3M Performance 400 PostQ
While he may not have had the fastest car this weekend Jimmie Johnson was a close second. He was second in qualifying, was second quickest on our Speed chart, and ranks second in NASCAR’s Driver Rating category. That all adds up to No.1 in our book. Johnson is searching for just his third win of the season and has a good chance of posting his fourth of the season at Michigan International Speedway. This after Johnson took the checkered flag 10 times last season on his way to a second consecutive championship. Look for the #48 Lowe’s Chevrolet to regain some of the team’s champion swagger after the 3M Performance 400 this Sunday afternoon.
A driver looking to de-throne Johnson is Carl Edwards. Edwards has the ability not only to take the checkers at Michigan but is also a driver that many consider to unseat Johnson as champion this season. Edwards loves racing at MIS averaging a 7th place finish in eight career starts with just one finish outside the top 10. Edwards has his #99 Office Depot Ford on a roll this season and is one of a few drivers that can actually win a championship this season. He will be running up front at the end of the day.
In a bit of a surprise the #83 of Brian Vickers took the pole and ranked first on our Speed chart. We say a bit of a surprise because Vickers has been running extremely well in his second season with the team after struggling to even make races in 2007. Vickers sits 17th in the point standings and has an outside chance to make the Chase for the Championship. A win here could vault him into contention for a spot with just three races remaining.
After ranking in the top 10 on the PreQ forecast Kasey Kahne has dropped all the way to the 19th position on the PostQ forecast. The #9 Budweiser Dodge has struggled so far this weekend qualifying well back in the pack in the 32nd position – not something you want to do at a track like Michigan. Kahne did not rank much better on our Speed chart sitting in the 27th position although he did look much better in practice on Saturday. Kahne can definitely get into the top 20 but he doesn’t look like a contender for the win this weekend. He gets the ‘buyer beware’ label for this race.
Brad Coleman will be making Sprint Cup debut this weekend replacing J.J. Yeley behind the wheel of the #96 DLP HDTV Toyota. Coleman, however, may not do much better than Yeley. Coleman qualified in the final position of the field and ranked just one spot better on our Speed chart. He also ranks 42nd on the Driver Rating category only because there is another first time driver at MIS in the field. While Coleman may be a potential great at the Cup level he will have his growing pains. Don’t expect much out of the youngster until he gains more experience.
profantasysports.com
3M Performance 400 Odds and Predictions
by Christopher G. Shepard
Having conquered NASCAR's road courses with last Sunday's Sprint Cup win at Watkins Glen--his eighth of the season--Kyle Busch has clinched the top spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and will now try to win on the two-mile oval at Michigan International Speedway this Sunday at 2 p.m. (the race will be televised by ESPN).
If you are going to Michigan International Speedway for NASCAR weekend you'll get to enjoy the new scoreboard and turn-one seating with all the amenities and excellent facilities. If you are camping you'll be happy to know that there are 300 new campsites at the Graves Farm location complete with electric hook-ups. Most likely you'll have to poach your own WiFi, but when you have live racing all weekend who needs Wifi? I recommend doing it the old-fashioned way and calling in your sports investment this weekend.
Who will win the 3M PERFORMANCE 400?
Say what you want, but it seems like Kyle Busch has gotten more help from the weather than anything else and Sunday's win at the Glen was just another example of the Sprint Cup points leader falling backwards into the pole due to weather washing out the qualifiers. Certainly Busch is a threat to win from any position on the grid, but getting clean air on a road course isn't a bad place to start a race.
Last time Kyle Busch raced at Michigan he was the beneficiary of the weather canceling qualifying and started the race from the pole. It didn't help him last race and he finished 13th. Fresh off of making NASCAR history by sweeping all three road courses in one season Busch is in good position to do well at the 3M Performance 400, and while I predict a top-five finish for Busch, I think we'll see a different familiar face taking the checkered flag on Sunday.
There are several drivers capable of winning the 3M and indeed Michigan has been generous to many drivers over the years as 14 different drivers have won at Michigan in 18 Sprint Cup races. Kurt Busch is the defending race champion but I have a hard time seeing him do any better than a top-15 finish.
There are three drivers I am keying on; Jimmy Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. I like Johnson because he has been a maniac on oval tracks finishing third, first and second. Kenseth has the potential to dominate on oval tracks. Combine Johnson's successes on the 2-mile oval with Matt Kenseth and Edwards and the drivers enjoy an average finish of fourth place over the past four races at Michigan. So it wouldn't be a huge surprise to me if one of these three drivers wins the race.
For those who embrace the idea of betting a little to win a lot how can you not love Edwards and crew chief Bob Osborne? Two weeks ago they gambled on fuel and won the Pennsylvania 500 on fumes for Edwards' fourth win of the season. Edwards took over the second place spot in the Sprint Cup with the win two weeks ago.
