Denny Hamlin
So the former points leader didn’t have the day at Kansas Speedway, finishing 12th and falling to eight points behind Jimmie Johnson. And during practice on Friday for this Sunday’s Pepsi MAX 400 at the Auto Club Speedway he struggled with a
Surviving the next two weeks in Fontana Charlotte- he has an 18th place finishing average at both tracks- is going to be key for Hamlin to retake the points lead from Johnson. The last time the series visited the Auto Club Speedway in February, he finished two laps down in 29th.
Kevin Harvick
Kevin Harvick has an average starting position of 28th since the Chase started in Loudon, but an average finish of 7th, his worst coming two weeks ago in Dover. His top five this past weekend in Kansas shot him back up to third in the standings, 30 points behind Johnson. Continuing to come back from these poor qualifying efforts hasn’t proved to be a problem for Harvick, and to dethrone Johnson and Hamlin he’s not only going to have to continue running well, but start winning Chase races as well.
In 16 career starts at the Auto Club Speedway, Harvick has two DNFs and an average finish of 17th.
On Friday, Harvick announced that the Kevin Harvick Foundation would be providing scholarships to athletes from Kern County, California where Harvick’s hometown of Bakersfield is located, to attend California State-Bakersfield.
Carl Edwards
Carl Edwards won the first Fontana race of the year in 2008 and has just one finish outside the top 20 (a 29th place effort in 2007), and comes into Fontana after finished sixth at his hometown track, the Kansas Speedway.
Edwards has scored 219 more points in the last ten races than Jimmie Johnson, has an average finish of seventh in the Chase, and is lurking just 53 points out of the lead. If Cousin Carl can find good fortune in Fontana, could a Roush Fenway Ford be making a run for the Cup by the time we go to Charlotte?
“I feel like our team has been marching towards this points lead. I think this track is an opportunity to do it again.”
Kyle Busch
To salvage any chance at winning this year’s Chase- his 21st place finish last weekend in Kansas and falling to fourth in points after his incident with David Reutimann- you’d think Busch would be ready to leave last weekend in the past and look forward to Fontana, right?
Uh, that would be a negative.
Busch blasted Reutimann during his media availability on Friday, saying the driver of the No. 00 “races me like an asshole” and that the payback “just makes us look like idiots.”
There is good news coming into the Auto Club Speedway, however, for Rowdy. He won the event in 2005, has completed all but three laps of competition in his 12 starts, and finished fourth in Friday’s only practice session.
Jeff Burton
With Kevin Harvick leading the points for the majority of the season and Clint Bowyer’s massive penalty stealing headlines, their teammate Jeff Burton has almost been the forgotten man at RCR. Which is understandable, since he’s had a mixed bag of results the first three races. His 18th place finish dropped him to ninth in the points standings heading into Fontana.
Burton’s gone winless in 20 Cup starts at the Auto Club Speedway, finishing worse than 25th in six of his attempts. He did, however, finish third during the second race of the season here.
"I think we’ve been fairly consistent throughout the year. Our problem has been executing, we just haven’t executed. That’s been our problem here in the Chase too. If you look at our year, I can go back and name seven or eight races that we had a great shot to win the race and we didn’t and something happened in the last 20-25 laps of the race. And, that is how our Chase has gone as well.”
Matt Kenseth
Kenseth’s 2010 Chase didn’t exactly get off to the start he may have wanted- an 18th place result in Loudon followed by a 23rd at Dover. However, things seemed to turn around a bit for the former Cup champion, after he finished in the top ten. He’s still 149 points out of the points lead in 11th, but regardless of if he challenges for the title, Kenseth can still make an impact in the Chase.
“Fontana is typically a good track for me,” Kenseth said, “so it’s good to travel there this weekend, especially after a strong run at Kansas.” Kenseth collected his 11th top 10 of the season. He has never failed to complete a lap in his 17 starts at Auto Club Speedway, and has won there three times (2006, 2007 and 2009).
Thanks to ESPN, Racing Reference, NASCAR.com, SB Nation, Paddock Talk, Landmark Newspaper’s Dustin Long, USA Today’s Nate Ryan and the LA Times for the quotes, information and statistics used in this piece.
To see how the Chasers did in Kansas, click here. To read the previews for the other six Chasers, click here.
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