The word of the weekend in Loudon, New Hampshire was track position. If you had it you didn’t want to give it up if you couldn’t help it.
For a handful of drivers it was track position or lack thereof that saw promising day turn into disastrous finishes.
Ryan Newman laid the fastest lap on Friday and led early in the race but a slow pit stop under green saw him lose ground on leader Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon.
A caution a few laps later caught the field back up and Newman seemed to be back in position again. The car though never quite handled the same and getting caught a lap down when caution waved forced them to go a different pit strategy from Gordon and Kahne again.
Newman was never able to recover and actually was forced to pit in the final laps for a tie going down. He dropped to 11th in the standings after finishing 25th.
Kevin Harvick qualified well also on Sunday and ran in the top 10 for much of the day. They were able to take the wave around on lap 156 after caution waved during green flag stops.
He was running top five when caution waved again for Matt Kenseth who spun after contact with Carl Edwards.
Harvick hit pit road for gas only in attempt to only have to make it on one more stop. The problem was while the leaders stayed out everyone behind Harvick took on two tires or four tires.
Harvick quickly dropped to 14th and he never really recovered from there. Harvick wound up finishing 12th but a pit road call for fuel only versus drivers with tires made him a non factor for the win.
They were struggling with an ill handling race car in traffic, not many cautions late in the race to make adjustments.
He lost the points lead to Tony Stewart and now trails by seven.
Second to fuel mileage this season track position is the most important factor each race. We saw that majority of the drivers who started top 10 seemed to run there for much of the day.
For guys running for a title this makes your pit stops just as important as the driver in the car. Having issues with equipment, missing lug nuts, speeding or not getting your car filled with enough fuel could make or break your title hopes.
You can’t afford to have mistakes with the top 10 are separated by 29 points and the top five by just 23 points. It makes every point, every lap led a factor in determining the champion.
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