This Week in Auto Racing June 25 - 27

This Week in Auto Racing June 25 - 27
By Chris Symeon

Loudon, NH (Sports Network) - The race to make the championship Chase in the Sprint Cup Series heats up this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Meanwhile, Danica Patrick makes her return to the Nationwide Series at New Hampshire, and Formula One is in Valencia, Spain for the European Grand Prix.

Sprint Cup Series

Lenox Industrials Tool 301 - New Hampshire Motor Speedway - Loudon, NH

So much for his so-called season slump. Jimmie Johnson's recent downslide came to an end last Sunday at the Infineon Raceway road course in Northern California. The four-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion finally notched his first road course win in 17 attempts.

Johnson began the season by winning three of the first five races, but within the past two months, he had fallen as far back as seventh in points after finishing 31st at Talladega, 36th at Darlington and 37th at Charlotte. Since Charlotte, Johnson has finished no worse than sixth, including a win at Sonoma, which has moved him up to second in the standings.

Denny Hamlin leads the series with five victories so far, while Johnson is next in line with four.

"At the beginning of the year, we were clicking them off," Johnson said. "Right now, Denny has been clicking them off. All that said, it's a long time until September."

The driver with the most wins after the September 11 race at Richmond will enter the championship Chase in the first seed. All 12 drivers who qualify for the playoffs -- the last 10 events of the season -- will have their point totals adjusted to 5,000. Each driver will then have 10 bonus points added for every race he won during the 26-event regular season.

This weekend's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire kicks off the "Race to the Chase," a 10-race stretch that precedes the Sprint Cup playoffs. So the scramble is on for many drivers to the secure a top-12 spot before the series returns to New Hampshire for the first Chase race on September 19.

Carl Edwards currently holds the coveted 12th position, but NASCAR fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. lurks behind in the 13th spot, as he trails Edwards by 57 points. Earnhardt Jr. has finished seventh and 11th in the last two races.

Edwards dropped two positions in points after a 29th-place run at Sonoma.

"We're trying to just lock ourselves into the Chase," Edwards said. "If we were farther up in points, we wouldn't be thinking about that, but the farther back you are, the more you think about it, and the earlier you think about it."

Heading into New Hampshire, 240 points separate ninth-place Greg Biffle from 20th-place Juan Pablo Montoya.

Biffle has performed well at the flat one-mile track in the past, with a victory here in September 2008. He finished ninth and 18th last year at New Hampshire.

"I think it's a good race track, and we're capable of finishing in the top-10 there or repeating our win from a few years ago," Biffle said. "That definitely could be in the cards."

Kevin Harvick enters New Hampshire with a 140-point lead over Johnson. Harvick has been consistent so far this season, recording 11 top-10 finishes in the first 16 races.

"We're fortunate to be where we are at in the points right now," Harvick said. "We're able to race hard every lap and really not have to worry about what's going on with the points."

Harvick is looking to improve at New Hampshire this time around. He finished 32nd and 34th here last year.

Joey Logano is the defending race winner. One year ago, Logano, in his rookie season, benefited from crew chief Greg Zipadelli's gutsy late-race pit strategy for his first Sprint Cup win in the rain-shortened race at New Hampshire.

Logano, who hails from Middletown, CT, overcame a one-lap deficit after cutting his left-rear tire in the late-stages of the race. He was the only driver who had yet to pit during the final round of green flag stops. Ryan Newman gave up the lead when he ran out of fuel and coasted into in the pits. That allowed Logano to take the top spot for the first time. He then conserved enough fuel before rain fell on the track.

NASCAR displayed the red flag 28 laps short of the 301-lap scheduled distance, with the race being called shortly after. Logano's first win came in his 20th start.

"It's a big deal for me to go back there," Logano said. "It's basically my home racetrack. I grew up a couple of hours away from there, well, about three hours...It was a cool place to get your first win."

Logano is currently 17th in points.

Forty-five teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301.

Nationwide Series

New England 200 - New Hampshire Motor Speedway - Loudon, NH

She's back. After a four-month hiatus, Danica Patrick returns to the Nationwide Series this weekend at New Hampshire.

Of course, Patrick will be the center of attention at New Hampshire, as one of auto racing's most popular and widely marketable drivers is expected to make her fourth career Nationwide start. She is guaranteed a starting position in the 200-lap race since her No.7 JR Motorsports team currently sits 20th in owner points.

"I'm really looking forward to getting back to all the cool people that I've met, my friends and the team; they've been great," Patrick said. "I really like driving the cars. They're a lot of fun, and they are a different challenge than IndyCar, but I think some of things I learned over [in IndyCar], they have helped me over [in NASCAR]."

