posted May 9, 2007 at 17:15 EST in NASCAR Articles

May 13, 2007

With Jimmie Johnson’s (+325 to win) win in Richmond on Sunday’s Jim Stewart 400, Hendricks Motorsports has now won every one of the four Car of Tomorrow (“COT”) races this season and seven of the ten Cup races which have occurred this year. HMS’s win also solidified Chevy’s dominance of the COT program. A Chevy finished in each of the top-four spots [Kyle Busch (+690), Denny Hamlin (+690) and Jeff Gordon (+285) finished second, third and fourth, respectively.

The Dodges driven by Kurt Busch (+1330) and Ryan Newman (+3180) finished fifth and sixth to break of the block of Chevy drivers in the top-ten. Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart (+515) and Clint Bowyer (+2350) drove their Chevys to seventh, eighth and ninth-place finishes while Matt Kenseth’s (+915) tenth-place finish was Ford’s best in Richmond.

The Nextel Cup moves to Darlington South Carolina this weekend for the only race this season at the historic Darlington Raceway. Jimmie Johnson won both races in 2004 (the last year that Darlington hosted two races in the same season).

 

Greg Biffle (+915) and Gordon finished 1-2 in both the 2005 and 2006 races at the track that is “too tough to tame.” In 2006, they beat out Kenseth, Johnson and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (+1180). In 2005, they finished ahead of Kasey Kahne (+1975), Mark Martin (+2350) and Ryan Newman.

Nowhere are tires more important than at Darlington. The 1.366 mile oval is notoriously rough and eats through rubber unlike any other track on the circuit.

This Sunday’s race is the fifth for the COT program. Darlington will present the stiffest test yet for the new sleds. Given Hendrick Motorsports record this year, it seems silly not to identify Gordon or Johnson as the favorites this weekend.

They are 1-2 in the Nextel Cup followed by Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin and Jeff Burton. Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer round out the Cup’s top-ten.

So the question becomes, which of the HMS drivers is the best bet this weekend because their chances at this track appear to be head-and-shoulders above the other drivers?

With Johnson, he brings with him momentum from last weekend’s race, the 2004 sweep at Darlington and HMS’s dominance in the COT program this season. For Gordon, it is his first-place standing in the FedEx Cup, his all-time NASCAR record for career wins (77), his second-place finishes in each of the last two seasons and, of course, HMS’s dominance of the COT program this season.

Of course, that analysis ignores the fact that Biffle won both of the last two races. He certainly will come to the track with much confidence from those wins, but he managed only two top-six finishes this season (Food City 500 and the Samsung 500), and his best finish this year has been fifth. He finished 19th last weekend in Richmond after becoming involved in a collision in the pit area.

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