Mike Hembree: The Amazing Race
Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson is on the cusp of winning his fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.
// David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
Three weekends remaining. Three potentially competitive venues: Texas Motor Speedway, Phoenix International Raceway, Homestead-Miami Speedway.
All things considered, this is shaping up as a really neat and intense race as we wind down to the final days of the NASCAR season. It will pay to be alert and watch each event carefully.
High-octane calculators would be needed to determine all of the possibilities as the sport’s leading drivers jockey for position with only 1,211 miles of racing remaining. After the up-and-down weeks of a long season that began in the winter cold of Daytona and stretched through a long, hot, wet summer, fans can be encouraged that the race remains so tight and the resolution so difficult to predict.
This is the way it’s supposed to be in NASCAR’s top series – talented, veteran drivers fighting it out for position, honor and dollars in the fading weeks of the season, with teams operating at full capacity, pristine cars coming off shop assembly lines and pit strategists working themselves into a near-frenzy.
Automobile racing at its finest.
It’s difficult to pick which driver you might want to favor in this frantic race for one of NASCAR’s key designations: Runnerup to the Champion.
The current leader is the ageless and street-smart Mark Martin, a man who knows something about these tight battles for second place – and how to win them. He’s managed to do it four times, no small accomplishment with the competition like it is today.
With three races left, Martin leads his teammate, Jeff Gordon, by eight points in the tight race for second. Gordon has been series champion four times, but no one should overlook his abilities in a close race for second. He’s been there, too, finishing second in 1996 and 2007.
And then there are fourth-place Juan Pablo Montoya and fifth-place Tony Stewart, drivers who have positioned themselves to be in range of second place and to be in the hunt for the coveted No. 2 spot as the season rolls into its critical phase.
In the past three seasons, the winners of the Runnerup Challenge have been Matt Kenseth (2006), Gordon (2007) and Carl Edwards (2008). The fact that the winner of this race has not been able to duplicate the performance in recent years is an indication of the difficulty of the task.
The world is watching as we roll into the season’s last calendar month.
Also watching this competitive battle for second is a guy named Jimmie Johnson. Above the fray (literally), he has little else to worry about in these days of wine and roses.
