This Week in Auto Racing June 5 - June 8

This Week in Auto Racing June 5 - June 8

Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - It's a busy week in racing with NASCAR in action at three different venues, the IndyCars Series in Texas and Formula One in Montreal.

Sprint Cup

Pocono 500 - Pocono Raceway, Long Pond, PA

Kyle Busch is showing the world he is a great race car driver, but this week he may be biting off more than he can chew. Busch will attempt to drive in three different races at three different sites.

NASCAR Sprint Cup will showcase its best drivers on the unusual three-turn Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, PA. Meanwhile, the trucks will be in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday night as a companion race to the IndyCar Series. And the Nashville Superspeedway will host a stand-alone event for the Nationwide Series on Saturday.

So Busch will qualify in Pocono then fly to Texas for the truck race on Friday night. He will then fly to Nashville for the Saturday race and back to Pennsylvania for the Sunday main event.

Although he will let J.R. Norris practice and qualify his truck and Will Allen to do the same with his Nationwide car, this might just be too much even for the 23-year-old budding superstar.

All told, Busch will drive 592 laps for a total of 1,050 miles. In addition, he will fly a total of 3,177 miles - the distance from his home base in Mooresville, NC to Pocono, Fort Worth, Nashville and back to Pocono for the "500."

The question is why put yourself through that much work?

The Pocono race is the most important event for his team and for his championship hopes. Busch has not yet committed to running the entire Nationwide Series, although I am sure he would like to since he is second in points. And he has already missed two truck races so he is not likely to win the Craftsman Series title.

He could become the only driver to sweep all three events at three different tracks, but that would be little compensation if it takes away from winning the Sprint Cup championship.

No, this smacks of immaturity and ego. He has certainly matured on the track as evidenced by his run at Dover where he controlled himself down the stretch and didn't put his car in danger or overdrive it.

Considering his average finish of just 16.167 at Pocono with no wins and just one top-five in six starts, perhaps Busch should concentrate on the "Cup" race.

When it comes to success at Pocono, here are some drivers with pretty good results. Tony Stewart has one win and 13 top-10s in 18 starts, Ryan Newman has one win, two poles and six top-10s in 12 starts, Mark Martin has three wins and 29 top-10s in 42 starts, Jimmie Johnson has two wins and seven top-10s in 12 starts, Jeff Gordon has four wins and 21 top-10s in 30 starts and Bill Elliott owns five wins on the 2.5-mile tri-oval.

But Denny Hamlin's record at Pocono surpasses all of those numbers. The No.11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver has made just four starts, but already owns two poles, two wins, four top-10s and an amazing average finish of 2.750. In his first ever look at the track in the spring of 2006, he led 83 laps en route to a victory. Then in the fall race he proved it wasn't a fluke by leading another 151 laps and winning again. Last year Hamlin "struggled" finishing sixth and third in his two starts.

After Hamlin's 43rd-place finish at Dover, expect a big outing from the No.11 Toyota team and likely another victory.

Nationwide

Federated Auto Parts 300 - Nashville Superspeedway - Lebanon, TN

While Denny Hamlin dominated the Nationwide Series race at Dover, and Clint Bowyer finished ninth to keep a 121-point stranglehold on the championship, it was first-time starter Joey Logano that created much of the news from last Saturday's race.

Logano, the much-hyped, 18-year-old got behind the wheel of the No.20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and proceeded to show that he was everything they said he was.

On a track he had never driven, Logano qualified a solid ninth and then rebounded from a pit-road incident to finish a very good sixth. The only drivers ahead of him were named Hamlin, Carl Edwards, David Stremme, David Reutimann and Greg Biffle - all Sprint Cup veterans. He beat the likes of series points leader Bowyer, Coca-Cola 600 winner Kasey Kahne, Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.

"It ain't much in my book," said Logano who is used to winning wherever he has driven. "I'm not going to be happy unless I win. I'm looking forward to going to Nashville. Somewhere I've been before."

However, to most of us, it was a very good run. He should continue to improve, and based on his past history, Logano should be ready for the Sprint Cup Series just about the time that Tony Stewart's contract is up with JGR.

As for this year's title chase, it appears to be Bowyer's consistency versus Busch's flash.

Bowyer has won just one time and led only 213 laps all season long, but holds his triple-digit lead by posting 11 top-10s in 14 starts. Busch on the other hand has won a series-leading four times and led an amazing 780 laps, but has also failed to finish on four occasions.

Behind Bowyer and Busch are 2007 Nationwide Series champion Edwards, David Reutimann and youngster Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski, 24, is just 212 points out of first and after a slow start has posted six top-10s in the last 11 starts. He was in line for a win at Las Vegas in week three until a rare Mark Martin driving error knock him and Edwards out of the race.

It should be interesting to watch Logano and Keselowski as well as the championship race between Bowyer, Busch and Edwards.

Craftsman

Sam's Town 400 - Texas Motor Speedway - Fort Worth, TX

Following a ninth-place finish at Dover, Rick Crawford claimed the top spot in the Craftsman Truck Series standings. But the championship battle is so close that drivers one through 10 are separated by just 105 points.

It is the second time in Crawford's 280-race career that he has held the lead. The other was after he won the 2003 season opener in Daytona.

But in Texas, the Germain Racing team is "king." The team has won on the TMS 1.5-mile oval five times including four by 2006 series champion Todd Bodine.

"Texas is a little bit special, but you're never dominant in this sport. You have to be good to be lucky - to create your own luck," said Mike Hillman Sr., Germain's general manager. "Our mile-and-a-half program has always been real strong."

Bodine is fourth overall, just 49 points out of first place. But he won the pole and the race last year edging Mike Skinner by a 0.188 seconds.

