
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Can Jeff Gordon finally have a decent finish?
Gordon needs to bounce back from a terrible start to his final season in the Sprint Cup Series. Three races, two wrecks and he’s ranked 30th as a result. That says it all. The interesting thing is Gordon leads all drivers with two poles in the first three races. He’s proved he can start strong; it’s the finishing that he continues to have problems with. Maybe he can finally turn things around at Phoenix.
Can Kevin Harvick win four straight?
Defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick has won the last three races at Phoenix and four of the last five. Overall, he has six career wins there, the most of any Sprint Cup driver in track history. Harvick has certainly had a great start to the season as well as to working toward defending last season’s title.
Can Martin Truex Jr. keep surprising?
With an eighth-place finish at Daytona, sixth at Atlanta and runner-up at Las Vegas, Truex is off to one of the best starts of his career. He’s also up to fourth place in the standings, just 16 points behind series leader Harvick. Can he keep things going at PIR, a track at which he’s had mixed success during his career?
Can Dale Earnhardt Jr. regain his Phoenix edge?
Phoenix has historically been one of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s most favorite—and successful—tracks. In 25 career starts on the one-mile flat track, Junior has two wins, seven top-fives and 12 top-10 finishes. He’s knocked on the door the last four races—finishing fifth, fourth, second and eighth. Can he once again return to Victory Lane for the first time since 2004?
This can’t be Tony Stewart, can it?
Three races, a best finish of just 30th place and ranked 34th in the Sprint Cup standings. That’s not the kind of performance we expect from Tony Stewart, who is off to one of the worst starts of his Sprint Cup career. From this point, the only place for Smoke to go is up.
Or, as I like to consider it, who is that impostor in the No. 14, and what have you really done with the real Stewart?
Drivers to Watch
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Jeff Gordon
Off to a terrible start—of which at least two races can be blamed on other drivers who collected Gordon in their wrecks—Gordon could begin his big turnaround Sunday at Phoenix. It’s not a matter of if but when he’ll begin to get things back into high gear.
Tony Stewart
It’s ditto for Stewart. He’s off to a season that no one would likely have predicted—a poor season start, that is. With each passing poor performance, it makes one wonder if Stewart still has it behind the wheel. I think he’ll turn things around, and hopefully sooner than later, because all these poor showings are nothing but sheer agony to Stewart’s fans.
Greg Biffle
I will keep riding this horse until it gets to the finish line first. I have believed Biffle will have some early season success, and he has to a degree, with a 10th-place finish at Daytona and 14th at Las Vegas. Biffle just needs a breakthrough win, and Phoenix would be a great place for him to do so, especially since he’s never won there in the Cup Series to date.
Carl Edwards
This was supposed to be the season that Carl Edwards won 10 races and the championship—or, at least, that’s what Edwards predicted before the season began. Let’s just say Edwards’ best intentions haven’t exactly paid off thus far, with finishes of 23rd at Daytona, 12th at Atlanta and 42nd this past Sunday at Las Vegas. He has two career wins at Phoenix, though, so what better place to get back on track than at a place he’s had prior success at, right?
Danica Patrick
Patrick struggled to a mediocre 27th-place finish at Las Vegas, her worst showing in the season’s first three races. That kind of finish dropped her from 16th to 20th in the Sprint Cup standings. Phoenix is a track that has confounded Patrick, whose best finish has been 17th, followed by showings of 39th, 33rd, 36th and 22nd. She makes the Phoenix area her home these days, though.
I’ve said for the last couple of years that when Patrick earns her first Cup race win, it’s going to be on a shorter track, and at one mile, Phoenix is a perfect venue for her to pull off the unexpected. The question is, can she?
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Favorites
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Kevin Harvick
When a guy has won the last three races, and four of the last five, at the same track, how can you possibly pick against him? Harvick has Phoenix figured out like no one else, with a total of six wins there in his Cup career.
Jimmie Johnson
The six-time champ has four wins at Phoenix in his Sprint Cup career. After the frustration he went through at Las Vegas this past Sunday, Johnson needs a rebound race, and he very likely could get that at Phoenix.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Junior has two career wins at Phoenix, but none since 2004. However, he also has three top-five finishes in the last four starts—with the other finish being eighth. There’s something about Phoenix’s one-mile flat track that brings out the best in Junior. Might it bring out another win Sunday?
Brad Keselowski
Phoenix has yet to yield a win for Keselowski, who has still had reasonable success, with four top-fives and five top-10 finishes in 10 career starts on the flat one-mile track. After finishing 41st at Daytona, Keselowski has had back-to-back top-10 finishes in the last two races: ninth at Atlanta and seventh at Las Vegas. He is an old-school racer who likes short tracks, and Phoenix could be the perfect place at the perfect time for a win for him this Sunday.
Tony Stewart
There’s nothing like going out on a limb, and that’s what I’m going to do in making Stewart one of my favorites to win Sunday’s race at Phoenix. Stewart is a short-track racer at heart, and Phoenix has been very good to him. In 25 Sprint Cup starts there, he has one win, eight top-fives and 12 top-10s.
Dark-Horse Pick
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Denny Hamlin has been kind of forgotten thus far in the 2015 season, even though he had a fourth-place finish at Daytona and a fifth-place showing at Las Vegas.
Speaking of forgotten, Hamlin has a rather good record at Phoenix that many fans may have forgotten about. In 19 career starts at the track, he has one win, nine top-fives and 10 overall top-10 finishes along with two poles.
Like several other drivers, Hamlin needs a breakthrough race, and Sunday at Phoenix could very well be the right place for him.
And the Winner Is: Kevin Harvick
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How can you pick against a guy who hasn’t finished lower than third place in the last six races (dating back to the final three races of 2014)? Harvick has three wins—including this past Sunday at Las Vegas—and three other runner-up finishes in those last six races.
Plus, he’s the defending Sprint Cup champion and is well on his way to potentially making it back-to-back titles.
With his win at Las Vegas, Harvick is all but guaranteed to make this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup. From now until the start of the Chase, he doesn’t have to worry about points or strategy as much as if he had not won so early in 2015.
Now, Harvick can focus solely on winning as many races as he can—and Phoenix is a great place to further extend the run of excellence he has had in his last six starts.
Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
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