Biggest NASCAR Storylines to Watch Ahead of Sprint Cup Series at Kansas
NASCAR moves on to Kansas this weekend, and there won’t be a single Wizard of Oz reference, which is in its own way a reference to Wizard of Oz.
Kansas, the last race before All-Star weekend, marks another attempt for a driver to snap up a spot in the Chase. Kansas’ 1.5-mile oval may not host a new winner, but probably a repeat winner. The way Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski crush these tracks, the more likely winner is one of the season’s eight.
Beyond that, NASCAR upheld its ruling against Richard Childress Racing, Carl Edwards looks to get the monkey off his back and Jeff Gordon aims to defend his title—and earn his first win of the season—at Kansas.
Read on for a sampling of this week’s storylines.
A Salute to the Greatest Race Name on the Circuit
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Jeff Gordon won this race a year ago, but it wasn’t called the Spongebob Squarepants 400. Can we just address the 1,000-pound Porifera in the room? This is the greatest name on the entire racing calendar.
It sounds foolish on its surface, but it makes sense on many business levels. Thankfully, Austin Alonzo of the Kansas City Business Journal dug deep into Bikini Bottom.
"In March, Kansas Speedway announced Nickelodeon, a member of New York-based Viacom Inc's (Nasdaq: VIA) media properties, signed on as the title sponsor of the May 9 race at the 73,635-seat speedway in Kansas City, Kan. Anthony DiCosmo, vice president of sports marketing at Nickelodeon, said the sponsorship is part of a new concentration on sports promotions.
"
DiCosmo then added:
"The NFL is clearly the biggest sport from a viewership standpoint, we know that NASCAR is second. (NASCAR fans are) a very important audience to us. There's a lot of commonality between a NASCAR fan and a Nickelodeon fan. The generational piece, I think is something that we picked up on. A lot of fathers, they experience a race for the first time with their sons. We looked at this opportunity to cultivate this next-generation fan.
"
The NASCAR fan of tomorrow is a Spongebob fan today.
Can Jeff Gordon FINALLY Get a Win?
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The previous slide had the initial intention of talking about Gordon, but then it dovetailed (as these things do) into Spongebob Squarepants.
Gordon won this race a year ago and the parallels to last year and this year are quite similar. In 2014, Gordon hadn’t yet won a race. After the win Gordon said on NASCAR.com, "It’s a weight lifted off this team’s shoulders. We’ve been leading the points but we needed to get to Victory Lane."
Now in 2015, that weight is on their shoulders again and the pressure is heavier given that this is Gordon’s farewell season. He's been in races late, but pit road penalties at Martinsville and Talladega slayed his chances.
As for Kansas, he won this race last year by leading just nine laps.
That was frustrating, especially for…
Kevin Harvick Looks for Kansas Redemption
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Kevin Harvick led a frustrating 119 laps at Kansas a year ago and couldn’t get by Gordon’s bumper at the end.
"Just ran out of laps at the end," Harvick said on NASCAR.com. "I was looking at the fuel pressure gauge instead of the tach and lost a bunch of time down pit road and off of pit road and wound up getting stuck behind the 24 (of Gordon).”
Harvick led 2,137 laps a year ago and through 10 races has already accumulated 953. He’s on pace to lead 2,859 laps and he has a serious shot at dominating Kansas.
When Harvick has a good rig, which is very often these days, he can get out front and not look back.
RCR Rulings Upheld
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Remember when Ryan Newman’s tires failed specs after the race at Fontana on March 22? NASCAR threw down the hammer, but RCR appealed the docking of points and the severe fines levied against crew chief Luke Lambert.
The ruling, which included 50 docked driver and owner points as well as a $75,000 fine for Lambert, was upheld on Wednesday in Concord, NH.
RCR spokesman Tim Packman said in a statement on NASCAR.com:
"We do not agree with the final ruling.
We feel we had a compelling case; we still feel we were in the right and the facts presented today would have proved that. We appreciate the opportunity to be heard.
We stand behind our suspended team members and look forward to their return. We will now move on, continue our goals of winning races and making the Chase for the Championship.
"
Lambert can’t return until the summer Daytona race in six months allowing Todd Parrott to fill in for the time being.
Newman finished second in the Chase a year ago without winning a single race. His mere presence in the championship nearly subverted the entire win-and-you’re-in format of the Chase.
If Newman can win a race it will make this suspension more or less a moot point. He has four top fives and an average finish of 12.1. A win seems likely this year, thus avenging his crew chief’s suspension and hefty fine.
Carl Edwards Aims for Elusive First JGR Win
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This could be a storyline every week until Edwards does, in fact, land that first win for JGR. He threatened at Talladega before spinning out on the white-flag lap.
Casey Mears spun Edwards and officials kept the yellow flags in their pockets, much to Edwards' chagrin.
Edwards said in USA TODAY:
"There's people going by at 100-plus miles per hour. They never checked up. I think that's the most dangerous thing in the sport right now at these places. When there's a wreck, guys got to get on the brake, or we're going to have a lot of problems.
That's not the way I try to race these guys when there's a wreck. That's very frustrating.
"
While watching the Fox broadcast of the race, his frustration was apparent. He told Fox’s Jamie Little during the broadcast that he hopes Kansas—his de facto home track—is where he gets the monkey off of his back.
He’s 0-for-15 at Kansas with six top fives, so maybe this is the week when Edwards gets it done and becomes the third Joe Gibbs Racing car in the Chase.
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