Picks/Las Vegas/SunAfternoon
#1
03-03-2013, 06:20 PM
Picks/Las Vegas/SunAfternoon
Intro and Congratulatory Remarks
First, congrats to Devin, MnteCrloSS47 for his win at Phoenix! That broke Jerry, 77GP's two year hold on that race!
Just two weeks into the season, that means the overall points and the segment 1 both look like this...
Congrats to Chris for taking the points lead after Phoenix!
1) montecarlo3831 188 Leader
2) SupplySgt 181 -7
3) BocaReject 180 -8
4) Leprechaun93 179 -9
5) MnteCrloSS47 172 -16
6) silverfish33 169 -19
7) 02 Earnhardt 167 -21
8) 03JGMonte 166 -22
9) SSmeansSuperSexy 165 -23
10) Cowboy6622 161 -27
11) Ricks 2006 SS 160 -28
12) STUMPMI 159 -29
13) RocknSS04 157 -31
14) zjerry 154 -34
15) BlazedSS 152 -36
16) 06MistreSS 142 -46
17) 77GP 138 -50
18) carlm54stl 125 -63
19) butch049 105 -83
For Las Vegas, here are the previous winners....
2011 Winner: JuniorCar
2012 Winner: zjerry
I remember it being 1 poitn separating each of hte top 3 here last year... I was going to pick up a couple of parts for my Torino and thought I had won the race... but zjerry got me with one point!!
This Week in Las Vegas
This is going to be a good week to determine who will be good on tracks like Fontana, Chicago, and Kansas.. plus, to some degree, Charlotte, Texas, and even Homestead or Atlanta towards the end of the year. It's the first cookie cutter. After the wild card of Daytona and the fast, flat Phoenix, now we get to see what everyone has with this new car on the 1.5 mile cookie cutters... so this could be an interesting weekend.
Anytime they come up with these new cars, it takes some time to figure out how to pass, how to adjust it, and just get a general hold on the car. Until then, I think whoever qualfiies well nad has a good strategy to get the car up front and keep it there will be the cars to watch for a win at Las Vegas.
The Ford Teams
A lot of people, including me, thought that maybe Ford was behind this Gen 6 curve a little bit. It seems like we might be wrong. Biffle and Brad K were fast at Daytona, and Edwards and Brad K were fast at Phoenix. The Ford's have always been fast at the 1.5's, so it could be interesting...
Roush Fenway Racing
Clearly, the 99 is back! He has won twice at Las Vegas, so I've got to think he will be strong and carrying momentum now. Biffle is a good 1.5 miler and we still have to wait and see what this STenhouse guy is all about. At one time, Roush was the only car owner that had won at Las Vegas... so this is a good Ford track!
Penske
One of hte strongest teams right now seems to be Brad KEselowski. BK was strong at Daytona... a caution falling with him in front may have seen a different Daytona 500 winner. Joey Logano is having decent runs, but is more of a flat tracker. And you know, last eyar, Keselowski was in a great position as Las Vegas when his car decided it didn't want to pick up fuel for the first of like 9 times.
Petty Enterprise
I feel like Almirola might be getting closer and closer to a win. Petty is good at coming out of the box strong, but the problem is that they have a new car. Almirola will be running that Mustang in the Nationwide series to get that experience too. Ambrose seems to always show up at Las Vegas and do good.
Chevrolet Teams
The Chevy's are fast, as they always are. But which Chevy's do you want?
Hendrick
The 88-48 shop seems to be quickly on top of this new car. I want to wait until at least after Vegas and Bristol before saying Jr. is a major threat, but the Jimmie Johnson/Chad Knaus combo wants another championship and they want some race wins! Jimmie has won Vegas 3? times and always seems to be in the hunt here, no matter waht car they are driving. So I think Johnson has to be the major car to watch out for. Then Junior. Then Kahne, then Gordon. But all of that could change.. it's all about which guy and his crew chief figures out the car first.
