This Week in Auto Racing February 26 - 28

This Week in Auto Racing February 26 - 28

Las Vegas, NV (Sports Network) - Cha-ching! Who will hit the jackpot in NASCAR this weekend when the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series roll into Las Vegas Motor Speedway?

Sprint Cup Series

Shelby American - Las Vegas Motor Speedway - Las Vegas, NV

One of the biggest stories so far in the early Sprint Cup Series season is the resurgence of Richard Childress Racing. No driver in the RCR stable finished better than 15th in points last year, in what was one of the most disappointing seasons in the organization's 39-year history. However, things quickly have changed, and team owner Richard Childress couldn't be more pleased to the start of a season than this one.

RCR's three drivers -- Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton -- have finished no worse than 11th in the first two races this season. After last Sunday's race at California, the trio are sitting in the top-five in points. Harvick currently holds a 19-point lead over Bowyer, while Burton occupies the fifth spot (-31).

The one thing missing for RCR right now is a trip to Victory Lane, but Las Vegas Motor Speedway might be the site where the team cashes in.

Harvick has been winless in the last 109 points-paying races. Despite back-to- back victories in the pre-season Budweiser Shootout at Daytona and a win in the 2007 All-Star Race at Charlotte, Harvick's last Cup victory came three years ago in the Daytona 500.

Burton is the last RCR driver to win a race, which occurred in October 2008 at Charlotte.

Las Vegas has been one of Burton's better tracks since the series started racing there in 1998. He finished second in the inaugural Las Vegas event and then followed up with consecutive wins there from 1999-2000 when he drove for Roush Fenway Racing. Burton finished third in last year's race.

"It's a track that I've had a lot of success," Burton said. "Everytime we go there, I feel like we've got a great chance to win the race."

Bowyer gave RCR its best performance at Las Vegas one year ago when he finished second.

LVMS underwent a major renovation in 2006, with banking in the turns increased from 12 degrees to 20, and six degrees of banking added on the backstretch. Jimmie Johnson won at the 1.5-mile track consecutively from 2005-07, including the first race there after its reconfiguration.

"With the paving job they did a couple of years ago, the track is a lot faster than it's been in the past," Johnson said. "I'm not sure what the asphalt has done over the off-season and how much speed it's lost, but that track went from being a slippery track that you had to manage your time and manage your lap time around the track to a place that you have to manage."

Johnson is coming off a victory at California. The four-time defending Cup champion moved up to 12th in points following a 35th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500.

Kyle Busch is the defending race winner. Busch, a native of Las Vegas, won the pole but was forced to start from the rear of the field due to an engine change. He held off Bowyer and Burton in a three-lap shootout to the finish for his first victory at his hometrack.

"It was awesome, just the feeling of a lifetime," Kyle Busch said of his 2009 Las Vegas win. "I told everyone that it would be just like another race, but it really meant a lot more than that when I got to Victory Lane. To have my mom there and my brother come to Victory Lane just made it that much more special."

Forty-six teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Shelby American.

Nationwide Series

Sam's Town 300 - Las Vegas Motor Speedway - Las Vegas, NV

Danica Patrick's learning curve in NASCAR continues this weekend at Las Vegas.

Patrick finished 31st in her second Nationwide Series start last Saturday at California. Despite falling three laps behind, she finished the 300-mile race without any incidents. Patrick finished 35th in her Nationwide debut at Daytona, where she was caught up in a major pile-up just past the half-way point in the season-opener.

"I'm a competitor, and I'm used to running up front, and it's shocking when you go that far back," Patrick said after her finish at California. "This is a whole new ball of wax for me, and it's all different, and I have to disconnect from the results for quite some time, because they're probably not going to be what I'm used to."

Patrick has a busy schedule this week. She will participate in an IndyCar Series pre-season open test at Barber Motorsports Park on Wednesday and Thursday before heading to Las Vegas for the Nationwide race there. IndyCar is running at the Birmingham, AL road course for the first time in April.

After Las Vegas, Patrick will take a four-month break from Nationwide to concentrate on her full-time IndyCar schedule this year. She will return to NASCAR's second-tier series the last weekend in June at New Hampshire.

Carl Edwards heads to Las Vegas as the current points leader. Edwards, the 2007 Nationwide champion, has finished second and fourth in the first two races this season.

Roush Fenway Racing announced changes to Edwards' No.60 team on Tuesday, with Drew Blickensderfer taking over as crew chief. Mike Kelley had served in the role.

Blickensderfer was Matt Kenseth's crew chief in the Sprint Cup Series since the start of the 2009 season, but last week, Roush replaced Blickensderfer with Todd Parrott.

Kelley will assume the role of competition director for Roush's Nationwide effort.

Edwards has yet to win a Nationwide race at Las Vegas, but finished second to teammate Greg Biffle there last year.

With two races now in the books, Justin Allgaier has performed the best among the series-only regulars. Allgaier, the '09 rookie of the year, is fourth in points (-32) after a ninth-place finish at California and a fourth-place run at Daytona.

In his first Las Vegas start last year, Allgaier led five laps before finishing eight. It was his best finish in Nationwide competition at the time.

"It was pretty neat to go out and be as successful as we were last year at Las Vegas," Allgaier said. "We didn't qualify very well, but we were able to come through the field and race up front. The best part of that race for me was that I was able to pass Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards on a restart, and that's how we got the lead. Unfortunately, I ran out of patience and hit the wall, and that ruined our chances of winning the race."

Fifty-two teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Sam's Town 300.