This Week in Auto Racing October 29 - 30

This Week in Auto Racing October 29 - 30
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Round seven in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship takes place this weekend on NASCAR's shortest track Martinsville Speedway. The Camping World Truck Series is also at Martinsville. Formula One travels to New Delhi for the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix.

Sprint Cup Series

Tums Fast Relief 500 - Martinsville Speedway - Martinsville, VA

With four races to go, Carl Edwards is in pretty good shape to win his first Sprint Cup Series championship. Edwards survived last Sunday's Chase "wild card" race at Talladega with an 11th-place finish. His lead is now 14 points over Roush Fenway Racing teammate Matt Kenseth, making it the largest points separation so far between 1-2 in this year's Chase.

But Edwards has another big hurdle facing him this weekend -- Martinsville Speedway. Martinsville is the only short-track race on the Chase schedule. It's also one of Edwards' toughest tracks.

Edwards has scored just four top-10 finishes in 14 starts at Martinsville. His best performance here is third place, which came in October 2008. Edwards has led only three laps at this 0.526-mile track -- all of them coming in April when he finished 18th.

"I am a little nervous about Martinsville," he said. "I think if we can pick up just a tiny bit of speed there we will be good. Otherwise, that will be one of the tracks we go to and just fight and claw for a top-10, and that is how it usually is for me there."

Martinsville has not been one Kenseth's better tracks as well. He has just two top-five finishes and seven top-10s in 23 races here. Kenseth did finish sixth at Martinsville earlier this season.

"Probably the most challenging part for me at Martinsville is being calm, thinking through things and not doing something because you are mad," he said. "I don't like getting run into, and I don't like running into other people, and it's bound to happen there since it's such a small track. There is no room to move, and there is not an outside groove where you have another choice to pass."

After finishing 34th at Charlotte and then 26th at Talladega, Jimmie Johnson's hopes of winning a sixth straight series championship are slipping away big time. Johnson is now a distant 50 points behind Edwards. He's not on the brink of elimination just yet, but a disastrous finish at Martinsville could put him out of the game.

"We've just got to keep fighting and keep working on getting every point we can at every race," Johnson said. "We have no clue what's going to happen to all the Chase drivers, and I want to finish as high as I possibly can in the Chase. That does mean the championship. If it's not there, I want to finish as high as I possibly can."

Johnson has notched six wins and 17 top-10 finishes in 19 races at Martinsville. After finishing 35th in his first start here in April 2002, Johnson had a string of 17 straight top-10 runs at this track before placing 11th in this year's spring event.

"Quirky tracks have always worked for me, and this track certainly is that," he said.

If Johnson does not win on Sunday at Martinsville, it will be the first year since 2005 that he has not won a short-track race during a season.

Heading into Martinsville, Brad Keselowski is 18 points behind Edwards, while Tony Stewart trails Keselowski by a single point.

Keselowski continues to be very impressive in his first Chase year. He was the highest finishing championship contender at Talladega with a fourth-place run.

Stewart kept his title hopes very much alive with a seventh-place finish at Talladega.

"I don't think there's anybody that's mathematically out of it with four races to go here right now," Stewart said. "With the old [points] format of the season-long-standings with four races to go, you only had a handful of guys that still mathematically had a shot to win the championship. And you were really racing two to three guys at the most at this point, where there's nobody that's really eliminated from the opportunities to win this championship with four races to go. All 12 guys are still in it."

Kevin Harvick took a big hit in the Chase after finishing 32nd at Talladega. Harvick trailed Edwards by just five points before Talladega. He is now 26 points out of the lead.

Harvick won a Sprint Cup race at Martinsville for the first time in April. He denied Dale Earnhardt Jr. an opportunity to snap his lengthy winless streak when he passed Earnhardt Jr. for the lead with four laps to go. Harvick finished third in last year's fall race here.

"Over the first several years, we didn't get a lot of the finishes [at Martinsville] that we probably deserved, whether it was from a mistake on the racetrack or just dumb luck," Harvick said. "The last couple of years, we've gotten good finishes, and our cars have run fast. To finally get that check mark in the win box was important for us."

Earnhardt Jr.'s winless drought in NASCAR's premier series now stands at 125 races.

Forty-seven teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Tums Fast Relief 500.

Camping World Truck Series

Kroger 200 - Martinsville Speedway - Martinsville, VA

The battle for the Camping World Truck Series championship is turning out to be one of the best in the series'17-year history. With three races to go, 16 points separate leader Austin Dillon from fourth-place Ron Hornaday Jr.

James Buescher's finish of third compared to a seventh-place run for Dillon in last Saturday's race at Talladega allowed Buescher to move within three points of Dillon.

Johnny Sauter fell 14 points out of the lead after finishing 15th at Talladega.

Hornaday has been the hottest driver in the series lately, winning three of the last six races. He finished second at Talladega.

After finishing 24th in the August 24 race at Bristol, it looked as though Hornaday's chances of winning a record-extending fifth series title were over, as he trailed the leader by 68 points. But what a remarkable comeback he's made since then.

