Windy City could fan flames Of dramatic Nationwide Series championship

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 17: NASCAR Driver Austin Dillon and SiriusXM radio host Kay Adams attend the SiriusXM Celebrity Fantasy Football Draft at Hard Rock Cafe - Times Square on July 17, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Imagesfor SiriusXM)
NEW YORK, NY - JULY 17:  NASCAR Driver Austin Dillon and SiriusXM radio host Kay Adams attend the SiriusXM Celebrity Fantasy Football Draft at Hard Rock Cafe - Times Square on July 17, 2013 in New York City.  (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Imagesfor SiriusXM)
NEW YORK, NY – JULY 17: NASCAR Driver Austin Dillon and SiriusXM radio host Kay Adams attend the SiriusXM Celebrity Fantasy Football Draft at Hard Rock Cafe – Times Square on July 17, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Imagesfor SiriusXM)

Half way home, full throttle. And full emotion.

The NASCAR Nationwide Series hit its halfway point last Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and tempers flared post-race between two of the championship front runners – Regan Smith and Elliott Sadler.

Championship standings leader Smith and defending race winner Sadler tangled on track in New Hampshire this past weekend, and frustrations and tempers exploded following the incident. Sadler vowed in post-race remarks that Smith would not win the championship at season’s end. Smith currently holds a 24-point lead over Sadler, who is in fifth.

“You will not win this championship, mark my word,” Sadler reportedly yelled at Smith afterward in the garage.

Sadler might be on to something, whether he plays a part in thwarting Smith or not. Smith has seen a once-robust points lead shrink to five points heading into this Sunday’s STP 300 at Chicagoland Speedway (3 p.m. on ESPN, MRN Radio and SiriusXM Satellite Radio). Four races ago, that lead stood at 58 points.

“The past two weeks have been frustrating for our Speedco team,” Smith said. “At Daytona and Loudon we ran well and in the top five. We’ve just been unable to put an entire race together and have it play out like we need to. Top 10s are good, but when you run top-three and top-five all day, it makes them difficult to accept. I won’t say I don’t think about the points. It’s just that right now our main focus is getting back to maintaining positions in the closing laps and capitalizing on opportunities. If we can do that, the points will take care of itself.”

Only 24 points separate the top-five drivers, with Sam Hornish Jr., Austin Dillon, Justin Allgaier and Sadler sitting two-through-five.

On Sunday, the Nationwide Insurance Dash 4 Cash (#Dash4Cash) will reach its third round, a race-within-a-race program for NASCAR Nationwide Series points eligible drivers. Elliott Sadler banked the first round of Dash 4 Cash in Daytona with a third-place finish. Austin Dillon won the D4C $100,000 bonus with a third-place finish of his own at New Hampshire last weekend.

Dillon automatically qualified for the next payout this Sunday at Chicagoland. He will compete against Brian Vickers, Brian Scott and Michael Annett for the bonus. The top finisher among that group will win $100,000 and automatically qualify for the final D4C race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Greg Engle
About Greg Engle 7421 Articles
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.