Eighteen NASCAR Cup races there are 18 more to go and are in the books . It is the halfway point of the season until the Playoffs start in Las Vegas, and eight races remain. And while Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have won 15 of the 18 races so far, there are indications of other teams getting the hang of the new race bundle. I would not anticipate championship favorites Kyle Busch or Martin Truex Jr. to run away with this thing.
There’s plenty of rushing to go and lots of improvements to be produced from groups like Stewart-Haas Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, and Hendrick Motorsports and they’re all still at the Playoff mix. Should they get up to speed by the 10-race Playoffs they have just as good a shot as anyone.
Hendrick has already made their move together with Alex Bowman winning at Chicagoland for his first career race after he finished second at Kansas and seventh at Charlotte. Jimmie Johnson has top-fives in his last two starts on the program, and Chase Elliott includes a Talladega triumph as one of the six top-fives at 2019.
It has been a slow process for Hendrick, however they showed back in March at Texas that they were on the path to becoming among the very best on 1.5-mile paths again. Johnson started in the pole and led 60 laps — more than he led all of 2018 — before finishing fifth. William Byron led 15 laps before finishing sixth and Elliott directed 35 laps before finishing 13th. Do well on the 1.5-mile paths and winning a championship is more likely just because there are more of them on the program. It was how Johnson paved the way to winning seven Cup Championships. There were six races on 1.5-mile monitors to date this season and five more to go starting with Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 in Kentucky Speedway.
Kyle Busch has four wins up to now, but none have come on 1.5-mile tracks. His two wins employing this race package with aero ducts and engines producing 550 horsepower arrived on the 2-mile design at Michigan and the 2.5-mile tricky triangle at Pocono. He’s mathematically the greatest ever at Kentucky.
“I love Kentucky,” said Busch. “It was special there in 2011, when we were able to win the first Cup race and it remained that way throughout our win there four years ago. I look forward to going back every year. It’s a pretty challenging racetrack. It was a place that lends itself to various sorts of setups because it was so tough. Momentum is come out of by lap times at Kentucky. The place is indeed round that there is not a ton of banking in comparison to another 1.5-milers. It is all about how round the corners are just being able to maintain corner speed and stay on the gas. It is a place we get excited about, for sure.”
Ad In addition to winning the inaugural Cup race from the pole at Kentucky at 2011, in addition, he won there in 2015. His fifth-place average end is a track record, as is his six top-fives and 549 laps led. He has also got three Kentucky wins in the Xfinity Series and two more in the Truck Series. He’s got quite the restart, but the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook has posted him that the next choice to win at 5/1 odds.
The 7/2 favored is Martin Truex Jr. even though he has had only two top-fives in eight Kentucky begins. But, those top-fives were wins and they came in each of the previous two races there. He has shot over Johnson’s mantle as being the cookie-cutter King on these tracks. It is how he won a championship. He’s tied with Busch with four wins this season, one of which came at Charlotte in May when he led 116 laps for his third career win on the 1.5-mile layout.
I don’t think I did Truex justice just saying he won at Kentucky the last two seasons since they had been dominating wins in all phases. In 2017, he began second, won the first two stages, and directed 152 laps prior to winning. Last season he started from the pole, won the first two phases and led 174 laps prior to winning.