On the restart with five laps to go the five lead cars were nose to tail. Bodine went first to the outside and then to the inside of Travis Kvapil, they made contact and Kvapil was sent spinning into the onside wall.

"I had a run...I was going to give him the bottom," said Bodine. "All he had to do is stay down there. I went outside and he came up to block so I went to the bottom. He came to block, again, you can't do that."

The caution flag flew once more and then there were four - Bodine, Crawford, Skinner and Ron Hornaday Jr. It would be a green-white-checker finish.

Bodine got a good start while Skinner and Hornaday Jr. got around Crawford. But Bodine had just enough lead to hold Skinner off and take the checkered flag.

The truck series has had a first-time winner in each of its last three events. Matt Crafton won in Charlotte, Donny Lia in Mansfield and last week former Formula One driver Scott Speed, in just his sixth truck start, found his way to Victory Lane.

"Today we had a good strategy and we had an awesome truck. We got everything we could out of it," said Speed.

That is the goal of every driver, particularly young ones, to get everything out of the truck or car. If you can do that, you can race at any level and expect Speed to move up the ladder relatively quickly.

INDYCARS

Bombardier Learjet 550 - Texas Motor Speedway - Fort Worth, TX

With 11 races over the next 14 weeks, the IndyCar championship picture will clear up quickly. And right now that picture is very cloudy with 10 drivers within 104 points of leader Scott Dixon.

Dixon and his No.9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing team have certainly earned the top spot with two wins (including the Indianapolis 500), five top-threes and a series-leading 576 lap led.

But Helio Castroneves has stayed close by being consistent. The Brazilian has collected six consecutive top-fives although he has yet to win this year (Dancing with the Stars doesn't count).

Behind these two, Dan Wheldon (Dixon's teammate) and Andretti Green Racing's Tony Kanaan are 49 and 60 points back, respectively.

Then come two "media darlings" - Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti, but they don't seem ready to win a championship yet. There are others with plenty of driving talent, Graham Rahal and Ryan Briscoe come to mind, which is what the unification of the Champ Car Series and the IndyCar Series was supposed to do.

"I think first he really got the monkey off his back, and we knew how good a race driver he was when he ran for us in the Porsche program last year," said owner Roger Penske after Briscoe's win last week in Milwaukee.

It was Penske's 300th win in racing and 30 years after Rick Mears delivered Penske's first win, also at the historic Milwaukee Mile.

"It shows the amount of work that has been done by so many people on the team, so many good drivers, so many good pit crews," Penske said.

Sam Hornish Jr., now driving in the Sprint Cup Series, won last year's Bombardier Learjet 550 edging Kanaan by 0.0786 seconds. Hornish Jr. led a race-high 159 laps, but had to hold off a charging Kanaan for the victory.

With 20 laps to go, Hornish Jr. had a lead of about 10 lengths as Kanaan and Patrick were trying to get around a couple of lapped cars. Kanaan finally got clear air and he began to close on Hornish Jr. Patrick got clear, but she was a full second behind the two leaders.

Thirteen laps to go and the margin was just 0.1954 seconds. Hornish Jr. and Kanaan were almost side-by-side and it was allowing Patrick to get back into the fray. It was a three-car race with 10 laps remaining.

Kanaan was trying the high side, but he couldn't make it stick. two laps to go and he tried the high side again. They saw the white flag and it was still Hornish Jr. leading Kanaan. On the final lap, Kanaan would continue to press the outside line, but he just didn't have enough speed to make the pass.

The Texas Motor Speedway, along with the Chicagoland Speedway always produces exciting and close finishes. Two of the top-five closest finishes in IndyCar history took place at TMS. In June 2002, Jeff Ward beat Al Unser Jr. by 0.0111 seconds and an even closer finish took place in September of that year when Hornish Jr. squeezed out a 0.0096-second victory over Castroneves.

FORMULA ONE

Canadian Grand Prix - Circuit Gilles Villeneuve - Montreal, Canada

The 2008 Formula One championship is shaping up to be a four-way battle.

Second-year driver Lewis Hamilton leads all drivers with 38 points. But his margin over defending World Champion Kimi Raikkonen is a scant three points.

Raikkonen's Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa is just four points back despite finishing out of the points in the first two events. Since then he won twice and has been on the podium in all four events to chop into Hamilton's lead.

Behind Hamilton, Raikkonen and Massa is the surprise of the season - Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber. The Polish driver has scored points in five consecutive races and sits just six points behind Hamilton. He also won the first pole of his career in Bahrain. More important than just scoring in the last five events, Kubica has been competing for the win. The BMW Sauber has shown unexpected speed to stay up with McLaren and Ferrari. In fact, Kubica beat both Ferraris at Monaco and finished second to Hamilton.

"It looks as though the title will probably be a race between Ferrari and ourselves, although I still wouldn't discount BMW," said McLaren CEO Martin Whitemarsh

The four contenders head to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix on the tight 2.709-mile Circuit Gilles Villeneuve street circuit.

Hamilton will be the defending champion after scoring 10 points in last year's race. It was his first career F1 win and the first of back-to-back wins at Canada and the United States.

The 2007 Montreal race was interrupted four times by a safety car, but with 10 laps to go Hamilton was out front of Nick Heidfeld and Rubens Barrichello. Hamilton built the lead to 3.5 seconds with seven laps to go and was never headed, becoming the first rookie to win a race since Juan Pablo Montoya accomplished the feat in 2001 at the Italian Grand Prix.

Despite being called a "street course" as is Monaco, Canada and Monaco are not similar in any way.

The circuit Gilles Villeneuve has long straight which emphasis top-end speed. Ferrari should be strong, because it is well known down pit row that Ferrari has more straight-line speed than either McLaren or BMW.

I expect a big effort from Raikkonen and Massa and most likely a victory from one of them.