NASCAR Power Poll

1. (1) Jimmie Johnson
Yeah, Jimmie Johnson crashed out on lap three, but despite that, he still has a 73-point lead with two races to go. And if you think Johnson is going to cough that lead up, than you haven’t been watching the same guy I’ve been watching for the last three years.

2. (4) Mark Martin
With a fourth-place finish, Martin capitalized on his teammate’s misfortune by trimming 111 points off of his deficit. Now he returns to Phoenix having won and dominated there in the spring. If Martin runs anywhere close to how he ran in April, and if –and it’s a very big if – Johnson struggles, which to be honest is unlikely, Martin might be very well rewriting the book on championship comebacks.

3. (2) Jeff Gordon
Unlike Martin, Gordon wasn’t able to take advantage of Johnson’s bad luck, and instead struggled to just finish 13th. And even that is a bit misleading considering how many cars had to pit for fuel in the closing laps. No matter how you look at it though, the door was open for Gordon to walk through and get back into the championship fight; instead the door was slammed in his face.

4. (9) Kurt Busch
I need to give this team special recognition, because I thought for sure this team was doomed to fall apart before the Chase was out, let alone compete for and win a race. Apparently being at the race shop more than one day a week is vastly overrated.

5. (5) Tony Stewart
So Stewart criticizes the media for calling the Talladega race boring, but yet he’s the same guy who radioed his crew asking them to tell him something interesting “so I don't fall asleep out here.” With the way Stewart backpedals, he certainly could play cornerback in the NFL if this racing thing doesn’t pan out.

6. (8) Denny Hamlin
Denny finishes second at Texas in a car that was no better 10th -- and that’s being generous. But he finished 38th at Talladega with a car that was good enough to win. I’m not really sure what that means, but I thought it was important to know.

7. (7) Greg Biffle
With 10 top-5s and 16 top-10s on the year, Biffle has had a pretty good year by anyone’s measure. Especially when you factor in the struggles that Roush Fenway has had this year. Biffle might be someone to keep an eye on this weekend as he’s finished in the top-10 in three out of the last four Phoenix races, including a fifth in April.

8. (3) Juan Pablo Montoya
While I hate to say it, it appears that the train has fallen off of the tracks, for the first time since August Montoya has finished outside the top-10 in consecutive races.

9. (6) Kasey Kahne
Had a great run going at Texas but like a lot of drivers, poor fuel mileage cost him the finish that he deserved. Don’t expect too much out of Kahne at Phoenix, he hasn’t finished better than 13th in his last five starts in the desert.

10. (NR) Kyle Busch
Looked a lot like the Busch of old, both on and off the track. He led 232 laps on the day and should have won for the fifth time in 2009. And when he didn’t, he pouted afterwards like he usually does and made his new crew chief face the fire. I only hope Dave Rogers gets hazard pay.

Thoughts on the Fat Lady Developing Laryngitis

“Luckily, we have a big points lead. All along we've been trying to tell everybody this thing is far from over, what our mindset has been. Luckily we've raced for every point throughout this Chase. We still have a decent points lead right now. We need to dust ourselves off, head to Phoenix, get a good one in the bank there.”
--Jimmie Johnson post-race

• While everyone – including myself – was ready to hand Jimmie Johnson his fourth-straight championship, a funny thing happened; we forgot that there were still three races left in the season. While Johnson had a firm hand on the title and it was his to lose -- and really it still is -- he still had to go out and make it happen on the track. What no one took into account was the complete unexpected, which is exactly what happened today on lap three. A loose Sam Hornish Jr. drifted up and tagged Johnson sending the three-time defending champ careening into the inside wall. Johnson, lucky to still be able to drive his car, took it behind the wall for extensive repairs and saw his point lead disappear faster than a keg at a frat party. Thanks to the tireless work of his crew, Johnson at the very least was able to salvage some points on the day and instead of seeing his lead shrink further, now heads to Phoenix with a comfortable – albeit much smaller –lead than the one he had coming into Texas. As we learned today though, anything can happen in the blink of an eye and trouble is just a Sam Hornish Jr. spin away. Still, Johnson does have a 73-point lead, a comfortable enough margin where he still controls his championship destiny going forward into the final two races of 2009.
  
  
• With a win Friday night in the Truck Series race and a win yesterday in the Nationwide Series race, Kyle Busch was in excellent position to do something that has never before been done before in NASCAR history. A Cup win Sunday would have given Busch a win in all three national touring series races in one weekend. Unfortunately for Busch, it wasn’t to be as he came up a few gallons shy of pulling the Texas Triple. What Busch did do, was send a message that he and new crew chief David Rogers – who was working his first race atop Busch’s pit box – are going to be more than a formable duo. Busch led more laps today, 232, then he has led in the last 21 races combined and if it weren’t for being a few gas drips short, Busch would have cruised to his fifth win of the year. Then again, Busch was up to his old tricks again when following the race he left the track without speaking to reporters. So while having a new crew chief might fix things in the short-term, long-term expect more of the same until Busch grows up and starts showing some real maturity.
  
