Redstate Sports

By Leon H Wolf Posted in NASCAR — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The final stretch of the race to make the Chase has begun; with just three pre-Chase races left, there are eight drivers (Stewart, Gordon, Kyle Busch, Hamlin, Burton, Earnhardt Jr., Kahne and Biffle) vying for the final six cup spots. This weekend, they all head to one of NASCAR's most famous and unpredictable tracks: the short oval at Bristol Speedway.

No track is harder to handicap than Bristol. Because the track is so small and congested, passing space on the outer concrete is sparse. This inevitably leads many drivers to wander into the slick apron, which leads to an abundance of bumping and all-out wrecks. Add to that the existence of a combined four pit-row entrances and exits on a one-mile track, and you have a lot of messes waiting to happen. Perhaps no track in NASCAR frays the nerves and excites the tempers of the drivers - and with the stakes this high, the tension may just cause some of them to crack.

Unbelievably, this week it's Jeff Burton who finds himself in danger of being on the outside of the chase standings. After moving up all the way to third through an incredibly long stretch of top-15 finishes, Burton faded from what seemed to be a sure win at Indy (still finishing 15th), then stunningly registered a DNF at Michigan, and suddenly found himself in 9th. This was not a position that Burton wanted to be in going in to Bristol, which has never been one of his better tracks. If Burton experiences on-track trouble again, he could find himself almost inexplicably out of the Chase standings. Dale Jr. has been solid at Bristol, as has Kahne. Rookie Denny Hamlin may also find himself in trouble just due to lack of experience. The wild card is Greg Biffle, who is hanging on to a shot at the Chase by the thinnest thread, and has shown the ability to win big races this year.

At this point, it's hard to go wrong with picking Matt Kenseth to win the race. He won this race last year at Bristol, and would have won the race at Bristol earlier this year had he not been wrecked in the late laps. Both Kenseth and Tony Stewart seem to thrive on tracks where passing space is difficult to come by. If Kurt Busch can shake his recent run of bad luck, he will also be in the mix at the end of this one.

If you're the sort of person who watches NASCAR only for the wrecks, this is the one race of the year that you can't afford to miss.