The Biggest NASCAR Storylines to Watch Ahead of the Race for Heroes 500
It's hard to believe the NASCAR season is 34 races from the start. Put another way, there are only two left.
The Chase went by faster than a Denny Hamlin pit stop, didn’t it? It did.
There were chases within each round of the Chase. Homestead will most certainly be the survival of the chasest. Drivers need to win where they have the best shot at winning.
Jeff Gordon handled Martinsville, the grandfather clock tolling for the grandpa of the circuit. And as the Sprint Cup Series heads to Phoenix, it’s Kevin Harvick sitting atop a heap of spoils and 42 other drivers vying for second.
But as we’ve seen throughout the Chase, mechanical issues can ruin a season (see Dover), tires could burst opportunity (see Texas) or revenge can strike (see Matt Kenseth).
Until the drivers have circumvented Phoenix’s one-mile track for 312 laps, nothing is certain. There’s desperation at every left-hand turn.
Let’s do this thing.
Kyle Busch Thinks Phoenix Is Unwinnable
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“Kyle Busch will clinch with a finish of third or better; fourth and at least one lap led; or fifth and most laps led.” said Pete Pistone, MotorRacingNetwork.com
Rowdy has the most flexibility coming into Phoenix. He can bend the most before breaking. Someone like Joey Logano is severely broken (more on him later). But is this a good thing for Busch?
Sometimes having the leeway leads to complacency. Driving around with scenarios in your brain may lead to a misplaced sense of comfort. He doesn’t even think he can win.
“I do not think it’s a winnable race until Kevin Harvick can be beat,” Busch said after the Texas race (h/t NASCAR.com). “He’s shown that he has a stranglehold on the track. Ever since the repave the Joe Gibbs Racing cars haven’t been the same on it as what we were before.”
Busch sits in second place, just four points above the cut line. The last time he won at Phoenix was in the 2005 season. With an average finish of 14.3, this track doesn’t suit him.
Looking at his scenarios, there will be a ton of strategy as the race unfolds as the No. 18 team looks to maximize its potential of reaching Homestead.
Will Kevin Harvick Reign over Phoenix?
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Lost amidst all the drama surrounding Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth has been Harvick’s car.
Nobody has mentioned how wildly erratic his car has been throughout the Chase. He got busted up at Chicagoland. It wouldn’t restart at Talladega. He busted up his left-front fender at Martinsville and last week he survived two flats and a gear shifter that needed his constant attention for 100 laps.
Everyone is handing this Phoenix race to Harvick because he has seven wins and five from the last six runnings. You have to think that his luck will expire, no?
Jimmie Johnson said in Zack Albert’s NASCAR.com story after the win at Texas:
"Anybody with a streak at a particular track, you've got to show up with realistic expectations but enough swagger knowing it's a track that's good for you, then go get it done. It’s so hard to make it through an entire weekend, make it through an entire race. We saw the flat tires [at Texas], mechanical issues, racing issues that can pop up.
Phoenix is a tight little scrappy racetrack. The streak with four wins in a row is impressive. That's not an easy place to get it done.
"
Mechanical issues, racing issues, these have all been the sheep dog nipping at Harvick’s ankles the entire Chase and yet, here he is.
Sure, maybe Busch is publicly ceding the race to Harvick, but not this guy…
Can Brad Keselowski Rebound After Texas Loss?
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Brad Keselowski can look up to the clouds and see a silver lining. He led 312 laps at Texas, 93 percent of all the laps, and lost.
He went from inside the championship four to suddenly 19 points below the cut when Johnson’s X-Wing overtook BK’s TIE fighter.
Despite losing, leading that many laps at a track where everyone seemingly blew a left-rear tire means they’re on to something. Their problem is time and the fact that Harvick wears the Burger King crown at Phoenix, for now.
He said in Zack Albert’s NASCAR.com story.
"All reigns come to an end. Every driver has had a track that he dominates on and it changes. Jimmie (Johnson) dominated here for a long time and obviously that's not been that case as of late. The way you beat somebody or break that domination is you go out, you go to work and you try to do better.
"
So with one race to go for three spots at Homestead, it appears Team Penske has the best shot at a Harvickian regicide. The problem is both Penske cars won’t make it to Homestead.
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Can Joey Logano Usurp Kevin Harvick and Advance?
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Well, the odds of both Penske cars making it to Homestead are slim. The only scenario is if Busch, Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. crash early in the race and finish in the bottom 10 or so and Kez finishes in the top five with Logano winning. Or something like that.
Logano, the donkey Kenseth so deftly pinned into the wall at Martinsville, suffered the first of a trendy left-rear tire snafu at Texas. His was so bad that it cost him the race, one he needed to win. Now he needs to win even more and all the while deal with the needling of Kenseth’s incessant presence.
Sidebar: Johnson passed Keselowski with “quintessential” skill, eliciting a tongue-in-cheek tweet from Kenseth digging at NASCAR chairman Brian France, but also Logano.
"I don't have a reaction," Logano said in Jared Turner’s FoxSports.com story. "I don't need to go to Twitter to tell someone how I feel about what's going on. I'm past that stage in my life."
Ha!
If you thought Logano raced hard—or raced dirty—at Kansas, just wait until you see what he’ll do at Phoenix when nothing short of winning will keep his title hopes alive. This promises to be zombie-apocalypse desperate, or remorselessly-reaching-for-the-last-slice-of-pizza desperate (perhaps a more apt metaphor).
At Phoenix, the No. 22 team plans on “doing what they do,” and as history has shown, it’s willing to do anything to get its car to the front of the line and doused with no fewer than seven liters of Coca-Cola.
Will Martin Truex Jr. Keep His Unlikely Title Hopes Alive?
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Martin Truex Jr. is the cut line, six points back of the already qualified leader Jeff Gordon.
Up until the final few laps at Texas, Truex had a chance to win, but a tire shake muddied his handling and he wasn’t able to keep pace with Keselowski, a driver who then wasn’t able to fend off the cannon shot of Johnson, something that benefited Truex.
“The 2 [of Keselowski] didn't win the race," Truex said in Bob Pockrass’ ESPN.com story. "That certainly helped a little bit. I was cheering for Jimmie Johnson pretty hard. We did what we needed to do. It would have been nice to have those five or six spots—that's five or six points next week. It could be the difference.
"But we'll just have to wait and see and we'll go race hard again."
Truex last won a Phoenix pole back in 2009 and has an average start of 12.5 and an average finish of 17.1. He did earn a seventh-place result in the spring race won by—yawn—Harvick.
Who would have thought Truex could make it this far for this long?
All stats came courtesy of Racing-Reference.info.
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