Samsung 500 Race Preview

Texas Motor Speedway -- 04/5/2009

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Tuesday Mar 31 2009 10:37pm

NASCAR fans, in general, like the back-to-back short track races at Bristol and Martinsville, but now it’s back to the backbone of the Sprint Cup circuit – an intermediate track.

Texas Motor Speedway is a relatively new track on the NASCAR schedule, particularly compared to last week’s venerable old Martinsville Speedway, where cars have raced since before there was a NASCAR.

Texas is a 1.5-mile quad-oval with 24 degrees of banking in the turns and 5 degrees on the straight-aways. There was one Cup race a year here from 1997 through 2004; a second date was added starting in 2005, making a total of 16 Cup races so far.

If Roush-Fenway is looking for a place to stage a comeback after an overall disappointing showing on the short tracks, they couldn’t choose a better place than Texas. Carl Edwards leads all drivers in wins here with three, including the sweep last season and a win in the fall of 2005.

In all, Roush has won 7 of the 16 TMS races, including one each by Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle, and one by Jeff Burton and Mark Martin back when they were with Roush, along with Edwards’ three wins.

Burton, in fact, has won twice at Texas, once with Roush and once with Childress. Single race winners here include Biffle, Kenseth, Martin, Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Tony Stewart.

Although Texas is a very fast track where speeds down the straight-aways top 200 miles per hour, it is also a place with some long green-flag runs, though finishes are often decided by pit strategy and fuel mileage. Last year’s spring race ended with a green-white-checkered finish .

Many fans compare Texas to Atlanta, Charlotte, and other fast intermediate tracks, but Tony Stewart explained today that they are really nothing alike: “They're night and day, in all honesty. I'm not sure that everybody realizes - even though if you looked at the top of the tracks, they’re shaped almost identical - but Texas is built quite a bit different than Atlanta is and Charlotte. What most people don't realize is the bottom of the racetrack, the apron, is paved all the way to the inside wall. That's different to what you see at Atlanta, Charlotte, some of these other places. The reason is that's where the IndyCar track was supposed to be. IndyCars were intended to run on the apron. That was going to be their racetrack. The transitions going into the corners and coming off the corners are a little more abrupt and later. The banking comes in a lot later, then it falls off a lot earlier than we have at the other tracks. That's to accommodate what was going to be the IndyCar track. That poses its own unique challenges. But obviously the grip level at Atlanta is a lot less than what we have at Texas, too. But that's what makes Atlanta so much fun. But, you know, Texas every year that we go through, it's getting better and more worn in to where the groove moves around the racetrack and cars are running from the bottom to the top. At least from a drivers standpoint, we enjoy that part of it. We enjoy not having to be line committed. It helps us out on the aero side. We can help ourselves out as drivers versus just being stuck behind somebody.”

The scheduled green flag for this race is at 2:16 p.m., which means the track will cool as the race progresses. Cars that are fast at the beginning of the race may not be fast at the end, and vice versa.

Jimmie Johnson, last week’s winner at Bristol, has the best average finish among active drivers with a 9.1 in 11 starts with one win and a second-place finish in this race last year. Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus is one of the best in the business at keeping up with the type of changing track conditions we’re likely to see on Sunday.

Johnson is followed in the average finish category by Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray.

Matt Kenseth, who won the first two races of the ’09 season, leads all drivers in points accumulated at Texas over the last five races including bonus points. Following Kenseth in this category are Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, and Clint Bower.

In terms of manufacturers, Ford has 9 wins at TMS, Chevy, 5, and Dodge 2. Toyota has not been to Victory Lane here in the Cup series, but Kyle Busch swept the track for Toyota last year in the Nationwide Series.

And speaking of the Nationwide series, although Kevin Harvick hasn’t won in Cup at Texas, he leads all active drivers in the NWS with four wins in 10 races.

Four drivers in Sunday’s race have competed in every Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway to date: Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin. This remains one of just two tracks where Jeff Gordon has yet to post a Cup series victory.

Current odds for select drivers for the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway:

Carl Edwards +500

Kyle Busch +500

Jimmie Johnson +650

Jeff Gordon +750

Kurt Busch +750

Matt Kenseth +1250

Greg Biffle +1350

Denny Hamlin +2000

Kevin Harvick +2000

Tony Stewart +2000

Dale Earnhardt Jr. +2000

Clint Bowyer +2200

Mark Martin +2500

Brian Vickers +2500

Please check back before the race for our practice and qualifying update.

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