NASCAR Quicken Loans 400: Preview and prediction
Who’s Hot
Martin Truex Jr. had been dominating the standings all season despite not having a win. In fact, in 13 of 14 races this season, Truex Jr. has finished top-10. Now, he has a win and a spot in “The Chase” as he enters Michigan this weekend. With the run he has been on this year, there is no reason to believe that Truex Jr. can’t win again at Michigan.
Him and Kevin Harvick are the two best drivers in the game at the moment, while Johnson sits in a distant third and the rest aren’t even close.
The interesting thing to watch now will be how Truex Jr. runs his cars now that he has a win in his back pocket. Will he continue to be aggressive and go for the win each week, or will he take the route of like a Carl Edwards and try to get a feel for the tracks before the postseason?
Regardless, he is scorching at the moment.
It seems like Kevin Harvick finishes no worse than second every week of the season. Those results alone keep him at the top of the points standings because of the lack of separation he gives the winning drivers by being right on their bumper.
While both of his wins have come earlier in the season, and it’s been a while since he’s won, he has been the flat out best driver every week of the season. He hasn’t ran into bad luck and at this point, the only thing that could derail him is a wreck.
At some point, he’s going to have to pick up another win, or people will question if he can do better than second. However, he is the defending Sprint Cup Champion, and if he keeps driving like this, he will defend his title successfully.
Jimmie Johnson has won four races this season, which is the most of any driver this year. Most years that would be good enough to be the top driver in the points standings and a guaranteed Sprint Cup Championship. However, with the new rules and the driving done by Truex Jr. and Harvick, Johnson sits in third in the points standings.
That doesn’t mean he’s been bad, because he hasn’t. In fact, Johnson has been great, and we are currently in the midst of a run of greatness by the No. 48 and his crew.
He has finished top-3 in 7 of the last 8 races and has been a factor in each race. Getting a fifth win on the season might leapfrog him ahead of Truex Jr. and Harvick in many’s eyes, if he hasn’t already. The problem for Johnson is that he has had some mishaps on the track, which have hurt him in the points a little bit.
At Michigan, Hendrick Motorsports runs well, and Johnson should be a factor at the end to win the race.
At the beginning of the season, the Fords of Team Penske were some of the most dominant cars on the track. They had then since gone on a slide and struggled to pick up top-10 finishes despite both Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski already having won one apiece.
Well things could be on the way back up for Logano at least. While Keselowski struggles to find some consistency with his cars to put him back in that Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson range, Logano is starting to run well again.
At Pocono, Logano finished fourth on the day despite starting in the back and suffering a speeding penalty in the pits. The winner of the Daytona 500, Logano is on the verge of becoming one of the elite drivers in the sport, if he hasn’t already.
This week at the Quicken Loans 400 will be a real test to see if he can follow up a good performance last week with another this week. Odds are he will, and his teammate Keselowski will get it going sooner rather than later too.
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