(78) during the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. Maybe this will be the beginning of a run for Busch similar to that of Jimmie Johnson, who won five consecutive championships from 2006-10.
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That’s because, statistically speaking, the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is suffering through his least productive season at NASCAR’s highest level-ever.
“It’s a slippery slope”, Johnson said.
Given his struggles at Chicagoland recently, I don’t blame anyone for wanting to avoid Biffle this weekend, especially when there are drivers priced under $7,000 with similar numbers.
Hendrick, Johnson’s team, makes engines for Chip Ganassi Racing, which employs Larson. He is now guaranteed a spot in the second playoff round when the 16-driver field is cut by four following races next week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and October 2 at Dover International Speedway.
The deals are in place to cut down on costs for the smaller teams and also provide overhead relief for the big teams while ensuring a healthy number of entrants, which had been declining. “I know what he’s going through”. Crew chief Chad Knaus obviously found something during an August 23 test session at Chicagoland that they’re putting to good use this week. “They have a huge engineering staff”, Johnson said. Way more often than not that as a part of racing from short track racing all the way up to this stuff. They’re providing all that equipment to the 78 (Truex) vehicle, and they’re smart people. “All I can do is assume that and wait for him to tell me otherwise”. No one but Pagenaud or teammate Will Power can win the championship, and the team could be the first since 1994 to sweep the points podium.
Since the field was set by owner points, all the top drivers are starting at the front of the field, and all the potential sleepers are lumped together in the back.
Johnson has had uncharacteristic mistakes this season as he aims for a seventh title, which would tie the record for NASCAR’s top circuit held by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
“I feel like we’ve been the hottest here lately but if you would’ve asked that two months we would’ve said we were the worst”, Hamlin said when asked to rate the performance of the five Toyotas. We’re working hard. There’s a lot of optimism and a lot of great things happening. He needs wins, so look for him to be aggressive at a track he’s strong at.
Busch took on four tires and re-started ninth with 42 laps to go before quickly charging to the front just before Johnny Sauter clipped Ben Kennedy to ignite a crash and red flag. Of course, it’s not much fun for the drivers. “We said, ‘OK, where are we at? That’s the guy we’re probably all chasing at the moment”. Busch called Larson a good fantasy league pick.
“It was kind of hectic”, Busch said of the finish. But it paid off and we finished a little bit better than what we were going to. He has 38 career Cup wins, including four this season. I felt like we had the same thing a year ago but we just didn’t have the racecars.
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Truex had proved that he had a competitive auto, not one of those purely dominant cars, but a winning one.
