Five races more to go until the third annual Nascar Nextel Cup chase for the Championship – the chase race to the top ten is on and each driver is stepping on the paddle and pumping up the heat as the season enters its most interesting phase.
The heavy duty Nascar stars like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr, and Tony Stewart have by no means secured themselves in the top ten of this chase race yet. Other respected and sometimes threatening Nascar drivers like Kasey Kahne, Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle are snapping at the feet of the top guns – and in a chase race anything can happen. The likes of Jeff Burton who is positioned at number three is not even safe by any stretch of the imagination in this chase race.
Mark Martin is currently at number 6 and he should be “good” unless he runs into some bad luck at Nascar‘s threatening tracks, Watkins Glen or Bristol – these two tracks are tricky and a lot can go wrong very fast during these chase races. So fans will have to keep their fingers crossed on those tracks.
Denny Hamlin is sitting at the 7th spot at the moment. Can Hamlin do what Carl Edwards did last year? Can he hold on the top ten? Can he do it in this chase race? Once again Denny being a young gun at Nascar there is a great chance that something may not go well at Watkins and Bristol – these tracks have proven to be dangerous for rookies during these tough chase races.
The Nascar great, Jeff Gordon is at the 8th Position. Gordon is very good at Waktins Glen and Bristol – these are the tracks where Jeff can capitalize as these are the track where his Nascar opponents are most likely to falter.
Tony Stewart is positioned at the 9th place. There is no track that Tony can’t drive on but that doesn’t mean that he can’t have a slip up. Tony has faced his share of mis-fortunes in the Nascar chase race 2006 event, so maybe he has learnt his lessons and hopefully he would breeze through the remaining chase race tracks.
Nascar great, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the tricky number 10 spot. Dale has been pretty inconsistent at the round courses all throughout his career, therefore is a tough call to say anything for sure about Dale. My guess is that there is a 50-50 percent chance for him to hang onto the top ten – but then again only time can decide this one. After all it’s Nascar and this is a chase race.
Kasey Kahne has dug himself into a hole as he sits at the 11th spot. This is an example of how fast momentum can shift. Kasey had won his fourth race of the season in Michigan about two months and we were predicting that he going to breeze through the Nextel Cup Chase. But since that win, there has been very little for him to celebrate – except for his only top ten finish at New Hampshire last month.
Greg Biffle is at number 12. He is very strong at Michigan, California, Bristol and Richmond. My prediction is that if he can stay away from any hiccups then he should be able to breeze past Kasey and Dale and make it to the top 10s in this chase race.
But this is a Nascar, Chase racing competition and anything that we predict and calculate can go out the window in a span of a few races. Pick your favorites and keep your fingers crossed all the way to the checkered flag.
