Dickies 500 Race Preview

Texas Motor Speedway -- 11/02/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Monday Oct 27 2008 11:33pm

It's time for the Sprint Cup series to head west for a two-week stretch that will take the circuit first to Texas and then to Phoenix, before returning to Florida for the final race of the 2008 season.

Texas Motor Speedway is a relatively new track on the NASCAR nascar schedule, with just one Cup race a year held here from 1997-2005, when a second date was added. That makes a total of 15 races on the record books.

Texas is an intermediate track, a 1.5-mile quad-oval with 24° of banking in the turns and 5° on the straightaways. It is a very fast track where the pole speed last spring by Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 190.907 mph and speeds on the straightaways reach 200.

This year's likely Cup champion Jimmie Johnson (+485) won this race last November, but his closest rival in the points, Carl Edwards (+365), won here in the spring. Edwards led the most laps (123) in that race while Johnson finished 2nd and led 65 - coincidentally, the same finishing order as last week's Atlanta race.

Carl Edwards is actually a two-time winner at Texas, having also won here in the fall of 2005. Jeff Burton (+2000) is the only other two-time winner, taking the inaugural Texas race in 1997 and the spring race here last year.

Single race winners include Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr. (+1050), Matt Kenseth (+915), Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, Greg Biffle (+755), Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart (+1250), along with Johnson.

Texas and Homestead remain the only two tracks on the circuit where Jeff Gordon (+1350) has not won a Cup race. Gordon, Jeff Burton, Bobby Labonte and Mark
Martin have competed in all 15 Texas races so far.

The good news is that the forecast this weekend doesn't call for rain (yet), so there might actually be a chance for qualifying to take place and for someone other than Jimmie Johnson to get the pole and the first pit stall. This is likely to be another race where the car out front with the clean air on its nose will stay out front and pull away from the field.

Corner speed is always important at Texas, but another factor this weekend will be the race's starting time of 2:30 p.m. Since it will be a long 500-mile race, the track will get faster as the afternoon temperatures start to cool. Cars that are fast at the beginning of the race may not be at the end, and vice versa - but the crew chief that keeps up with the changing track conditions will have the best shot at winning.

Jimmie Johnson has the best average finish at Texas, a 9.1 in ten starts, followed by Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Tony Stewart.
Kenseth, who had a fast car at Atlanta and finished 4th there, leads all drivers in points accumulated at Texas over the last five races, including bonus points. Following Kenseth in this category are Stewart, Johnson, Burton, and Kyle Busch (+715).

With just three races to go before the series champion is named, here are some clinch scenarios and related factoids, courtesy of NASCAR Public Relations:

`Johnson needs to average 9th to clinch: With each pass at Atlanta, #48-Jimmie Johnson inched closer to an historic third consecutive championship. Cale Yarborough is the only driver in NASCAR history to accomplish the feat, winning championships from 1976-78. Johnson finished second to seven-time 2008 winner #99-Carl Edwards, who refuses to give up on a championship comeback. Edwards is now 183 points behind Johnson in the Sprint Cup nascar standings with three races remaining. Johnson needs to average a ninth-place finish over the final three races to clinch a championship. So Edwards will need wins, and some bad luck for Johnson. Edwards does have some history on his side to keep the optimism alive. In each of the last three years, the winner of the Atlanta race followed up with a Texas victory (Johnson in 2007; Tony Stewart in 2006 and Edwards in 2005). Statistically, the remaining nascar schedule sets up nicely for Edwards. At Texas, Phoenix and Homestead, Edwards has two wins, seven top fives, an average finish of 13.5 and a Driver Rating of 101.0. Unfortunately for his cause, the layout favors Johnson even more. At the next three tracks, Johnson has three wins, 12 top fives, an average finish of 8.9 and a Driver Rating of 108.0.`

It's also important to note that with just two points separating Edwards and Greg Biffle in the nascar standings, Biffle can't be counted out of the mix. He has a win at Texas and three at Homestead-Miami, and has as good a shot at Johnson as Edwards does.