  
• With Kyle not being able to make it to the end it opened the door for older brother Kurt to sneak through and grab his second win on the year. What makes the win interesting is despite being comfortably inside the top-10 in points coming into Texas and now sitting fourth after its win, the #2 Miller Lite team is already looking ahead towards 2010. Crew chief Pat Tryson already has announced that he will be leaving at the end of the year and the team is actively trying to determine what course they want take in moving to replacing Tryson. One thing you can’t discount about Busch’s win is that there was no backing into it despite his younger brother handing him the lead when he ran out of fuel -- Kurt was at or near the front all day and ended up leading 89 laps total. While his car wasn’t as fast as the 18, what he did have was superior strategy not to mention better gas mileage.
  
  
• How dominant were the Busch Brothers on Sunday? Combined they led all but 13 laps Sunday.

• There were a lot of drivers who saw good runs go by the wayside due to poor fuel mileage, but few couldn’t have been as distraught as Dale Earnhardt Jr. was. In his last 10 starts before Texas, Junior hadn’t finished better than 11th for a myriad of reasons. Sunday though Junior’s luck appeared to turn. He had a fast car and looked certain to record his first finish inside the top-5 since Michigan in August. But of course Junior’s poor luck returned and it was more of the same for him as he ran out fuel with four laps remaining. The final results will show that Junior finished the day 25th, but that doesn’t come anywhere close to showing just how competitive he was on the day. In a year that has been a disaster on every possible level; you have to find the positives wherever you can.
  


• Other drivers who saw great runs not come to fruition include David Reutimann, Kasey Kahne and Marcos Ambrose, all of whom ran in the top-10 but didn’t have the gas to see the finish without having to pit.
  


• Boy, Jeff Gordon sure is one lucky guy. With the leader on his tail and about to go a lap down, he got a very “timely” caution flag for “debris” on the track. I’m sure it was purely a coincidence and had nothing to do with the fact that maybe, perhaps, possibly NASCAR might have wanted to keep Gordon on the lead lap and tighten up the points as much they can.
  


• While were on the topic of Jeff Gordon, I’m more than curious to get his thoughts on what he thinks about his car chief and other members of his team lending a hand in helping the 48 return to the track as quickly as possible. I know the Hendrick mantra is “were all in this together,” but at the same time you are competing head-to-head for a championship and any advantage you can get over the other, you need to make the most of it. Then again it’s a moot point because Gordon – who struggled all day and was lucky to finish 13th -- didn’t do enough on the track to capitalize on Johnson’s misfortune.
  


• Jeff Burton started 42nd in a backup car but drove his typical steady race and used gas mileage to record his second straight top-10 finish, just the second time in 2009 that Burton has been able to record consecutive top-10s.
  


• Has any driver been more hot or cold than Denny Hamlin? In four of the eight Chase races Hamlin has one win, two seconds and a fifth. But in the other four Chase races, Hamlin has finished 22nd, 37th, 42nd and 38th.

If you have a comment or a question for The Racing Geek, drop me a line at jordan@theracinggeek.com.

Photos courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Dickies 500 Preview

What: Dickies 500
Where: Texas Motor Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
Distance: 334 laps, 501 miles
When: November 8, 2009
Green Flag: 3:31 PM (ET)
TV: ABC
Defending Winner: Carl Edwards

Questions To Be Answered Sunday:

• With the championship all but clinched, how will the 48 team approach this race? Will they play it safe and settle for a top-10, top-15 finish? Or will they race for the win and try and completely snuff out the championship hopes of Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin?
  
  
• After having won here at Texas for the first time in April, can Jeff Gordon make it two Texas wins in a row?
  
  
• Can Carl Edwards recapture the Texas magic he had last year when he swept both Cup races?
  
  
• Can Jamie McMurray make it two wins in a row? He did finish third in this race last year.
  
  
• Last week Jamie McMurray became the first non-Chase driver to win a Chase race in 23 attempts. Is there another non-Chase driver out there that can turn the trick Sunday, or will things return to where they were before Talladega?
  
  
• How will Kyle Busch and new crew chief Dave Rogers do in their first pairing together on the Sprint Cup side of things?
  
  
• Can Robby Gordon finally finish a Texas race on the lead lap? In 12 Texas starts it’s never happened for Gordon.
  