While there are a lot of leans pointing toward Johnson winning on Sunday, Rousch Fenway Racing has historically owned the two-mile tracks and I'm going to try to ride that trend this weekend with RFR's No. 99 car.
Pick! Carl Edwards, No. 99, 5/1
SOLID GOLD PICKS
Sportsbook.com has listed many matchups on the 3M Performance 400 this weekend. Two weeks ago we backed the No. 16 car with Greg Biffle at +1.15. While Biffle was in front of Matt Kenseth's No. 17 car the last pit stop killed me and put Biffle two places behind Kenseth's 11th-place finish. The one-unit loss brings my record Over-the-Wall to 12-13 with -.70 units on the season after 22 of 36 Sprint Cup races completed. As of deadline Friday matchups had not been posted so I'll resume the matchups next weekend.
LONG ODDS PICK
Vickers sports one top-five and four top-10 finishes at Michigan and at No. 17 in the Sprint Cup rankings he's close to making the Chase. He'll need to overcome, somehow, 210 points to get there and considering that there is a scant 148 points between sixth place and 13th, Vickers has a ton of motivation to race his guts out at Michigan. Consider the fact that in 2007 Vickers best tracks were the two-mile tracks. Vickers is getting better with every race. Granted he'll have to finish better than 15th place in the next four races if he hopes to make the Chase, but for our purposes we'll settle for first place at Michigan at 20/1.
Pick! Brian Vickers, No. 83, (20/1)
Docsports.com
Brian Vickers plays role of underdog at MIS
BROOKLYN -- Michigan International Speedway has never been kind to underdogs in its 40-year existence, which is a bit surprising since it's a gas mileage track where an gambler willing to roll the dice has a shot.
Dale Jarrett won his first NASCAR Winston Cup race at MIS in 1991. Jeremy Mayfield won on fuel in 2005. Otherwise, the usual suspects, like David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace and anyone driving for Jack Roush, has dominated.
That's why Brian Vickers' lap of 188.536 mph around Michigan's two-mile superspeedway Friday afternoon was such a surprise. And it's not just that Vickers won the pole for Sunday's 2 p.m. 3M Performance 400 Sprint Cup race, but it was how he did it.
Vickers, the 24-year old native of Thomasville, N.C., arrived in the Big Three's backyard in his No. 83 Red Bull Toyota and was not only fastest in Friday's practice, but in qualifying, he was more than one second quicker than Jimmie Johnson, who will start alongside Vickers on the front row. It was Vickers' first pole of the season and the fifth of his career.
"The car was awesome, right out of the gate," said Vickers, who also is racing in today's Nationwide race at MIS. "It had real good grip. We just hit it. I got out on the track (for practice) and went into the first turn and said m gosh, this car is great.
MIS is hardly hurting for storylines this weekend, which is the 23rd stop on the 36-race Sprint Cup schedule. Drivers will have only three more races to qualify for the Chase to the Championship once the leave Michigan. Only 148 points separate sixth place Jeff Gordon from 13th place Clint Bowyer, which means anyone in that range is just a DNF away from a world of hurt.
Plus, Ton Stewart announced Friday morning that Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman will be coming to race for him next year.
Can Kyle Busch win his ninth race? And then along came Vickers, who is 17th in points after finishing 38th overall a year ago. Vickers, whose lone career win came at Talladega in the fall of 2006, gave Team Red Bull its first pole. It also marks the first time that MIS has had a foreign make on the pole for a Cup race.
But Johnson, who was teammates with Vickers for three seasons when Vickers raced for Rick Hendrick Motorsports from 2004-2006, said he wasn't surprised b Vickers' success. He pointed out that Vickers finished fourth at the June MIS race.
"This has always been one of his better tracks, even when he was racing for Hendrick," Johnson said of Vickers. "We picked up speed, but we knew our lap wasn't perfect. "Brian came out on the track this morning and was five-tenths of a second faster than we were in June, and it was cooler than."
Success on Friday doesn't always mean success Sunday, though. Kasey Kahne (June of 2006) has been the only Cup driver to win an MIS race from the pole in the past 14 races.
"We're going to have to make some changes," Vickers said. "We've found with this car that you don't have to make quite as man changes maybe as you used to in the old car, but we'll have to make some adjustments to make the car run well and run well on a long run and do it for an entire race."
But for one day, the focus in NASCAR wasn't on Johnson, Stewart or Busch, but Vickers. "Yeah, absolutely," said Vickers, when asked if he was surprised to be on the pole. "(Johnson) has had the team to beat in our sport for the past two years."
mlive.com