Can you see a pattern here with Brad keselowski heading into the chase? This team kind of reminds me of Jimmy Johnson and Chad Knous as they always got hot either leading up to the chase or got hot once they were in the chase. With this win at Bristol Brad keselowski and Paul Wolfe have pretty much guaranteed themselves a spot in the chase; they are 11th in points and now have three wins. That is pretty much a lock for the first wild card spot in this years version of the chase for the Sprint cup. They are sitting 21 points behind Tony Stewart so unless Stewart has some really bad races in the next couple of weeks Keselowski will get that first wild card spot. I know what you are thinking, twenty-one points is not that many points behind right? With this new points system that Nascar instituted this season, 21 points is more like 75 points from last season. It is not easy to make that up. What is easy however is losing that many points.
About the only way that Brad Keselowski doesn’t make the chase with the first wild card spot is if he has a DNF or two and Denny Hamlin gets two wins. The performance of the “Blue Deuce” team doesn’t lead me to believe that they will fall off. Sometimes just riding that high is enough to keep a team firing on all cylinders. The performance of Denny Hamlin however leads me to believe that they could fall even further behind and not make the chase. If Paul Menard gets a win between now and the end of the Richmond race and Denny doesn’t, Hamlin could very well see himself on the outside looking in this year.
We have Atlanta and Richmond left before the chase starts in Chicago this year, Denny hasn’t had the greatest finishes at Atlanta but is hot at Richmond so he could have a great last two races before the chase starts. There cannot be any mistakes either by the driver, the pit crew, or the crew chief at either of these last two races for Hamlin’s Fed Ex number 11 team. Last year Hamlin started on the pole at Atlanta but finished 43rd after blowing an engine early in the race. They haven’t had a stellar year in the engine department this year but they are moving to Toyota Racing Development engines instead of their in house manufactured engines. I’m not clear on when this is going to take place so there may be some uncertainty in the Joe Gibbs engine department as we head into the chase.
Here is how they finished Saturday night at Bristol. For the full field run down head over to Nascar.com.
1. Brad Keselowski
2. Martin Truex Jr.
3. Jeff Gordon
4. Jimmy Johnson
5. Jamie McMurray
6. Matt Kenseth
7. Denny Hamlin
8. Ryan Newman
9. Carl Edwards
10. Marcos Ambrose
Here are the points after Bristol.
1. Kyle Busch
2. Jimmy Johnson
3. Matt Kenseth
4. Carl Edwards
5. Kevin Harvick
6. Jeff Gordon
7. Ryan Newman
8. Kurt Busch
9. Dale Earnhardt Junior
10.Tony Stewart
As is stand now the two wild card spots are held by Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin. I am headed for Utah to unload then to Idaho to reload some spuds coming back to St. Louis. I like going out there, the county out there is just awesome. Not to mention that while I’m loading I can buy a case of baker’s for around $15.00 a 50lb box. Try doing that in the grocery store.
Stay safe out there.
TW
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