Hello readers,Brad Keselowski dominated last week at Richmond to prove that he would be someone to watch in the Chase. In case anyone still doubted Keselowski as a serious title contender, Keselowski silenced his critics on Sunday. He opened the Chase with a win and automatically advanced to the next round in the Chase. It wasn’t easy as Keselowski started deep in the field and took advantage of hard racing between Kevin Harvick and rookie Kyle Larson to pass both of them with a daring three-wide move through the middle to take the lead with 15 laps left. Keselowski then had to hold off Larson on a late restart to claim his series-high fifth win of the season. Next up is New Hampshire, where Keselowski was victorious earlier this summer. Can Keselowski make it three in a row and sweep the New Hampshire races this year? Tune in on Sunday to find out.
With New Hampshire the next race on the schedule, this week we return to 2008 where Kyle Busch showed how easy it is to go from being on top to being an also-ran in just one race. In 2008, Busch entered the Chase as the top seed thanks to a series-leading eight wins in the regular season. He won at Atlanta, Darlington, Talladega, Dover, Daytona, Chicagoland, Sonoma, and Watkins Glen. Winning all those races and on all those tracks had most thinking Busch would cruise to the title in 2008.
Unfortunately Busch never came close. He started on the pole for New Hampshire and led three laps but a mechanical issue cost him a good finish and he wound up 34th in the final rundown. That disastrous result knocked Busch from the top of the Chase standings to the Chase standings cellar. Any dim hopes Busch and his team had of climbing out of their early hole and challenging for the championship so many had been willing to give them in the middle of August were wiped out completely the next week at Dover when Busch blew an engine and finished dead last. Busch never recovered and only managed to finish tenth in the final standings. Busch would go on to average a 19.1 finishing position in the 2008 Chase, recording a best finish of fourth at Charlotte. Busch is a prime example of how a driver can’t win the championship in the first race, but he can lose it with a bad finish. Will Aric Almirola, Greg Biffle, and AJ Allmendinger rebound from a horrible outing at Chicago to advance to the next round and avoid joining Busch as examples of how a bad first race can take a driver out of the title hunt?
Most Wins among Active Drivers: Five drivers with three wins.
Defending Winner: Matt Kenseth made it 2-2 in the 2013 Chase, picking up his series-high seventh win of the season and his first at New Hampshire.
Prediction: This driver has had a somewhat difficult season, winning only one race and he just got his crew chief back from a six-race suspension this past week at Chicagoland. One of his better runs came at New Hampshire earlier this summer where he led 20 laps and finished eighth. He has two wins here and nearly swept the races here in 2012. I’m picking Denny Hamlin this week. The whole Joe Gibbs organization has been a tick behind the competition for most of this year, but they seem to have turned the corner in recent weeks. All three teams finished in the top ten and Hamlin led the organization with a sixth place finish. With a top-ten finish in the first race and returning to a track where he has had a lot of success, look for Hamlin to challenge for the win on Sunday.
David Barr is a graduate of Daniel Boone High School and Mansfield University, where he received a degree in Communications.
