Not so fast: Why the Kentucky race may not be indicative of things to come
Saturday night's Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway was an exciting affair, as NASCAR's new, low-downforce rules package appeared at first blush to be a success. Kyle Busch was the big winner in the Bluegrass State, where all four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers finished in the top five.
Passing numbers were way up at Kentucky on Saturday night, with green-flag passes more than double what they were in 2014 and green-flag passes for the lead nearly double.
Don't draw any hard and fast conclusions about the rest of the season, though, and here's why:
-- Kentucky was only one race. As much as it's tempting to declare the new rules package a hit, one race isn't an adequate sample size to measure proof on concept. A much better test likely will come at Darlington Raceway on Labor Day weekend, when the Cup teams will run the Kentucky aero package with softer tires optimized for the package.
Hopefully, that combination will produce some truly memorable racing.
-- This week at Chicagoland Speedway, NASCAR will conduct a two-day test, using both the conventional 1.5-mile track package and the low-downforce setup used at Kentucky. The results of that test will go a long way in determining whether NASCAR makes rules changes for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, where there are five races on 1.5-mile tracks.
-- Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske were the dominant cars Saturday night at Kentucky. Well, guess what? They always are dominant there. All five Sprint Cup races run at Kentucky have been won by either JGR or Penske, the two superior teams on Saturday night.
But just because these two teams drubbed the competition at Kentucky is no guarantee they will fare as well at Chicagoland, Charlotte, Kansas, Texas or Homestead, the five 1.5-mile tracks left on the schedule.
-- At upcoming races at Indianapolis and Michigan, NASCAR will experiment with a wholly different, high-drag aero package expected to slow the cars down by about 10 miles per hour per lap. Which team or teams step up at these two tracks remains to be seen.
A couple of other points to ponder following the weekend:
-- It's tempting to think the younger Busch is now a lock to make the Chase. After all, he's now won two of the last three races and the next two tracks, New Hampshire and Indianapolis, are places he finished second at last year.
Busch is 87 points out of 30th place with eight races left in the Sprint Cup regular season. He made up a whopping 41 points on Saturday night alone, with a maximum points effort. So it should be a slam dunk for him to make the Chase, right?
Probably. Yes, Busch is the hottest driver in NASCAR right now and yes he has the talent, team and tools to make the Chase. Odds now favor him doing so. But after the Brickyard last year, Busch finished 42nd, 40th, 39th, 36th, 16th and 14th in last six regular season races. He can't afford a repeat of that dreadful slump if he wants to make the Chase.
-- Last but not least, there have been 11 different winners in 18 Cup races so far. With only eight races left in the regular season, it's highly unlikely that there will be more than two or three additional winners. In NASCAR's entire history, there have never been more than 16 different winners in the first 26 races of any season.
Every race that goes by without a new winner increases the likelihood that winless drivers like Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne will make the Chase. And as we all now, Ryan Newman damn near won it all last year despite never finding Victory Lane.
Joe Gibbs Racing
