Stewart’s Atlanta domination proves it’s anybody’s Chase
September 6th, 2010
HAMPTON, Ga. – Any chance we can go ahead and start the Chase next weekend at Richmond?
Seriously, with the field this evenly matched, with the race for the Sprint Cup this wide-open, who’s going to complain? Let’s go ahead and get this thing started. We’ve got some major questions to answer:
• Is Jimmie Johnson as vulnerable as he’s appeared to be the last few months?
• Can Kevin Harvick sustain the momentum he’s built during the regular season?
• Will Kyle Busch hold together better than he did in 2008, or Tony Stewart better than he did in 2009?
• Could Carl Edwards or Jeff Gordon sneak up and steal a Cup going into the Chase without a regular-season victory?
• Can Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin – both of whom briefly held the unofficial ‘most likely to dethrone Jimmie’ tag this season – regain any of their lost mojo?
If the answer to even one of the above questions is "yes," we’re less than two weeks away from one of the best sprints – no pun intended – for the finish in NASCAR history. Rarely have you had so many exceptionally talented drivers hitting their season stride at exactly the right moment. And while Vegas odds may favor Johnson, let’s be realistic – this is still anyone’s Cup.
Sunday night’s Emory Healthcare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway – part of the track’s 50th anniversary celebration and the final "second race" at the track – was a perfect encapsulation of NASCAR as it stands right now. You had big names taking their turns up front – five Chase drivers had at least a taste of the lead. But you had many of those same names falling victim to those kinds of demonic race-killing problems – blown engines, blown tires, misread track positions – that age crew chiefs in dog years and keep drivers up at night.
Nobody illustrates the wide-open nature of the Chase better than the winner and runner-up of the Atlanta race. After Darlington, the 11th race of the season, Tony Stewart was in 18th place, looking for all the world like his four-win season of 2009 was nothing more than rookie-owner luck. And Carl Edwards waited even longer to get going; as of Loudon at the end of late June, he was in 12th place by only a smidgen over Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Since then, Stewart and Edwards have been the two hottest drivers in the sport. Stewart has notched 11 top-10s in his last 14 races, capped by a dominating win in Atlanta. Edwards has posted seven top-7 finishes in his last eight races. They now sit fourth and fifth in the Chase standings, respectively.
"I never really believed in momentum," Edwards said. "But for as long as we’ve gone without running well" – Edwards hasn’t won since the final race of 2008, and only led six laps all season prior to Sunday – "and to be running as well as we are now, I believe in this momentum, and I believe it will apply to future races."
Good for him, bad for the rest of the field. Early in the season, conventional thinking held that the three lead dogs for the Cup were Johnson, Hamlin and Kyle Busch. Each one of those guys, the thinking went, could take over a race – or, potentially, a Chase – and hold off the field all by themselves.
But, as with Justin Bieber and "Two and a Half Men," what’s popular isn’t necessarily what’s good, and this too-easy take on NASCAR’s upper echelon began springing leaks in early summer. Kurt Busch posted wins and reliable top-10 finishes. Harvick put the regular-season "championship" in a hammerlock. And Jeff Gordon hung around like an annoying younger brother, never winning but never going away either.
So here we are, with Atlanta demonstrating beyond all doubt that while there may be favorites in this Chase, there are no sure things. Hamlin snagged the pole and ran the show for the first 140 or so laps. His lap chart looks like a profile view of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon – way high (74 laps led, the remainder in second place) until a blown engine sent him on a sudden plunge to a last-place finish.
Stewart, meanwhile, had what he called "by far the best car I’ve ever had here" and, in fact, the best car he’s run all season, a beauty that kept him edging into first place even as Hamlin, Edwards and Johnson all took shots at him.
"We had an awesome race car tonight," Stewart said. "It was balanced right from the start of the race. I knew the first run, when we were a little off and the leaders didn’t get away from us, I knew we had a shot at this thing."
Stewart’s pit crew was spot-on all evening; he credited them over the radio as soon as the checkered flag flew. In fact, the only problem he had all night was in restarting; time after time, he spun his tires and watched as Johnson or Edwards overtook him and shuffled him back in the pack. Stewart was so frustrated he was one more restart from using an old Sprint car trick to combine brakes and acceleration.
"I struggled on restarts all night, and finally the last two I hit it a lot closer and kept from spinning [the tires] that bad," he said. "The pit crew is who we have to give all the credit to. That final stop, they got back all the spots I lost on the restart."
Still, he never stayed down for long, and the way that he dominated even given adverse conditions, he and Edwards now enter the championship conversation. Momentum is huge at this point, and both Stewart and Edwards are carrying confidence in every element of their game – driving skills, strategy, pit crew – into the Chase.
"At this stage last year, we were pointing downhill," Stewart said, "and now we’re pointing uphill."
About all that remains to be settled before the Chase begins is the matter of the 12th spot in the Chase. Ryan Newman, Mark Martin and Jamie McMurray all took shots at 12th-place Clint Bowyer, but in the end, Bowyer’s seventh-place finish kept him ahead of all three pursuers and extended his lead to 117 points. Barring catastrophe, Bowyer’s in.
But he’s about the only one who won’t enter the Chase at full speed. The top 10 drivers are now locked in – all Greg Biffle needs to do is start at Richmond and he’s in, too – and in six days, 12 slates will get wiped clean.
"You look around … we’re going to have a really exciting Chase," Johnson said. "There are a lot of teams coming together right now."
Said Stewart: "We have a motto: When we get down, we don’t give up, we get up."
He’s not the only one, and that’s going to make for a fine Chase.
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