The Pit Stall

Well it finally happened…I muffed a top group pick and in turn had a relatively bad week.  My streak of 270+ points ends at 7 races.  At least it wasn’t a disaster, as I managed to pick up 250 points and only dropped 12 points to second place.

It looks like Mark Martin may be a contender this season, after a slow start he’s ripped off four straight finishes of 7th or better, including this weekend’s victory, his first win since 2005.  In those 4 races he has gone from being in danger of having to qualify on time, to being only 9 points out of a Chase spot.  Maybe he can get that championship that has eluded him throughout his entire career. 

Group 1 – Jeff Gordon(5) & Jimmie Johnson(8)

I stayed with Jeff Gordon, who has been ridiculously good this year, and for the first time it didn’t pay off.  It was a hard luck race for Gordon, who suffered from a bad green flag stop, which was not only long but also resulted in a penalty which put him down a lap.   He had been running in the top 10 at the time.  I guess I can’t complain though with the results I’ve had to this point out of this group…something like this was bound to happen at some point, and I’m just happy it wasn’t a 35th+ finish.  Jimmie on the other hand followed up 3 straight Phoenix wins with a 4th place finish.

Group 2 – Kurt Busch(6), Juan Montoya(7), Ryan Newman(8), Denny Hamlin(7)

I took Busch and Montoya out of this group, which was both good and bad.  Busch had another solid finish, coming in 3rd behind Martin and Tony Stewart.  Montoya on the other hand finished a lap down in 24th.  Hamlin had a good run and finished 6th while Newman came across in 16th.

Group 3 – Marcos Ambrose(7), AJ Allmendinger(5)

Marcos Ambrose continues to impress me with his improvement this season.  He put down another top 15 finish with a 14th place, and is actually tied with Allmendinger in points (on Yahoo anyways) for the season.  Allmendinger finished 35th, down 3 laps, his second consecutive finish in the mid 30′s.  Someone to take a look at in future races out of this group besides these 2 and Labonte is Hornish Jr.  He’s coming around, with his first ever top 10 and back to back weeks as the top Group 3 finisher.

Recap

• Points for this race: 250 (Gordon, Ku. Busch, Montoya, Ambrose)
• Most Possible Points: 396 (Martin (Ky. Busch qual), Stewart, Ku. Busch, Hornish Jr.)
• Season Points : 2313
• Current Place : 1st
• Lead over 2nd : 164
• Overall Percentile : 98th (4016 overall) 

Up this week is the crapshoot in Alabama…

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Paul Connors

Filed under: Pit Picks, Short Tracks by Site Admin - Tuesday, April 21st, 2009