NASCAR Playoffs Tornado Lands In Kansas… Hey, Is That Toto Over There?
by Capt. Herb Emory ~ September 27th, 2007 @ 9:57 am. Filed under: Captain's Corner. 871 readsIt will be the NASCAR tornado making news this weekend in the land Dorothy, Toto and the Tin Man made famous. The third round of the Nextel Cup championship playoffs will be at Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile speedway that is younger than Dorothy was when she strolled down that Yellow Brick Road.
The ISC/NASCAR-owned speedway opened for Nextel Cup racing in 2001. The banking on the speedway varies between five and 15 degrees.
Jeff Gordon emerged from Dover as the point leader and he is the only driver with repeat wins at Kansas. Gordon won the first two events run at the speedway in 2001 and 2002, but fuel pump problems left him with a 39th place finish at Kansas last year.
The only other driver in the championship group with a win at Kansas is Tony Stewart. Stewart won last year and he finished fourth in 2005 race at the speedway.
The only other winners at Kansas are Mark Martin (2005), Joe Nemechek (2004) and Ryan Newman (2003).
The top-five finishers of the 2006 event were Tony Stewart, Casey Mears, Mark Martin, Dale Jarrett and Jeff Burton.
Jimmy Johnson collected the bonus points for leading the most laps last year. Johnson was out front for 105 of the 267 laps, but he finished 14th after making a late-race pit stop for fuel.
The other drivers leading five or more laps of the race were Kyle Busch (64), Clint Bowyer (43), Martin Truex Jr. (18), Kasey Kahne (11), Carl Edwards (7), Scott Riggs (6) and Tony Stewart (5).
There were 11 caution flag incidents and the race took just over three hours and 17 minutes to complete.
Kasey Kahne was the pole winner with a lap of 178.377 miles-an-hour clocked in during qualifying.
Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch are the only Chase drivers that have competed in all six Winston/Nextel Cup races run at Kansas.
Jimmie Johnson has run five of the six Kansas events. There are no top-five finishes on his Kansas report card, but he has a pole and three top-ten finishes there. He has also led laps in three of the five Kansas races he has run. Johnson finished 14th last year.
Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch have run three Kansas races each. Edwards has scored one top-five and two top-ten finishes at Kansas. He finished sixth in 2006. Busch’s seventh place finish last year is his only top-ten finish there.
Denny Hamlin has competed in two Cup races at the Kansas facility and he might be seeking some advice from the Wizard of Oz about his efforts there. Hamlin finished 18th and 32nd in his two Kansas races.
Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. have only run one event at Kansas, but they both had encouraging rookie experiences there in 2006. Bowyer led 43 laps and finished ninth and Truex debuted at the track with an 11th place finish.
Only five of the 12 drivers in the Chase registered top-ten finishes in the race at Kansas last year. Jeff Gordon had the worst results of the bunch with that 39th-place run.
While Gordon leads the stat sheet at Kansas with wins, Tony Stewart has the best record when you sort the numbers by top-ten finishes. Stewart has top-ten finishes in five of the six races he has competed in at Kansas and he is the only driver that has always finished on the lead lap there.
Bad Boys: Carl Edwards lost 25 of the points he earned for winning at Dover when NASCAR inspectors discovered his No. 99 “was found to be too low in the right rear area” during a post-race examination of the winning car. The crew chief for the team was also fined $25,000.
The latest helmet throwing exhibition will cost driver Tony Raines $15,000. Raines hurled his helmet at Robby Gordon following a crash in the Busch Series race at Dover. NASCAR also docked him 25 points in the Busch point standings.
Georgia Boys: David Ragan registered the best finish among the Georgia drivers in the Nextel Cup race at Dover. Ragan finished 25th in the race and he is ranked 21st in the Nextel Cup driver points. The Unadilla driver trails Juan Pablo Montoya by 15 points in the Rookie of the Year standings.
Ragan collected 32nd-place pay in the Busch Series race at Dover, but he still was able to hold on to his fifth-place ranking in the Busch Series points. He leads the Rookie of the Year Award points in the Busch division.
Peachtree City’s Reed Sorenson collected five bonus points for leading two laps of the Dover Nextel Cup event, but a late-race crash resulted in a 30th place finish for the No. 41 team. Sorenson is ranked 23rd in the Nextel Cup points.
Reed had better luck in the Saturday Busch Series race at Dover. He started sixth and finished fifth. It was his second top-five finish in the Busch races this season. Reed has run 18 of the 29 Busch events this year.
Chase Miller finished 16th in his fifth Busch event of the season. The Cherokee County driver was in a Ray Evernham Dodge for the race.
Gwinnett County’s Richard Johns finished 28th in the Dover Busch race. Johns has run nine Busch races this year.
There were no Georgia entries in the Craftsman Truck Series race at Las Vegas. It was the first time this year that Georgia has not been represented in the truck starting grid.
Bill Lester has been off track and without a ride since Indianapolis. Joey Clanton, of Fayette County, is scheduled to be back in his Zaxby’s truck for the October 6th truck race at Talladega.
Awesome Bill will be back in the driver’s seat of the No. 21 Nextel Cup car at Kansas this weekend. It will be Elliott’s 15th race in the Wood Brothers car this season. Ken Schrader drove the entry in New Hampshire and Dover.
Elliott has agreed to share driving duties in the car next year too. ABC Sports reports the 1988 Winston Cup champion will join Jon Wood and Marcos Ambrose as the rotating drivers in the driver’s seat for the team next season.
For more race information, visit our Fastcar Newsdesk at www.captainherb.net.
