Clint Bowyer
The key for Clint Bowyer last week at Kansas was to stop the bleeding following a disappointing race at Dover. He didn’t help his cause by qualifying deep in the pack at Kansas and the team spent most of the day trying to make the car drivable. They finished 15th but didn’t help their title chances.
This week they are in California and at Auto Club Speedway; Bowyer still sits 12th in the standings. At ACS his average finish is 12th and he has zero wins and one top five and five top 10 finishes. Bowyer is the only driver really on the thin line of elimination this week. He is 252 points behind 12th and the races and laps a re winding down.
Tony Stewart
In last weeks preview for Kansas I said Tony Stewart needed to have a solid run if he wanted any shot at the title. Stewart came out and did exactly that he not only led the most laps but he finished a strong third. He is still 10th in points but now only 127 points off the lead.
Stewart needs to lead laps and run in top five this week. His average finish at ACS is a solid 14.9 and he has no wins but four top fives and 10 top 10 finishes. Stewart has no choice but he needs to finish ahead of all the drivers in front of him. Stewart is back in this fight but his match is far from over.
Kyle Busch
Kansas has never been one Kyle Busch’s best tracks. In fact, he was looking just to finish top 10 and head out to ACS. Instead early contact with David Reutimann led to late race pay back by Reutimann that saw Busch hit the wall hard. The team did a great job of making repairs without costing them many points. He finished 21st and dropped to seventh in the standings and 80 points off the lead.
At Kansas his day could have been much worse in terms of his point’s loss to leader Johnson. Now he heads to ACS where he has one win. Busch also has four top fives and eight top 10 finishes. This is weekend is an opportunity to make up ground on the guys in front of him.
Greg Biffle
Just like Stewart, Greg Biffle was on the cusp of being eliminated if he had another poor finish like the first two races of the Chase. All Biffle did was go out and dominate the second half of the race and oh yea, he won. Biffle climbed back into the title hunt and now is only 85 points off the lead and eighth in the standings.
At ACS, he has one win that came in 2005, four top fives and five top 10 finishes. Biffle needs to keep pace with Johnson and that means running and finishing in top five this weekend will help gain him as many points as possible.
Jimmie Johnson
Early in the race at Kansas, Jimmie Johnson’s day was looking pretty dismal. He was running mid-pack for most of the race. It wasn’t until the final 50 laps that Johnson made his move to the front. He was unable to run down Biffle but Johnson finished second and took over the point lead in the process.
Johnson is the man to beat on Sunday, plain and simple. Johnson has won two of the last three races at ACS and has five wins overall. His average finish of 5.5 about says it all. He has 10 top fives and 11 top 10 finishes along with those five wins. Johnson will be looking to pad his point lead at a track that has been very kind to him.
Jeff Gordon
Jeff Gordon and his team have focused on qualifying during Friday practice. Finally that paid off when he started third at Kansas. At Kansas, Gordon led early but they once again struggled in the middle part of the race. Their final stop was 12.4 seconds under green and Gordon went from 13th to fifth by the checkered flag. Gordon moved to fifth in the standings and 58 points off the lead.
Gordon at ACS has another chance to earn a win this weekend. He has three wins, 10 tops five and 10 top 10 finishes at ACS. In three of the last four races Gordon has finished in the top three at ACS. Gordon needs a win this weekend. If not a win he needs to finish in the top five and lead laps. The key to last weeks run was a solid qualifying effort; they will need that again this weekend.
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