There are a lot of storylines to follow at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.
You have guys like Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ryan Newman, for example, that are running really well right now. They haven’t won a race yet in 2011, but they are putting themselves in position to win every week so far.
Then there are four or five guys way back there that while they may have been running well, they simply have had bad finishes so far this year. This group includes Jeff Burton, Jamie McMurray, Joey Logano and Greg Biffle. They’ve dug themselves a pretty deep hole. So they are motivated to run even harder.
They can’t afford to get even further behind.
Now we start a stretch of five straight races. There are a variety of tracks in these next five weeks. You have two short tracks – Bristol this weekend and then Martinsville Speedway in two weeks. We go to Fontana, Calif., next weekend to compete at Auto Club Speedway, which is a 2-mile track. We have Texas Motor Speedway, a very fast mile-and-a-half track. Then, before our next week off, we have Talladega Superspeedway, our next restrictor-plate track.
By now, whether it is fueling issues, pit-crew issues or engine issues, teams have a really good feel of their strengths and their weaknesses.
This Sunday is the race at Bristol, and no one really has any kind of advantage there. That being said, you can’t ignore how well Kyle Busch races there. Remember last year he set a NASCAR record by winning all three series' races -- Camping World Truck, Nationwide and Sprint Cup - at Bristol in a single weekend.
Outside of Kyle, I don’t know that you can put your finger on anybody as a favorite. Bristol is never about horsepower or aerodynamics. It’s about giving that driver a car that will last for 500 laps and the driver getting up on the wheel and doing what he’s paid to do.
Richard Childress Racing always seems to be strong there. Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton have won there. Clint Bowyer has done everything but win there.
This is an organization that is actually running well, but it simply doesn’t have the finishes in 2011 to show for it. Remember that RCR had all three teams in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup. Newcomer to the organization, Paul Menard, is actually carrying the banner for RCR right now.
Maybe this is the weekend they can begin to turn things around and dig themselves out of a hole.