"This championship battle is really heating up, and with three races to go, it's important to drive smart and make good decisions," he said. "I've been in this hot seat before, and I really think this team can come together and pull off a victory."

Hornaday could very well continue his surge in the point standings this weekend at Martinsville Speedway, a track where he has finished no worse than fourth in the past three years. He won at this track for the first time one year ago.

Dillon's best finish in three races at Martinsville is seventh, which came in April.

Buescher has finished no better than 11th in four starts at this track. He finished 35th here earlier this season.

When the series competed at Martinsville in the spring, Sauter passed Kyle Busch with less than two laps remaining to win here for the first time. Sauter's victory came days before his wife, Cortney, gave birth to their second child. He also became the first non-Sprint Cup Series regular to win a NASCAR national touring race during the 2011 season.

"We don't have a choice but to win if we're going to pull off this championship," Sauter said. "We're going to do whatever it takes to win, within reason. I don't look out for anybody but us, especially now with just three to go."

Timothy Peters, who grew up 30 miles away from this track in Providence, NC, is currently fifth in points (-42). Peters' first truck win came at Martinsville in October 2009. His series debut came here as well, in April 2005.

Kevin Harvick and Virginia-native Denny Hamlin are those Sprint Cup regulars competing in this race.

Harvick is the only driver entered that has multiple truck victories at Martinsville. He won back-to-back spring races here from 2009-10. Harvick will drive the No.2 Chevrolet, while Hornaday will move back into the No.33 truck. Hornaday drove the No.2 at Kentucky, Las Vegas and Talladega.

Hamlin will be behind the wheel of Kyle Busch Motorsports' No.18 Toyota.

Forty-one teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Kroger 200.

FORMULA ONE

Indian Grand Prix - Buddh International Circuit - New Delhi, India

The 2011 Formula One calendar continues this weekend with the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix. Sunday's 60-lap race should be an entertaining one, since drivers have yet to experience the newly-built Buddh International Circuit, located roughly 25 miles away from New Delhi. The addition of a brand new circuit on the F1 schedule always presents its share of challenges for teams, as they figure out how to prepare for the unknown.

Two-time world champion Sebastian Vettel has spent a lot of time sampling the 3.192-mile (5.141-kilometer), 16-turn road course on a simulator.

"By the time we race in India, I'll have done several laps of the track on the simulator," he said. "The track is a combination of slow corners and high- speed straights, which flow into each other. The altitude difference is extreme, rather like in Spa [Belgium] or Turkey, which will give the driving an additional element.

"Incidentally, we're expecting the track to have the second highest average speed of the season after Monza [Italy]. That means that we'll be completing a lap at an average speed of 235 kph, so there should be plenty of good opportunities to overtake."

While Vettel has already clinched his second straight F1 title and Red Bull has secured the constructors' championship, thanks to Vettel's win last week in South Korea, you would think the last three races of the season -- India, Abu Dhabi and Brazil -- are meaningless.

Not so.

Vettel has a couple of more F1 record-tying or record-setting opportunities left to make the remainder of the season somewhat interesting.

The young German has 10 grand prix victories so far this year. If he wins the next three races, he would match Michael Schumacher's season-record of 13, set in 2004.

Vettel is also two pole wins away from tying Nigel Mansell's record of 14 poles in a season, which Mansell accomplished in 1992.

Lewis Hamilton from McLaren won the pole for the Korean Grand Prix, ending Red Bull's season streak of 15 poles.

Last Saturday, Vettel returned to his hometown of Heppenheim, Germany to celebrate his title. An estimated 30,000 fans turned out to cheer their fellow compatriot's achievement in becoming F1's youngest-ever double world champion.

Narain Karthikeyan is the only Indian driver expected to compete in this race. Karthikeyan became India's first F1 competitor in 2005 when he made his debut with Jordan. He is replacing Vitantonio Liuzzi in this race only for HRT.

Karthikeyan, whose from Coimbatore, India, raced in the Le Mans Series and most recently in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series before returning to F1 this year. After the eighth grand prix this season, HRT replaced Karthikeyan with Daniel Ricciardo.

"Driving in front of the home crowd cheering on is going to be a surreal experience," Karthikeyan said. "It's a once in a lifetime experience, and I feel extremely fortunate. There is a huge buzz around the grand prix already, and I'm sure that it will be a resounding success that will motivate more youngsters towards the sport and give us the future F1 drivers."

Lotus test driver Karun Chandhok was hoping to race in front of his home crowd, but Lotus recently decided to retain its regular lineup with Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli for the Indian GP. Chandhok will drive one of the team's T128 cars during Friday's opening practice session.

"I am very excited about driving at the new Buddh International Circuit in FP1, in front of my home crowd, and while I am obviously disappointed that I won't have the chance to race on Sunday, I accept the team's decision to opt for the experience and talent they have at their disposal with Jarno and Heikki," Chandhok said.