Patrick has spent the last four months focusing on her full-time IndyCar efforts. After struggling earlier in the IndyCar season, the 28-year-old driver has nicely rebounded with three straight top-10 finishes, including a second-place run earlier this month at Texas. She currently sits 11th in points.

This is an off-week for IndyCar before the series resumes on July 4 at the Watkins Glen, NY road course.

Before her foray into NASCAR, Patrick made her stock car racing debut with an impressive sixth-place finish in the February ARCA event at Daytona. One week later, she competed in the Nationwide season-opener at Daytona. Patrick finished 35th after being caught up in a multi-car pileup mid-way through the event.

At California, Patrick finished the 300-mile race without incident, but fell three laps behind with a 31st-place result. Her most recent Nationwide event came at Las Vegas, where she crashed early and wound up finishing 36th.

With its length at 1.058 miles, New Hampshire will become the shortest track that Patrick will run so far in her early stock car racing career.

No doubt, Patrick will have her hands full at New Hampshire.

"This will be the most sort of dramatic back and forth sort of stuff that I will be dealing with," Patrick said. "At the beginning of the season, it was a little bit more cut and dry. It was more NASCAR than IndyCar. Now, it's definitely going to be back and forth, but I have to say in the times that I have gone back and forth, I don't have any problem with it."

After New Hampshire, Patrick is scheduled to compete in nine more Nationwide races this season, with the next one on July 9 at Chicagoland.

Another big story at New Hampshire will be the possibility of a 24th different winner in as many Nationwide races here.

Last year, Kyle Busch made a late-race pass on his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano for the lead, and then held it to become the 23rd different winner at New Hampshire.

Busch, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick, Jason Keller, Joe Nemechek and Kenny Wallace are those drivers on the 43-team preliminary entry list for the New England 200 that have won at New Hampshire in the past.

Could one of these drivers become the first repeat winner, or could someone like Logano or points leader Brad Keselowski keep the streak alive at New Hampshire?

We'll find out on Saturday.

FORMULA ONE

European Grand Prix - Streets of Valencia - Valencia, Spain

After a thrilling race two weeks ago in Montreal, Canada, Formula One returns to its home continent this weekend with the European Grand Prix on the streets of Valencia, Spain.

The European GP had been scheduled in August the past two years, but was moved to the last weekend in June for this year's F1 calendar.

Lewis Hamilton from McLaren won the Canadian GP and took over the world championship lead. Hamilton, the pole sitter, passed Red Bull's Mark Webber on lap 50 of the 70-lap event in Montreal. He beat his teammate Jenson Button at the finish by just 2.2 seconds for his second victory of the season. Hamilton won last month in Turkey.

"I'm really looking forward to racing in Valencia," Hamilton said. "I had a great attacking race there last year, but I've finished second for the past two seasons, so I feel like I have some unfinished business.

"I also think it's good for the championship to have a variety of circuits. We've just come from a fast, flowing road course in Canada to a tight street track in Valencia. Next month, we'll be at Silverstone [England] - one of the fastest tracks of the year and a circuit with incredible history."

Button overtook Fernando Alonso on the final lap to finish second in the Canadian GP.

Hamilton, the 2008 F1 titleholder, has now accumulated 109 points, compared to 106 for Button, the defending champion, and 103 for Webber.

After running the European GP on the Nurburgring road course in Germany for nine consecutive years, F1 moved the event to Valencia in 2008.

Alonso, in his first year with Ferrari, won the European GP in 2005 and '07, but the Spaniard has finished sixth and 20th in front of his home crowd the past two years.

"Obviously, it's the second home race for me after Barcelona, so I'm hoping to do well there, hoping to be on the podium," Alonso said. "I've never been on the podium in Valencia, so it will be a nice feeling in front of the crowd."

Alonso finished third in the Canadian GP. He kicked off this season by winning in Bahrain and then finished second in Barcelona in early May. Alonso is currently fourth in points (-15).

Rubens Barrichello from Williams is the defending European GP winner. Barrichello won a F1 grand prix for the first time in five years after he benefited from Hamilton's costly pit road mistake.

Hamilton looked as though he was on the way to victory, but he was delayed during his final pit stop when McLaren was not properly prepared for a tire change. Barrichello captured the lead, and then held off Hamilton for the remainder of the event to win for the first time since the 2004 Chinese Grand Prix.

"I have great memories of Valencia," said Barrichello, who teamed with Button at Brawn GP last year. "It was my tenth win, so it was great fun."