Infineon To Daytona, One Wild Card After Another

This past weekend, NASCAR visited one of its two road courses. Entering Sonoma, California, most people understood that there were those who would benefit from the road course weekend, and, conversely, those that would suffer. I am sure there aren’t many people who thought Dale Earnhardt Jr. would come though the weekend with a great finish, although 41st was a bit low. Also, most people expected Marcos Ambrose, who now sits 2 points outside the top 20, to have a good weekend.

Great. We are all psychic.

Not so fast. Infineon threw some curves at the Sprint Cup field that may not have been expected. Some people left Infineon with poor finishes that were somewhat surprising.

After several instances of contact between Tony Stewart and Brian Vickers, both were relegated to bad finishes. Although Vickers is a good road course racer and Stewart is one of the all time greats, both left California with fewer points than they probably expected.

Along with Stewart and Vickers, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne, and Mark Martin all left with sub-par finishes. Each of these drivers have some ability on road courses, especially Montoya, Martin and Kahne, but have to pick up points somewhere else in the next 10 races in an attempt to make the Chase.

Although the restrictor plate tracks are often seen as wild card races, Infineon has now placed several teams on the offensive in preparation for the Chase. Now, with all of that “cooking”, we head to, yes, a restrictor plate track.

The summer race at Daytona is always stressful for the teams on the cusp of the Chase, as they can be wiped out in the “big one” at any time. Will the teams leave Daytona jumbled up as they were this Monday? Time will tell.

Another question heading to Daytona is what other surprises the track will hold. Each year the Coke Zero 400, customarily held on July 4th weekend, is run on a slightly different track than its sister race, the Daytona 500. The hot, humid summer nights of central Florida usually produce a track with slightly less grip than the February race.

Normally, in the past few years, this has led to a slight stringing out of the field. However, with the repaving of the track during the last off-season, one has to wonder exactly how similar will the track be to the February’s running. Will the “two car tango” work the same way it did earlier in the year, or will the cars have trouble linking up later in a run.

My last question is who is the favorite heading into this weekend? Obviously the Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne, will be without his ride from February, since the winning 500 car is placed in Daytona USA for a year. Even more, no driver has won the Daytona 500 and the July 400 mile race in the same year since 1982.

Certainly Earnhardt Jr. will loom large on everyone’s radar, but who else should be watched this weekend?

Two drivers that immediately come to mind are Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards. Stewart has done very well in summer Daytona races, winning 3 in the last 6. He drafts well, thrives under the lights, and apparently thinks the July 4th post race fireworks are for him. Edwards has zero wins at Daytona, but finished 2nd and 6th in the two previous restrictor plate races this year, so he apparently loves the Tango.

Calm down ladies… I meant the Two Car Tango…


Follow Joseph Davis on Twitter @the_Bumpdrafter

Posted in: Brian Vickers,Carl Edwards,Dale Earnhardt Jr,Daytona,Greg Biffle,Juan Pablo Montoya,Kasey Kahne,Marcos Ambrose,Mark Martin,Nascar,Nascar Blog,nascar news,Tony Stewart