Philadelphia, PA (Best E Casino) - The "Chase for the Nextel Cup" has essential become a two-man battle between "Mr. Consistency," Matt Kenseth, and Jimmie Johnson.
NASCAR
Nextel Cup
Checker Auto Parts 500 - Phoenix International Raceway - Phoenix, AZ
Following a fourth consecutive top-two finish, Johnson has ascended to the top of the "Chase for the Nextel Cup" leaderboard.
Johnson is the fourth competitor to lead the 2006 "Chase." Kevin Harvick won the playoff opener at New Hampshire. Jeff Burton won the following week at Dover and edged his way into the championship lead. The No.31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet driver held the top spot until a couple of 25+ finishes allowed steady Kenseth to take the points lead.
But Johnson, who opened the "Chase" with four mediocre efforts (39th, 13th, 14th, 24th), has turned his season around over the last month. He began his turnaround at Talladega, though he didn't get the results there that he deserved.
He was sitting second at the 2.66-mile restrictor-plate track when teammate Brian Vickers in an attempt to help Johnson draft his way to the lead sent him spinning to a 24th-place finish. The following week he rebounded at his favorite track in Concord, NC for a second-place finish. Then he won at Martinsville and over the last two weeks has finished as the runner-up behind Tony Stewart twice.
He arrives at the Phoenix International Raceway with a 17-point lead over Kenseth.
"We just have to keep working, keep running hard and scoring points," said Johnson. "We've had so much fun racing for this since we got down early. We just want to keep having fun."
Johnson has made six Nextel Cup starts at PIR finishing in the top-15 every time. His average finish of 8.66 is tops among "Chase" drivers.
Kenseth finished 12th at Texas on Sunday, a great result considering his struggles. Kenseth qualified just 36th on Friday. The No.17 Roush Ford team couldn't find the handling and he made only a little headway in the first part of the race. Then on lap 269 he was caught speeding on pit lane. The team gambled on an early final pit stop but three laps from the finish got collected in a crash that was started when Harvick got Scott Riggs loose.
Kenseth has 28 top-15s this season and has been running at the finish in his last 28 starts. When he won the 2003 Nextel Cup title, he earned 25 top-10s but just one win.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is third, but trails the No.48 Hendrick Motorsports driver by 78 points. Despite feeling ill for most of the day and hitting the wall on lap 166, "Junior" finished sixth to keep his hopes alive.
"We're putting up a great fight," said Earnhardt Jr. "I don't think anybody anticipated this team running this strong every week. I'm proud of my team."
Earnhardt Jr. has made 10 starts at PIR and has two victories among four top- fives.
Denny Hamlin remains on the outer edge of the championship battle, 80 points behind Johnson. The rookie has already done more than was expected in his first year and asking him to win the title might be too much. He seems content to run in the top-10 and collect a solid finish, good enough to get into the "Chase" but not good enough to win it.
Harvick has fallen to 105 points behind the leader and he joins Jeff Gordon (-153), Burton (-184), Kyle Busch (-233), Mark Martin (-253) and Kasey Kahne (-290) as drivers who should be looking to next year.
Busch
Arizona Travel 200 - Phoenix International Raceway - Phoenix, AZ
With two races remaining in the season, Kevin Harvick can tie the all-time single season win mark with one more win. Harvick has earned nine wins so far this season, one short of Sam Ard's 1983 mark.
And the No.21 Chevrolet driver is getting better as the season wears on. Harvick has won six of the last 13 events and three of the last four. He edged Tony Stewart at Texas in a fuel run that saw him run out of gas on the "Victory Lap."
"The fuel pressure started fluctuating in turn four," said Harvick. "Its been a great year. This team has won 10 races, nine with me. We're going to do everything we can to win the final two races."
Harvick led 145 of 200 laps en route to the dominating win.
There are two interesting names on this week's preliminary entry list.
One is Juan Montoya who we have seen over the last two weeks. The former Formula One star has looked solid in his first couple of efforts and is learning very quickly as was expected.
