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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Week 12 Preview: Charlotte

Charlotte Motor Speedway

Coca-Cola 600


By Richard Tix

NASCAR's All-Star weekend started with a bang after finding out the Reddit Dogecoin community had helped get Josh Wise into the Sprint All-Star Race via the fan vote. Once the action got going Clint Bowyer and AJ Allmendinger raced there way into the All Star Race on Friday Night.

Saturday nights All-Star race was pretty entertaining. As always qualifying this year was fun and kept the fans into it. The racing on Saturday night was fast paced and provided action with a few crashes. In the end Jamie McMurray crept up on everyone and stole the last 10 lap segment to win the All-Star Race. The All-Star Race not only is a fun race, but it gives us a little insight into how the 600 could possibly play out this weekend. Lets take a look at how some drivers have done in the past at Charlotte Motor Speedway. If you are looking for some Fantasy Advice head over to ThisSportz. 

Want a blast from the past, well maybe just back to last year? Check out the Charlotte Preview and Review from 2013.


The Good, Middle, and Bad
(This is just a review of each drivers recent past performance, generally about 5-10 past races)
**Stats do not include the All-Star Race**

The Good
  • Kasey Kahne- Four wins in 20 career races at CMS is good enough to give Kahne the second best career average finish of current drivers (11.4). He also has 5 straight top 10's with 4 of those being top 5's (1 win).
  • Kyle Busch- In the last 10 races at Charlotte no one has more top 10's then Rowdy's 8. Not only that, but the 2 races that he did not finish top 10 in he had an engine problem and got involved in a wreck. Unfortunatly he has yet to win at Charlotte in 20 tries even though he normally runs very well here.
  • Denny Hamlin- DH has 7 straight top 10's with 4 of them top 5's, yet he still doesnt have a win at Charlotte. He has proven he can run fast at Charlotte but can he finally show he can win here? 
  • Extra Credit: Joey Logano
The Middle
  • Jimmie Johnson- If we made this list 6 years ago you would be crazy to not have JJ in the Good category, back then he had 5 wins during a stretch of 11 top 10's (8 of them top 5's). But, as of late he hasn't been his dominant self at Charlotte with only 3 top 10's in his last 8 tries. If I know JJ, he has great odds to get back to his dominant self here.
The Bad
  • Brain Vickers- In his last 4 races he has yet to finish in the top 15 and in his career he has 3 top 10's (15 starts). His average finish of 23rd leaves a lot to be desired at Charlotte.
  • Paul Menard- 14 starts and Menard has only managed 1 top 10 (2010) at Charlotte. In fact, Menard only has 4 top 15 finishes in that same time frame. Whats even more concerning, he only has 4 top 20 finishes in those 14 starts.
  • Dale Earnhardt Jr- Well Jr doesn't find himself on the Bad list very often, but his terrible 5 race stretch from 2008-2010 still haunts him. In his last to starts he only has 2 top 10's, 3 top 15's, and 4 top 20's. The good thing, all of those stats have been accumulated in his last 5 starts at Charlotte.
Track Stats
  • The last time someone won a Charlotte race from the Pole not named Jimmie Johnson was 1998, Jeff Gordon. JJ has won 2 from the Pole since then (2004 and 2009).
  • JJ won 4 straight from 2004 to 2005, sweeping both times. Four straight is also a track Cup record.
  • In that same stretch he won 5 of 6 from 2003-2005 dropping the only race to Tony Stewart.
  • The most cautions was 22 during the 2005 May Charlotte race, which JJ ended up winning.


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