The Pit Stall

NASCAR followed up a non-eventful finish to the Daytona 500 with another non-eventful finish in California, with Matt Kenseth winning his second straight race to open the 2009 season.  Maybe he needs ‘vanilla’ to go to Victory Lane?  The boring ‘finishes’ seem to be working for him.  Kenseth won the race off pit road in the 4th and final caution of the evening (all for rain, which I’m sure made several fans uneasy after Daytona’s shortened race) thanks to a big mistake in the pits by teammate Greg Biffle, and held of Jeff Gordon over the final 35 laps to take the checkers.   The win gives Kenseth an 81 point lead over Jeff Gordon to begin the season and more importantly has 20 bonus points in his back pocket if/when he makes The Chase.

Week 2 results ahead…

It was a solid week in the pool for me, picking up another 275 points (anything between 260 and 300 is decent, over 300 is kick ass).  I was bang on with the Kenseth prediction, his Roush teammates turned in ok performances, and Allmendinger was a bit of a disappointment.

Group 1 – Matt Kenseth(8) & Carl Edwards(9)

On Thursday I suggested Matt Kenseth would come away from California with another win to back up his Daytona performance.  He ran a solid race, got great stops from his pit crew, and caught a couple lucky breaks along the way.  Not only did he win the race, but he led the most laps and picked up the extra 10 points for that.  Carl Edwards was never really in contention in this one, but still managed a top 10 finishing in 7th.  He also led a lap and earned the 10 point bonus.

Group 2 – David Ragan(8), Jamie McMurray(7), Ryan Newman(9), Brian Vickers(9)

I went all Roush in the first two groups after Vickers was dropped to the back for an engine change after qualifying on the pole.  Apparently that was a mistake as McMurray couldn’t hold off Johnson to lead the first lap, and Vickers out-performed both he and Ragan.  Oh well…Vickers will have quite a few good races this season, and I think he has an outside shot at making The Chase.  McMurray and Ragan finished 16th and 17th respectively, which were ok, but to have a really good scoring week, you want your group 2 drivers in the top 15.  Fortunately they weren’t far off of that ‘goal’.  Newman had another tough week and finished 2 laps down in 28th. 

Group 3 – AJ Allmendinger(7), Marcos Ambrose(9)

I don’t know what happened to AJ in this one, as I missed a fair bit of the first half of the race.  I’m not 100% sure if the snooze was track induced or from being up late the night before.  By the time I woke up he was well back, and out of contention.  He ended up rolling across behind Newman in 29th.  Ambrose faired a bit better and ended up 22nd, one spot back of tops in the group.  Ambrose now sits tied for 20th in points with Casey Mears, and with a solid run at Vegas should be comfortably in the top 35 when the series gets to Bristol.

Recap

• Points for this race: 275 (Kenseth, Ragan, McMurray, Allmendinger)
• Most Possible Points: 359 (Kenseth (Johnson qual), Busch, Stewart (McMurray & Vickers qual), B. Labonte)
• Season Points : 553
• Current Place : 1st
• Lead over 2nd : 3
• Overall Percentile : 87th

Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images

Filed under: Intermediates, Pit Picks by Site Admin - Monday, February 23rd, 2009