The newest name to test the NASCAR waters is three-time IndyCar Series champion Sam Hornish Jr. who will get behind the wheel of the No.39 Penske Dodge. This opportunity is likely one of the reasons that Hornish Jr. chose Penske Racing after leaving Panther Racing where he won his first two championships.
Unlike open-wheeler Montoya, Hornish Jr. has grown up on oval racing and should adapt even faster than the Columbian. He has run on many of the circuits that NASCAR runs at, including PIR, and it should be very interesting to watch how he maneuvers a much heavier race car through the field.
It would be great to see Harvick, Montoya and Hornish Jr in a group battling for position. Certainly Harvick would school them, but it would be fun to see how quickly they learn from him.
Carl Edwards won last year's race, edging Clint Bowyer for the victory.
Craftsman
Casino Arizona 150 - Phoenix International Raceway - Phoenix, AZ
Both points leader Todd Bodine and second place Johnny Benson have struggled over the past couple of races, but because of the huge gap they built between themselves and the competition, it is still a "two-man" race.
Two weeks ago in Atlanta, Bodine finished 25th and Benson 29th. Last week both racers struggled with engine problems down the stretch with Bodine earning a 14th-place result and Benson having to park his Toyota with 10 laps remaining and being credited with a 31st-place result.
So despite averaging just a 20th-place finish, Bodine will take a 137-point margin to the Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday.
David Reutimann is third overall 165 points back and still mathematically eligible, but a long shot and defending series champion Ted Musgrave (-263) would need a miracle to repeat.
Bodine can clinch the championship if he beats Benson by 54 points at PIR or by 20 points as long as he lines up on the starting grid at Homestead in two weeks.
"I'll be honest with you, I was antsy before Atlanta but I'm not going to worry about it anymore," said Bodine on truckseries.com. "I'm planning on racing at Phoenix and Homestead to win; period."
Bodine won last year's race at PIR while Benson finished third. With 16 laps to go the green flag dropped to restart the race and Ron Hornaday Jr. tried first high and then low but couldn't find any racing room past Bodine. After holding off Hornaday Jr.'s initial attack, Bodine began to pull away. The margin was 0.550 seconds with 10 laps to go. Bodine built the lead to 1.522 seconds with two laps to go and he cruised to the victory.
Mike Skinner's third-place finish in last week's Silverado 350K at Texas Motor Speedway wrapped up the 2006 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series manufacturer championship for Toyota. Toyota-powered trucks won 11 races with five different drivers - Skinner, Jack Sprague, Benson, Bodine and David Starr. It was the first NASCAR "national" title for the manufacturer.
CHAMP CARS
Gran Premio Telmex - Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez - Mexico City, Mexico
The championship has been decided so the final race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez will be little more than an exhibition.
For Sebastien Bourdais it will be another chance to show that he is the best that the Champ Car Series has to offer.
Buddy Rice will make his debut in the series driving for Forsythe Championship Racing replacing A.J. Allmendinger who has jumped to NASCAR. Rice has competed in the IndyCar Series since 2001 and won the 2004 Indianapolis 500.
"This will be like a homecoming for me; I won the Champ Car Atlantic Championship in 2000 and that's where I honed my driving skills, so being back in the Champ Car family is something that I've been looking forward to for a long time," said Rice.
Justin Wilson will return to the series after missing the race in Surfers Paradise when he sustained a broken bone in his right wrist during warmup for provisional pole qualifying.
"Obviously, I am very eager to get back in the car," said Wilson. "I missed not being able to race in Australia and there is nothing I want to do more than drive."
Young Mexican David Martinez will get a chance to drive a Champ Car in front of his hometown fans. The Champ Car Atlantic driver (fifth overall in 2006) will pilot a Forsythe Championship Racing machine.
And Paul Tracy will miss the finale after a drunken episode with a golf cart. He apparently tried to see how far in the air he could get the cart and it landed on him injuring his shoulder.
Wilson won last year's race, beating Allmendinger by 3.936 seconds. The former F1 driver started from the pole dominated with his teammate Allmendinger for most of the day and cruised to the checkered flag.
