from a NASCAR Fan’s View
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There are a lot of unanswered questions going into this weekend at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Some of them are: Will this be a Bush brothers weekend? Will Kyle Bush break his losing streak? Will Kevin Harvick dominate the field? Will one of the Hendrick teams finally break into the win column? Could the other Stewart/Haas teams steal the show? How will the Penske teams do? Can Denny Hamlin turn his run of “bad luck” around? Will someone totally unexpected win?
Well, those are just a few but, most of them might be answered in one way or another this weekend at Las Vegas. It could be that some have to wait until a later date and we may not know which way the playoffs will turn until we get to the round of eight. This weekend and the next two should prove to be very interesting.
Let’s take a look at the first one.
This is the Bush brothers home track. They want to perform well in front of the home crowd. Oops, wait a minute. There won’t be a crowd present in the stands. So, will that make a difference? Nah… I don’t think so. They’re gonna run the way they run and that’s that. One thing though. I don’t know how Kyle Bush is going to do and I do wonder if he will actually win a race this season.
I’ll skip over Kevin Harvick for now.
Let’s move over to whether or not one of the Hendrick teams will find their way to Victory Lane. Unfortunately, this is a harder question than it might look like at first take. There are four teams running and two of them are actually in the playoffs. For two, winning just means they add a win to their season total. That’s not a bad thing but it won’t make any difference when it comes to the playoffs. For the other two, a win would automatically move them into the next round and make life much easier over the following two races. Both Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman could take the win BUT, the way the Hendrick teams have been running, I’m not going to put down a lot of money on it. This fan just doesn’t think they’ve been running consistent enough, performance-wise, and they have been making costly mistakes. When it comes to them, well…
There are three other Stewart/Haas teams and it IS possible one of them could pull off a victory. The #4 team surely can’t be the only team of the group that can find Victory Lane although they haven’t shown up there in recent times. Of them, my first pick would be Clint Bowyer, but then he hasn’t shown all that much recently either. As for the other two, well, let’s just see if they can pull off the steal.
When it comes to the Penske teams, they are the wild cards this weekend from this fan’s view. Either Logano or Keselowski could win but they aren’t at the top of my list. Blaney is a long shot simply because his season has relatively fallen apart at the seams in my opinion so, when it comes to the Penske teams, I just don’t know…
There are those that say Denny Hamlin is due for a good week and could take the win this weekend. I am not one of those, however. I’m not saying he won’t make a run for it and I am not saying he will have another bad day. What I base my opinion on is what he said in a short interview a couple of weeks ago. When asked if he would end up in the final four, he answered, hopefully. From this fan’s view, that says he has lost some of his confidence from several weeks ago. After all, things haven’t been going all that well for him and his team lately and that does play with you mind, especially at this time in the season. Let’s just say he might, could possibly win and leave it at that for now. After all, he is still in it because of the points he acquired during the regular season.
When it comes to Kevin Harvick, the only thing I can say is that this season of 2020 has definitely been his year. He seems to do well without the practice and qualifying sessions and has definitely been the strongest performer in this latter part of the season. That is not to say he has dominated completely, but he has definitely been in position to take advantage of the many mistakes of others. If he continues as he has, it may not make much difference if he wins or not. He is a very good choice to win but, at this point, I’m not saying whether he will or won’t.
With all of that going on amongst the ones in the playoffs, adding an unexpected winner to the mix would just add a whole lot more intensity to the next two races in the playoffs. Even though Talladega is already what they call a “crap-shoot” that anyone in the field could win, I’m sure one of the top twelve would like to have a win at Vegas and not have to worry about Talladega or the Roval…
See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
© September 26, 2020 – all rights reserved
Rusty Norman, Nascarfansview.com and Justafansview.com
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All music TwoBuckThemes from Mike Stewart unless otherwise stated