  
• In his second race running a Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports, can Elliott Sadler do as well as he did last weekend at Talladega, where he led laps and finished in the top-10?
  

Dickies 500 By the Numbers:

• 188-points that Jimmie Johnson leads Mark Martin by with just three races remaining.
  
  
• 49-Largest point’s deficit a driver has comeback from with three races left in the year (Dale Earnhardt, 1990).
  
  
• 33-Consecutivte Chase races where Jimmie Johnson has finished 15th or better.
  
  
• 8.5-Avegae finish for Johnson at Texas – which funny, just happens to be tops among all drivers.
  
  
• 278-Most laps led by an eventual Texas race winner (Tony Stewart in 2006).
  
  
• 76%-Percentage of eventual Texas race winners that have started in the top-10.
  
  
• 7-Texas wins by Jack Roush, most among all owners.
  
  
• 3-Texas wins for Carl Edwards, which is tops among all drivers.
  

Contenders

1) Jeff Gordon
Outside of Talladega, Gordon has had a pretty flawless Chase, with five top-six finishes. That being said, he does have only one win on the year. But that one win did come at Texas earlier in the year and there is no reason not to expect Gordon to be in contention once again on Sunday.

2) Mark Martin
Martin has three wins this year on the intermediate tracks. However, the one area of concern that I do have about Martin, is how bad he and his team struggled at Charlotte just three-weeks ago. Still have to expect on Sunday that Martin will be sniffing around the lead.

3) Greg Biffle
It’s hard to label Biffle a contender when you look at what he has done the past month. On the flip side of the coin, Biffle did lead 93 laps here in April and probably should have been the victor if it weren’t for a miscue late, before he had to settle for third.

Sleepers

1) Jamie McMurray
While it may be considered a long shot for McMurray to win back-to-back races, the fact is he did finish third in this race last year. And he just happens to drive for the owner who has won more races here than any other.

2) Jeff Burton
Coming off his first top-10 since Pocono in June, Burton returns to a track where he’s finished in the top-10 in five of the last seven races. That’s good enough for me to rank him as a sleeper for the weekend. (Editors note: This was written before Burton slapped the wall in opening practice and had to go to a backup car.)

3) Clint Bowyer
I’m basing this on the fact that Bowyer finished sixth at Charlotte three-weeks ago, a track that drives similarly to Texas.

The Official “Racing Geek” Pick: Greg Biffle

Biffle has won a race every year since 2003, and if he is to continue that streak, it’s more than likely going to happen either here or at Homestead.

Texas is not only a track where he’s always formidable at, it’s also a track where he has won at previously (2005) and has scored consecutive top-5 finishes.

I think Sunday’s race plays out a lot like the one in April, where Jeff Gordon led the most laps. The only difference this time being Biffle seals the deal in the end like he wasn’t able to do in the spring.

Unrestricted Change Needed

Despite being only 28-years-old, I consider myself a traditionalist so much so that you would think that I was born forty years before I actually was.

I believe strongly that the Southern 500 should be restored to Labor Day weekend. I believe that NASCAR should never have abandoned North Wilkesboro. I believe Martinsville should have two guaranteed dates on the schedule from here to 2050. And I believe with 100% conviction that there should be no less than 10 short track races on the Sprint Cup calendar per year.

But despite considering myself a stanch traditionalist, I am also a progressive enough thinker that knows things over time eventually have to evolve. If it weren’t for evolution, NASCAR would still be racing in corn fields in front of a couple hundred people.

I believe the Chase for the Championship is a good thing for the sport. It’s something that most years – not this one obviously – has added much needed excitement to the final races of the year. I believe – despite its numerous faults – that the COT was something that was long overdue and will eventually usher in a new era of NASCAR.

And for the longest time I bristled every time someone called for the reduction of the banking at Talladega in an effort to end the madness that has become of restrictor-plate racing.

I believed that the same track that Petty, Pearson, Allison, and Earnhardt all raced on should be the same track that the future generation of NASCAR drivers should race on. To me, the way Talladega was created was how it should stay forever.

Until recently without question, I believed that Talladega’s banking should remain the same 33° because that’s the way it’s always been.

But then I got thinking –which for anyone who knows me, knows that it’s an incredibly rare day when I put my brain to use. Things change and traditions go away. That’s part of life and it’s certainly a part of sports.

Just this year for example the New York Yankees moved from historic Yankee Stadium built in 1923 to a brand-new, updated 2010 version. No one wanted to see the Yankees move away from arguably the most historic stadium in all of sports, but again, all things change and in the long run it was best for everyone involved. The Detroit Tigers no longer play at Tiger Stadium. The Chicago Bulls have been out of Chicago Stadium for over 15 years. And NASCAR no longer races at Hickory, Bowman-Gray or even Nashville anymore. As sad as it may be, all good things come to an end whether we want them to or not.

