AAA 400 Qualifying Update

Dover International Speedway -- 09/26/2010

Author: Jed Henson

Published: Sunday Sep 26 2010 5:19am

The Sprint Cup teams got in all three practices and qualifying at Dover under warm, sunny skies, and that's good for predictability because it gives us lots of data to review. Today's forecast on Weather.com calls for cooler weather during the race today, however, and that reduces the value of all that warm-weather data somewhat because the cars will behave a little differently on a cool track than a warm track.

Two more factors boost predictability. First, according to the Goodyear tire notes on Jayski.com, the teams are running the same tires they did in the May race, and that helps because it allows the teams to lean heavily on their notes from the May race. Finally, we already had solid historical data to review prior to yesterday's preliminaries, which I discussed in my mid-week preview.

Overall, I rate predictability a little above average today. Bettors can therefore consider taking slightly tighter lines than normal.

Handicapping Dover II
I ran the numbers from the three practices and qualifying to produce new rankings, and then I merged those rankings with my mid-week rankings (heavily weighting the results toward the new rankings). I tweaked those results per the 10-lap averages from both practices, and then I did one last fine-tuning after reading the opinions of other online experts and considering starting positions.

I came up with this top five:

1. Jimmie Johnson
2. Martin Truex Jr.
3. Kyle Busch
4. Matt Kenseth
5. Clint Bowyer

Johnson was my #1 pick earlier this week, and he solidified his hold on that spot with strong runs in the preliminaries. He looked good on short runs, starts on the pole and holds the best pit stall, and looked great in the historical data. He did look a little iffy on the long runs, so he's not a total slam dunk for the win today, but he's still the favorite.

I liked Truex and Kyle Busch a lot in my preview, and they did not disappoint Friday and Saturday. Bowyer also looked sharp, his penalty related troubles notwithstanding.

One big surprise: Matt Kenseth. I rated Kenseth #12 in my preview, but he vaulted up my charts with outstanding runs in practice Saturday. The funny thing is, he was pretty awful on Friday. For Saturday, apparently the team threw out their setup and put teammate Carl Edward's set up in. Whatever they did worked because he put up very fast one-lap times and 10-lap averages Saturday.

If you're betting today, make sure you shop around to get the best possible line on your driver(s). Picking up an extra point or two for one race may not seem like much, but it's crucial if you want to make money in the long run.

Good luck!

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