Pit Picks – Kobalt Tools 500 (Atlanta)

Hotlanta is the site of this week’s Sprint Cup Series event.  Atlanta Motor Speedway is another one of the 1.5 mile ‘cookie cutter’ type tracks, similar to last week’s track at Vegas, but without the progressive banking.  Of the past 9 races at the track, 7 have been won by the three pre-season favourites for this years championship.  Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards have both won 3 of the last 9, and Kyle Busch has won 1, including the first ever victory by a Toyota in last season’s spring race.  Look for all 3 to be right there at the end of this one as well.  Ryan Newman has started on the pole in 7 of the last 12 races at Atlanta and 2 were rained out so he’s at a 70% clip over that stretch.  Unfortunately Rocketman hasn’t had alot of luck to start the season, so I don’t think he’ll make it 8.

KOBALT TOOLS 500

 **The numbers beside the drivers names are how many races I have them available for (9 starts per driver)

Group 1 – Jimmie Johnson(9) & Kyle Busch(8)

Not much needs to be said about these selections.  The 3 time defending champ and probably the most talented driver in the series.  Even if these guys don’t win the race, they’ll be out front leading laps, picking up the bonus points.  Jimmie has had a relatively slow start to his season, which to some extent isn’t a huge surprise.  The #48 team uses the first 26 races as a nice long test to get it cranked up when The Chase rolls around.  Plus there are only as many cookie cutter tracks over the first 26 as there are in the final 10, and everyone knows Johnson rocks those.

Group 2 - Kurt Busch(8), David Reutimann(9), Brian Vickers(9), Tony Stewart(8)

Reutimann and Vickers have been solid, both with top 10 finishes again last week, including a 4th for Reutimann.  The 2nd tier Toyota (ie…multi-car operations that are not Gibbs) teams are getting some consistency in their programs, which makes these guys solid options on 1.5 mile and up tracks.  The real question will be how they perform on the smaller circuits.  Tony has really impressed me thus far.  I wasn’t expecting much from that team in the early going, as it’s a relatively new operation and Tony usually doesn’t start ripping off wins until the weather warms up.  Hopefully Newman can start keeping some cars together, and putting some solid finishes in, as I’d really like to see Tony succeed as an owner.  Kurt Busch, and the Penske Dodge’s in general have stepped up their performance so far this season, running the new R6P8 engines.

Group 3 – AJ Allmendinger(6), Bobby Labonte(9)

Top 5 for Bobby Labonte last week definitely gets him on the roster for this week, as does a long history of success at Atlanta.  He has 6 top series wins in his career here.  I don’t expect him to make it 7 this week, but if he can run towards the front for most of the race as he did last week, another top 10 isn’t out of the question.  AJ is still on the roster, despite a lackluster performance last week.  There isn’t much to pick from in this group, so you might as well use up the starts when you can.

Good luck with your picks and have a great weekend!

Filed under: Intermediates, Pit Picks by Site Admin - Friday, March 6th, 2009

Leave a Reply

« »