Previewing Phoenix – Drivers 5 through 8 Who Must Win

Jeff Gordon will be one of the four, who the other three will be won’t be decided until the checkered flag falls for Sunday’s Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix global Raceway.

Gordon is locked into the Championship Round after winning two weeks ago at Martinsville Speedway. They’re just not seen in today’s era of NASCAR, when there are more competitive cars than ever before.

In 25 starts at the Arizona oval, Busch has one win (April 23, 2005), six top fives and 14 top 10s. Four straight is insane. Busch was suspended by NASCAR for the first three races of the season, so his debut didn’t come until March at Phoenix worldwide Raceway. “Phoenix is a unique race track that I really want to have a good race at”. The Bakersfield, Calif. native has been racing on it at all stages of his career.

Kevin Harvick can put two of his strongest rivals at Penske Racing out of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup if he can score a fifth straight win at Phoenix global Raceway on Sunday. “If we can go out there and win the race, then we will. As far as we’re concerned, that’s how we look at it”.

Here’s a look at Harvick’s string of victories at Phoenix. After all, he has seven wins overall at PIR, including five of the last six. Neither Kyle Busch nor Carl Edwards – title contenders both – attended, but teammate Matt Kenseth gathered extensive data to be shared among Joe Gibbs Racing’s four-car effort. You can group Phoenix, Richmond and New Hampshire together because all three require similar set-ups – do well on one and you’ll probably do well on the other. A two-time victor this season, Busch may have cooled off but can not be counted out on tracks like Phoenix or Homestead – where Busch clinched his championship in the first year of the Chase in 2004. Harvick had only one top-five among those three races. Petty finished second. Talk about frustrating days for Petty and Keselowski…

Busch is in second place in the Chase standings and is in the uncharted waters of racing for a championship. He figures to be Harvick’s toughest competition this week.

Kurt Busch is seventh in points, 28 points out of fourth. But the mid-race adjustments made by Jimmie Johnson improved his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy enough to overtake the Ford driver at the finish.

Race distance: 312 miles, 312 laps. He’s using that same chassis this week, which should give the team and his backers a few confidence. “Now heading to Phoenix, we’re undefeated there with two-and-0, and hopefully we can go and pick up another win this week and keep my ideal record intact”. His 7.8 average finish is the all-time best at Phoenix.

Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Chevy seems on rails at Phoenix. Ty Dillon is third, 30 points back, and Regan Smith fourth, 31 points behind…. If Truex doesn’t win, but holds his fourth-place position, he’ll be in the final four and complete a remarkable Chase run as the only single-car team in the tournament. He is second in points in the Eliminator round and can clinch a berth in the finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway if he finishes as high as third and leads a lap. That makes a big difference on the balance of the vehicle, how much downforce it makes and how much tape you can run on the front.

“Anybody with a streak at a particular track, you’ve got to show up with realistic expectations but enough swagger knowing it’s a track that’s good for you, then go get it done”, Johnson said after last weekend’s victory at Texas Motor Speedway.

Addressing Johnson’s season after he won at Texas last Sunday, crew chief Chad Knaus said: “Let’s be honest, we did it to ourselves”. Yes, his cars have been fast, but rarely has there been an easy week besides his Dover victory.