Which brings us to Talladega Superspeedway and where we are at today. I love Talladega. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the schedule. I get more excited about the two races there than just about any other race on the schedule. Watching cars run three-wide at 190mph gives me goose bumps just thinking about. The excitement there is second-to-none. Hands down. Case closed. And it’s not even open for debate.

My opinion though changed last Sunday. It's time for what once I thought was unthinkable.

It’s time for the parent company of Talladega Superspeedway –International Speedway Corporation –to acknowledge that time and technology has passed the great speedway by and as Jimmie Johnson so eloquently put it following Sunday’s race, “The only way we avoid this, if anybody wants to avoid these big wrecks and this type of racing, is to eliminate the need for restrictor plates.”

“That means get the tractors out and knock down the banking.”

As much as it stuns me to say this -- Johnson is 100% correct. ISC needs to bring in the bulldozers and reduce the banking so that the plates can come off once and for all.

I can already feel the opposition’s response. So to save everyone some time I will address your main two points for keeping the speedway the way it has been since it opened its doors forty-years-ago.

1. Changing the track will dramatically reduce the excitement factor of racing at Talladega.

My retort to this is pretty straightforward and simple: Did you see the race Sunday? It was terrible. It very well could be the worst race ever at Talladega outside of the inaugural race when almost every major name driver staged a boycott.

Outside of nice guy Jamie McMurray getting the win, there was no redeeming quality to what took place last Sunday. None.

And if you think last week’s race was exciting because we saw two cars end up on their lid, then do what Ryan Newman suggested and stop watching, because what transpired Sunday was no different than what Romans did in ancient times when they sacrificed slaves to the lions all in the of entertainment.

2. The two Talladega races are the most popular races of the year both in terms of attendance and television ratings.

You couldn’t be more wrong. First off, did you see how many fans were disguised as empty seats Sunday?

As for the television ratings, if Talladega is supposed to be such an exciting race to watch on television then explain why Sunday’s race was the lowest rated fall Talladega race since the race returned to broadcast television in 2001. If fans –casual or diehards –are so enamored with restrictor-plate racing, then explain why the hell they're not watching it?

You can’t. Precisely why its time to take the restrictor-plates off and once again make this an actual race not a parade with the occasional 10-car pileup just to keep the fans "entertained."

NASCAR Power Poll

1. (1) Jimmie Johnson
The only thing Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus were missing at Talladega were ski masks and guns.

2. (2) Jeff Gordon
Gordon may have officially seen his title hopes go poof, but at least we found out that he does have the ability to be funny, when following the race he uttered this gem, “The good news is that after running out of gas, we were able to get back out there so I could wreck my race car.”

3. (3) Juan Pablo Montoya
All you can do if put yourself in a position to win and seven races into the Chase, Montoya has put himself in a position to win every one of them. You can’t ask for anything more out of a driver and team than that. It would be nice however, to see Montoya win a race at some point this year.

4. (4) Mark Martin
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mark Martin as angry as he was following Talladega. Understandable though, considering once again Martin will be standing at the podium as a guest and not the guest of honor.

5. (5) Tony Stewart
Stewart had the right idea Sunday – lay back until the closing laps before making your move to the front – unfortunately the execution part of that plan left a lot to be desired, though you can’t fault Stewart for that.

6. (8) Kasey Kahne
In the last four-weeks Kahne has finished 34th, 3rd, 32nd, and 2nd – which means if you believe in trends, he’s destined to finish somewhere in the 30s this weekend at Texas.

7. (NR) Greg Biffle
Since becoming a Sprint Cup driver fulltime in 2003, Biffle has been able to record at least one win a year. Considering he’s won previously at Texas and Homestead, he has a more than favorably shot at keeping his streak intact. Will he though? I’m guessing not.

8. (6) Denny Hamlin
Sometimes it’s not how many DNF’s you have, but when they occur. For example, Hamlin has on the year, four races where he didn’t see the checkered flag. If they all happened before the Chase, he probably would have been able to overcome it and still make the Chase. But when three of those four DNF’s happen during the Chase, it’s the equivalent of taking a shotgun and shooting yourself in the foot.

9. (7) Kurt Busch
Did you hear the way Busch was talking to his crew Sunday and complaining about the way his cars have been this year? It’s no wonder why crew chief Pat Tryson has his bags packed and is getting out of Dodge.

10. (NR) Ryan Newman
On the bright side of things, Newman is the owner of a sporty looking, one-of-a-kind Chevy Car of Tomorrow convertible.