NASCAR Cup Series

Performing under pressure

Published Nov. 4, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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Darrell Waltrip

You know folks, as the season winds down it’s just like a vice tightening up – it just keeps getting tighter and tighter.

If you look at the tracks left that we have to go, the top three championship contenders remaining are all pretty equal on the whole – and that’s why the points are so close and that’s why these three guys are at the top of the heap right now.

With three races to go, the three guys left chasing the championship are almost equal. When I look at the numbers and the tracks we have to go to, when I compare these teams to each other, there’s definitely not a clear cut favorite. Going into Texas, that’s a Denny Hamlin-Jimmie Johnson racetrack. While Kevin Harvick hasn’t done terrible there himself, but of the three tracks left it may be his worse. Phoenix is a Hamlin-Johnson-and possibly Harvick racetrack – all three do well there. And Homestead, Hamlin may have a slight edge there, but Harvick runs really good there as well. I don’t know how good Johnson can be there.

All three teams, all three cars, are very dependable. The cars hardly ever break. The No. 11 team can have trouble, especially mechanical issues, and that has been its Achilles heel through the year. They seem to have their arms around those issues right now, so I don’t really expect that to be an issue. But the Nos. 48 and 29 have been very, very dependable, so the No. 11 cannot afford to have any issues. If you wanted to look at that and say that might be a problem for Hamlin, it’s a stretch but it could be.

All three cars are fast, they all have good engine programs. Everybody brags about the Earnhardt Childress Racing engines that are in Harvick’s No. 29 machine, and they have probably been a big help to him this year. But the Toyota engine program in Hamlin’s car is as good as anybody and we all know that Hendrick Motorsports powerplants make good power, so I don’t see a horsepower or a manufacturer advantage necessarily. The Toyotas do seem to run awfully well on the mile-and-a-half racetracks, so that could give a slight edge to Hamlin. He won at Texas Motor Speedway back in the spring, so he should be pretty good there this weekend. The No. 48 team always has a fast car. But the No. 29, again, always seems to be right there in the mix – but that’s it, just right there. He’s not at the head of the pack in that many races. So a slight edge, I think, to the No. 11 car going into Texas.

All three drivers are good. Johnson has been there, he’s done that. He’s been under this type of pressure the last four years now and come out on top. This is the closest battle he’s had, but I don’t see him falling apart or not being able to handle the pressure – I think he handles it pretty well, he is a calm, cool, collected guy. Hamlin, on the other hand, can be a bit emotional. He can be up-and-down. But he did impress me at Martinsville. He went in there, sat on the pole, then went out and won that race. That’s what he needed to do to tighten this thing up. He got a lap down at Talladega this past Sunday, but he didn’t panic and instead kept his cool and fought his way back to get back on the lead lap and get a top-10 finish. That was very impressive. That’s a really mature Denny Hamlin – probably more than I have seen in his career really. And then Harvick, he really just has to keep his cool and not get all riled up about something that’s happening on the racetrack that doesn’t involve him, or if somebody does something he doesn’t like or if a caution comes out that he doesn’t necessarily agree with. He needs to stay focused and not worried about other people and other things. And he’s been doing a pretty darn good job of that. The effort his team put forth at Talladega fixing his car and getting him back out there with a piece that was competitive enough to fight for the win was pretty impressive.

All three teams are cool under fire. They’ve got the right personnel. Harvick’s team owner Richard Childress took teammate Clint Bowyer’s pit crew – which seemed to be a little more consistent on pit road and a little quicker than Harvick’s original crew – and swapped them around. That’s made a big difference; I saw some great work there at Talladega in the form of some good pit stops. That was a good move for Childress and could pay off for him and Harvick. Meanwhile, the No. 48 team has had its moments on pit road. Those guys have cost their driver track position a number of times – and track position is so critical late in a race, particularly if you get down to a green-white-checker finish, which seems to be a common occurrence. That pit crew needs to be on its game these next three weeks. At Texas you can get away with a mistake on pit road, but no way you can do that in Phoenix. You have a bad stop at Phoenix and your driver is mired at the back of the pack, that’s it, he’s done for the day. The No. 11 crew has been solid all year long, they can click off good consistent stops and they’ve had no issues or problems of note.

All three teams have great crew chiefs. Hamlin has Mike Ford, who is an experienced guy and I don’t really see him getting all bent out of shape – which is needed this time of year. Harvick’s crew chief Gil Martin is putting on a great effort leading his team to be in the position they are in right now and he’s just a great guy. It’s going to be interesting to see how they handle everything the last three races because this is when the going gets tough and this is when you have to put on your big boy pants to saddle up and ride. But the master, and we all know it, is No. 48 team’s Chad Knaus. He is the consummate professional. He’s always thinking ahead and is always one step ahead of everybody else. I know you folks probably get tired of me saying it, but when the caution comes out during a race most people don’t want to know what they are going to do, they want to know what Chad’s going to do. That is one of the things that give Knaus a psychological advantage – he’s a sharp guy, possibly the sharpest one to sit on a pit box in a long, long time.

All three tracks coming up, it’s about a break-even for Hamlin and Johnson. Harvick has to keep it close until they get to Homestead because that track is a good one for him and he has a shot if he can stay close going into the season finale.

It’s time to saddle up and ride that pony boys. Time’s running out and these next three races are kind of a tossup. I think that’s why the points battle is as close as it is right now. These three teams – their strengths are much greater than their weaknesses and that’s why they are where they are. This is going to go right down to the wire, which is what NASCAR needed – they were concerned as to whether they needed to change the Chase or not, but with the kind of Chase we are having this year the answer to that is no, just leave it alone. This is what NASCAR has been expecting since the Chase format came about.

Now let’s all head to Texas, where it’s all bigger and better. That could be good, or that could be bad for some of these title chasers.

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