(By Greg Engle)
Posted: Sunday,June 28th, 2009
(By Bill Marx, Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service)
Here’s a look at the top five in points and five drivers to watch in today’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301. All statistical references are for Sprint Cup races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway unless otherwise indicated. Driver rating is based on the past eight races at the track.
1. Tony Stewart, 115.6 driver rating. Stewart has one win, two seconds and a third in his past eight starts at New Hampshire and has led a series-high 605 laps in that stretch. If Stewart is in sniffing distance of a win, expect him to be aggressive. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
2. Jeff Gordon, 106.7. Gordon has made 28 starts and holds track records for top fives (12), top 10s (15) and laps led (1,141). He has three wins, but they all came in his first eight starts. He finished second in both races in 2007 but finished outside the top 10 (11th and 14th) in 2008.
3. Jimmie Johnson, 102.8. Johnson’s two wins came in 2003, his second year as a full-time Cup driver. Overall he has nine top 10s in 14 starts, with only one finish–39th in 2006–outside the top 15. He finished ninth and second last year, leading 96 laps in the Chase race.
4. Kurt Busch, 83.7. Busch has three wins at Loudon, including last year’s rain-shortened race. The victory ended a stretch of five finishes outside the top 15, including two finishes in the 30s. He finished sixth last September.
5. Carl Edwards, 87.8. Edwards has finished in the top 20 in all nine of his starts, but he has only two top 10s, a second in 2006 and third last September when he led 61 laps. He doesn’t qualify well at Loudon, either. He started second last September only because rain washed out qualifying, which might explain his stellar day. Edwards has yet to qualifying in the top 10.
5 to watch:
11. Mark Martin, 92.1. We kick off the 10-race Race to the Chase with a look at the five drivers on the bubble. Martin is winless at Loudon and hasn’t raced there since 2006. But he knows his way around the track. In 24 starts, he has 13 top 10s, including eight top fives. His career average finish is 11.0.
12. Juan Pablo Montoya, 68.6. Montoya has finished in the top 10 in each of the past three weeks, a career best, and has seven top 10s in his last 12 starts–in his first 77, he had nine. This is important because it’s an indication of how proficient Montoya has become in Cup cars. It also might mean we should ignore his record at Loudon: no top 10s with an average finish of 22.8 in four races.
13. Kasey Kahne, 80.1. Kahne is three points out of 12th. He has four top 10s in eight starts at Loudon but none in three years. Like Montoya, perhaps we should ignore Kahne’s recent finishes. After all, he won last week at Infineon after never having finished better than 23rd in five previous starts there.
14. David Reutimann, 63.0. Reutimann has never finished better than 15th at Loudon, but there is a positive in his finishes: He has improved in each of his races. He finished 38th and 26th in 2007 and 19th and 15th last year. Reutimann needs to keep the streak alive. He is 40 points behind Montoya.
15. Jeff Burton, 96.4. Burton is outside the top 12 for the first time since the fourth race of the season and is 46 points behind Montoya. Burton has a track-record four Cup wins at Loudon, but the last one came in 2000. He has one top five since, a fourth place last September. Burton is desperate for another.
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