Crown Royal presents the `Your Name Here` 400 Race Preview

Richmond International Raceway -- 05/1/2010

Author: Jed Henson

Published: Tuesday Apr 27 2010 7:26am

With the madness of Talladega behind us, the circuit heads to Richmond, Va., for a Saturday night race. Richmond International Raceway (RIR) is a .75-mile track with 14 degrees of banking in the turns, and that lumps it into the short-flat track category (Phoenix measures 1 mile long with 11 and 9 degrees of banking, for example). It typically produces good racing, and from a fantasy or handicapping perspective, it offers fair predictability, too.

We have a decent amount of historical data from Richmond, although the Saturday night schedule squeezes practice and qualifying into Friday, cutting one practice session from a typical weekend (from three down to two). As of this morning, it appears we will have stellar, consistent weather (though slightly warming) on Friday and Saturday, so we should get all the preliminary action in and not have to worry about rain de-rubbering the track and/or stopping the race.

On the other hand, the teams will practice and qualify during warm, sunny Friday, but then race at night on Saturday. I suspect RIR's asphalt will vary quite a bit in temperature from day-to-night, so setups that are good on Friday might not be so good on Saturday night. In addition, quarters are pretty tight at Richmond on the track and pit road, and that tends to ramp up the chances of a crash, the number of pit-road incidents and driver tempers.

Handicapping Richmond
I've looked over the historical data from Richmond and recent races on the other short-flat tracks on the Sprint Cup circuit (i.e., Phoenix, Martinsville, and New Hampshire), and the same names rose to the top no matter how I looked at the data. I therefore feel good about this top six:

1. Jeff Gordon
2. Mark Martin
3. Jimmie Johnson
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Ryan Newman
6. Juan Pablo Montoya

Gordon is the clear favorite so far. Martin, Johnson and Hamlin are bunched pretty tightly together.

After Newman and Montoya, it's a bit of a jumble. Tony Stewart and the Busch brothers are close, and the Richard Childress Racing cars could easily get into the mix, too (particularly Clint Bowyer). I currently rate the Roush-Fenway cars on the periphery of the top 10, with Greg Biffle leading the way.

We'll know more after practice and qualifying on Friday. We'll also know by then whether Goodyear is bringing a new tire to this race, or the same as last year.

Stay tuned for my race-preview update.

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