Richmond International Raceway
Nascar leaves Kansas behind in the wind (better yet leaves the wind in Kansas) until the Chase. Now we head to Richmond International Raceway for the second night race of the 2013 season. After the race at Richmond Nascar will officially be done with 25% of the season and we can take a look at early season standings. Until then lets focus on this Saturday!
Seven of the past eight winners have been driving Toyota when visiting Victory Lane, including Kyle Busch four times. The previous six races, all Chevy. Ford has not had a driver take there car to Victory Lane in 14 races, or since 2005 (Kurt Busch). Will car manufacturer have anything to do with Saturdays race or are these just fun facts? We will see, but Kyle Busch has won the Spring trip to Richmond four straight times. Here is a look at last years Spring race and last years Fall race.
So lets get on with the Good, Middle, and Bad drivers at Richmond International Raceway.
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| Kyle Busch RIR Win in Spring of 2012 |
The Good:
- Kyle Busch- Kyle has 16 career starts at Richmond, he also has 13 career top 10's. Better yet, 13 of those top 10's were top 5 finishes! Boy oh boy has Kyle been good here. He has the most wins of current drivers (4) and best average finish (5.4). Best Chance Forecast: A hot start to 2013 and a hot track for Kyle, safe to predict a top 5.
- Clint Bowyer- Two career wins at Richmond, including the last trip here, and 8 top 10's (14 career starts) has Bowyer looking good this weekend. Also think about this, he missed out on a top 10 four times while finishing 12th. Best Chance Forecast: Top 10 is defiantly in the future if he runs like he can at Richmond.
- Tony Stewart- How this season has gone I don't think Smoke should be mentioned anywhere until he proves us wrong, but this is history. And Smoke has four straight top 10's including two top 5's last season. He also has won here in the past (3 times) but none since 2002. Best Chance Forecast: Danica and Ryan Newman finish ahead of him. Being serious, its too hard to predict Smoke this season. Look for a possible top 15.
- Jimmie Johnson- Once again I will keep the middle ground drivers list short. JJ is good just about every where so it isn't a stretch to put him on this list. Hasn't won at Richmond since 2008 and has to 30+ finishes since then. Best Chance Forecast: Top 10 isn't out of the question for JJ.
- Paul Menard- 12 starts, no top 10's and an average finish of 27.1 is not what Menard wants to see. He has been the surprise of the early 2013 season and will have to figure something out this time around to avoid a huge slip up.
- Martin Truex Jr- Truex has 14 starts at Richmond with two top 10's and a top 5 but that seems like such a long time ago. Truex has had back to back good weeks, but his last five at Richmond look like this: 21st, 25th, 30th, 27th, and 22nd.
- Joey Logano- 8 starts and JoLo has one top 10 (a top 5), everything else has been just plan bad at Richmond. He will have to do better then his 30th and 24th finishes last year to get out of the hole that has been created for him.
- Ryan Newman- The only Stewart Haas driver worth talking about right now, Newman has a career average finishing position of 11.6. He has 13 top 10's in 22 career starts at Richmond. Newman may go into the weekend quiet and finish is making up points on 12th position (24 behind right now).
- Mark Martin- Mark has 30 career top 10s at Richmond, but he is not a young pup anymore. Yet he still has three straight top 10's and 7 in the last 10 races. Not too bad for an old guy. Look for him to make a good run Saturday, but most likely end up short of the win.
Lets get ready for an exciting weekend! Check back for new updates and for even more and a bunch of extra stats for the Richmond weekend follow me on Twitter.
Some extras so you get enough info through the week:
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