From a NASCAR Fan’s View
The cup teams take on Kansas Speedway today and it could prove to be one of the more interesting and exciting races in recent times. Now there’s no guarantee that that will happen but Kansas Speedway definitely has a way of making things seem that way. Now, you might ask why I would say such a thing but I’m here to tell you that the Kansas Speedway is a very fast mile and a half track and the racing is generally very close all the way to the end.
In the past – the very recent past – it is the place for the closest finish and that was between Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson. That race was one of the more exciting finishes of last year and because the finish was so close it took a few minutes before NASCAR could actually determine the winner. In fact, many thought that Chris Buescher had won the race but the finish was determined by the photo that showed Kyle Larson beating Chris to the line by one thousandth of a second.
We can only wonder if this race might have a similar ending. And, of course, the reason I would say that would be because Chris Buescher was qualified for the pole position until the very last person ran their qualifying lap and beat him out for the pole. As everyone knows, that was paying attention yesterday, that person was Kyle Larson.
Both of them showed a lot of speed but they weren’t the only ones showing speed in qualifying or in practice. In fact, the next two qualifiers qualified less than a tenth of a second behind the top two qualifiers. Of course, the next two qualifiers were Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick. Now I don’t want to jump ahead of the possibilities that might present themselves by the end of this race but any one of these top four could end up winning the race.
Now if you think that those four previous drivers I listed are the only ones that have a chance to win today, you are very mistaken. There’s a lot of fast cars and a lot of good drivers that could take the win from where they sit in the lineup. In fact and not taking anything away from those top four qualifiers, there’s a lot of hungry for a win drivers scattered throughout the field. So, if anyone thinks that this is just going to be a four-horse show, they just might be surprised by who wins today’s race.
There is the fifth-place qualifier, Joey Logano last weekend’s winner. Following him in the sixth through tenth place qualifiers are some very hungry drivers that want to win this one. Drivers named Ty Gibbs, William Byron, Daniel Suarez, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney. It is definitely not outside of the realm of possibilities for any one of these six drivers to win today. Whether any of them will is a good question. The speeds are good and any one of them is quite capable of driving to the front. The only problem is getting there by the time the final checkered flag falls.
Now, lest anyone think I’m ruling out all of the others from eleventh to thirty-eighth being able to win, nothing could be further from the truth. We could pretty much pick anyone from eleventh to the thirty-eighth starting spots as one being able to win and we could probably be right except maybe for a couple drivers that are just outclassed by the others. I don’t mean that as a cut towards those few drivers but they are outclassed because they’re either single car teams or they just haven’t the speed the other teams have been showing.
Josh Berry is starting dead last. He is one of the drivers that could advance all the way from the rear to the front and be the winner of today’s race. Whether that will happen or anything else that is possible but not expected is one of the big questions for today. We know he has speed and we know he can win. What we don’t know is whether or not he can catch the drivers at the front by the time the race ends.
Along with all of those things I’ve already mentioned here, there are several things that can affect the outcome of this race. One of the blatantly obvious things is possible tire problems. In practice there were several drivers that had tire problems and everyone hopes that those don’t surface during today’s race at Kansas Speedway. Strategy to keep track position will also be of utmost importance along with the fact that the pit crews will likely have to be flawless especially near the end of the race.
So, I guess, barring the unforeseen and repeating what I said at the beginning of this, today’s race could be one of the more interesting and exciting races in recent times. Unfortunately, it could also be a race dominating performance by one or two or possibly three maybe four of the front qualifiers. Of all the possibilities, there’s just no way for this fan to pick a winner. So, I’m just going to watch and wait and see who ends up in Victory Lane…
Hey, this is Russ and that’s my view… See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
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Rusty Norman, Nascarfansview.com and Justafansview.com
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