posted October 13, 2006 at 09:29 EST in NASCAR Betting Trends

Saturday is big

Jimmie Johnson is not a happy man right now. His mood might be a lot different after Saturday night.

Johnson was denied a chance at victory last week at Talladega when he was accidentally spun off the track on the last lap by his own Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Brian Vickers. The ensuing crash knocked both Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. out of the way, and Vickers took the checkered flag – much to Johnson’s chagrin. Vickers is not part of the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Johnson is, but his 24th-place finish left him 156 points behind Jeff Burton for the Chase lead.

That lead could shrink considerably after Saturday’s Bank of America 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. Johnson has a ridiculously good track record there: five wins in his last seven appearances, along with a second- and a third-place result. That’s good enough to make the California native the clear favorite to grab yet another victory to add to his career total of 22.

But it isn’t just Johnson tearing up the quad-oval track at Charlotte for Hendrick. Jeff Gordon is also more than comfortable behind the wheel at Lowe’s; the four-time Cup champion has four victories of his own there, plus seven starts from the pole position and 11 other Top-10 results. However, Gordon’s last three appearances there were forgettable – he crashed each time and failed to place higher than 30th each time.

As for the third member of the Hendrick team, Vickers was effectively shut out of the team garage well before last week’s incident. He is moving to Team Red Bull next year; it just so happens that Vickers’ next employer will make its NASCAR Nextel Cup debut on Saturday, with Bill Elliott driving the No. 83 Dodge. Also switching teams to MB2 next year will be Mark Martin, who survived Talladega’s crash-filled race to finish eighth and close within 10 points of Burton for the Chase lead. If Martin can maintain that consistency, he could take the Nextel Cup for Roush Racing without winning a single race during the season.

Lost in the shuffle of late has been Kasey Kahne, who won the first race at Lowe’s this year. His five victories are still the most of anyone on the Cup circuit this season. Kahne also finished second behind Vickers at last week’s race, but that result still leaves him 185 points behind Burton.

The race gets underway at 7:10 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC.