Watching NASCAR: The Chase Week 2-The Sylvania 300

What a difference a week makes, I imagine that once the drivers are behind the wheel a race is a race, aside from the various differences in the track that they will be running on that day. However in the last week before the Chase, Jeff Gordon needed a very good finish to make it and Kyle Busch needed a solid race to keep Gordon out and stay in the Chase himself. It did not work out for Busch.

A week later Gordon hits the wall and Busch is a top five finisher. I guess all sports have their “what could have been” moment and this is certainly one of them. However in a week when the standings were shaken up quite a bit this was only one of the story lines for the first race, but considering how close everyone was at the start, points wise, that is not too surprising.

Brad Keselowski emerged as the winner in Chicagoland in a great race that had him duel for the lead and manage to outrace Jimmie Johnson for the checkered flag, with Johnson complaining that Keselowski violated pit road rules however no penalty was called. Johnson finished second. The rest of the top five was filled out by Kasey Kahne, Busch in fourth and Ryan Newman in fifth.

In other news it looks like AJ Allmendinger has completed NASCAR’s Road to Recovery program and has been reinstated by NASCAR. Good luck.

This week: The Sylvania 300

It’s back to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway and its 1.058 mile oval for the second of the ten races to the Sprint Cup Championship with the Sylvania 300

Broadcast: September 23 at 1 pm ET ESPN

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Sprint Cup Standings
1) Brad Keselowski
2) Jimmie Johnson -3
3) Tony Stewart -8
4) Denny Hamlin -15
5) Kasey Kahne -15
6) Clint Boyer -15
7) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -17
8 ) Greg Biffle -19
9) Martin Truex Jr. -21
10) Kevin Harvick -24
11) Matt Kenseth -26
12) Jeff Gordon -47

Nationwide Series

Rickey Stenhouse Jr. and Elliott Sadler traded places at the top of the Nationwide leaderboard last week as Stenhouse managed his fifth win of the season, pushing him nine points ahead of Sadler in the standings.
http://youtu.be/1n-dzoISQkk

After some early dueling with a few drivers, most notably Kyle Busch, Stenhouse had the dominate car and cruised to the win and the lead. He last led the series back in early June but is the current champion, and is looking tough to beat at this point with two wins and two seconds in the last four races.

Busch came in second and the rest of the filled was filled out by Austin Dillon, Brad Keselowski and Paul Menard in the fifth spot.

This Week: Kentucky 300
The Nationwide drivers are once again going their own way this week and will be racing in the Kentucky 300 at the 1.5 mile tri-oval Kentucky Speedway.

Broadcast: Sept. 22 at 3:30 pm ET ESPN

1) Rickey Stenhouse Jr.
2) Elliott Sadler -9
3) Austin Dillion -34
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -57
5) Justin Allgaier -107

Watching NASCAR this week: Lenox Industrial Tools 301

There was a great finish last week at Daytona, with Tony Stewart making a last lap pass and then holding off a trailing gang of rivals to win his 18th race at the fabled track. Only Dale Earnhardt has more wins at Daytona. The win moved Stewart up 4 places in the driver standings.

The victory must have been even sweeter for Stewart since he was forced to start at the back of the pack due to a failed inspection, and it took him some time to fight his way to the front. He passed Matt Kenesth and then led to the finish. Jeff Burton managed to roar by Kenesth at the end for second followed by Joey Logano and then Ryan Newman.

There was some last minute prerace activity as NASCAR suspended driver AJ Allmendinger just prior to the race for failing a random drug test that he took on June 29, with NASCAR reporting that he had an illegal stimulant in his system. He has claimed that he does not take drugs and that there is an error in the test. Team Penske flew in Sam Hornish Jr in from Charlotte at the last minute, barely a half hour before the race started, to replace Allmendinger.

Since then Allmendinger has elected to bring in his own experts to test his “B” sample, something that is expected to happen next week at the earliest. If he fails he will face an indefinite suspension and need to take a program to get reinstated.

ESPN put up some interesting tidbits about the first half of the season and one that really jumped out at me was this one that points out how unimportant winning is compared to simply finishing. Brad Keselowski has three victories, five top-5s and eight top-10s this season, which is good for 9th currently. Kevin Harvick has zero wins, three top-5s and eight top-10s, but Harvick is 6th in the standings.

Lenox Industrial Tools 301
Next up is a trip to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 on a 1.05 mile, oval track. It is interestingly the largest sporting facility in New England and can seat 105,000 spectators. There is also a 1.6 mile road course on the site.

Twitter– Instead of pointing to a number of Twitter addresses as we have in the past it seems to make much more sense just to send you to a site that appears to have consolidated a who’s who of racing twitter addresses instead. So head over here for a list.

Broadcast
July 15 at 12 noon ET TNT

Sprint Cup Standings

1) Matt Kenseth
2) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -25
3) Greg Biffle -44
4) Jimmie Johnson -58
5) Tony Stewart -90
6) Kevin Harvick -90
7) Denny Hamlin -92
8) Martin Truex Jr. -92
9) Brad Keselowski -103
10) Clint Bowyer -104

Nationwide

Kurt Busch won last week in Daytona with a tremendous finish in a race that had 42 lead changes, more than its fair share of crashes and must have delighted any fan that watched. His car looked like it was about to blow at any second over the last few laps and he managed to reach the front of a greatly diminished field with a lap to go and then held on for dear life. The top five was filled out by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Michael Ammett, Austin Dillon and Joey Logano.

Broadcast

July 14, 2:30 pm ET ESPN

F.W. Webb 200
This week Nationwide will be featured in a shorter race in New Hampshire, the F.W. Webb 200. This may be old hand and I have just missed it but Nationwide is providing a nice behinds the scene view of teams activities with garagecam Head over here to take a look.

Nationwide Series Standings
1) Elliott Sadler
2) Austin Dillon -8
3) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -18
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -35
5) Justin Allgaier -72

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