Stewart Haas
Stewart is always really good at Las Vegas... he should have won in 2011, when Edwards last won, but had an issue in the pits and infamously said "Someone better explain to me how we lost this race" when it was all over. Newman is just a big guy without luck.... he'll win 1-2 races a year and run like crappy everywhere else. will he win this week? I dunno... These 1.5's are good for Danica... heck she might run better than Newman this week.
Childress
Harvick is hte man, but Burton has run well for a couple of weeks now. Burton was flirting with the top 10 all day at Phoenix and it would be cool to see Jeff Burton win a race again... Paul Menard is known to start the season out strong so we'll see how that goes.
Furnitrue Row
Anyone want to tak ebets on when Kurt will have a meltdown? He made it to Darlington last year...
Toyota Teams
Las Vegas is another demanding track on engines... I remember Ford's dropping like flys at Vegas a few years back and I wonder if TRD won't see engines dropping at vegas. They are working 24/7 on resolving the issue, but the thing is, this has been a recurring issue for over a year now that just seems to come and go. And even if they discovered the issue tonight, would they be able to get the correct parts produced and in the engines for Vegas? As a guy who has built engines, I'm going to say that's a tall tall order. Which 'Yota engine will stay strong and which one will dump valve train parts on the back straightaway with 75 miels to go is a hard question to answer. One will likely win or run top 5, but it's hard to say which one will finish 36th...
Joe Gibbs Racing
Denny was good in the new tests, and so was Kyle and Kenseth is a major strong horse on these. I do'nt know if Kyle ever won here or not, I know the Busch Bro's like to run well here since it's home, but I can just already picture Kyle dominating the race to blow an eninge wiht 30 to go for the Ford's and Chevy's to cruise on to victory. While I think these cars will all bes fast in practice and qualifying both, they are just gambles on these engine punishing tracks.
Michael Waltrip Racing
The quesiton for this organization is will the ypick up where they were last year. Martin was strong in a ton of these races but on about 3-4 occasions, blew his engine in the late laps... one tiem at Michigan he blew up with 10 to go and TNT didn't even meniton it because the unmenitonable name was leading the race.
I actually think Martin Truex is the better ebt. When running for the championship last yea,r Bowyer did find something, but it's usually Truex who runs better on 1.5's while Bowyer struggles a little bit and seems to find some of that bad luck and crashes or hurts his powerplant.
If you want one of the guys from this team, just take Martin and hope his engine lasts.
My Picks
This is strongly subject to change if there is a bad qualifying run or an engine change... I just think starting towards the front is that important. so if these guys look good in practice and qualify near hte front, I'm taking...
1) Kasey Kahne
2) Carl Edwards
3) Jimmie Johnson
First, congrats to Devin, MnteCrloSS47 for his win at Phoenix! That broke Jerry, 77GP's two year hold on that race!
Just two weeks into the season, that means the overall points and the segment 1 both look like this...
Congrats to Chris for taking the points lead after Phoenix!
1) montecarlo3831 188 Leader
2) SupplySgt 181 -7
3) BocaReject 180 -8
4) Leprechaun93 179 -9
5) MnteCrloSS47 172 -16
6) silverfish33 169 -19
7) 02 Earnhardt 167 -21
8) 03JGMonte 166 -22
9) SSmeansSuperSexy 165 -23
10) Cowboy6622 161 -27
11) Ricks 2006 SS 160 -28
12) STUMPMI 159 -29
13) RocknSS04 157 -31
14) zjerry 154 -34
15) BlazedSS 152 -36
16) 06MistreSS 142 -46
17) 77GP 138 -50
18) carlm54stl 125 -63
19) butch049 105 -83
For Las Vegas, here are the previous winners....
2011 Winner: JuniorCar
2012 Winner: zjerry
I remember it being 1 poitn separating each of hte top 3 here last year... I was going to pick up a couple of parts for my Torino and thought I had won the race... but zjerry got me with one point!!
This Week in Las Vegas
This is going to be a good week to determine who will be good on tracks like Fontana, Chicago, and Kansas.. plus, to some degree, Charlotte, Texas, and even Homestead or Atlanta towards the end of the year. It's the first cookie cutter. After the wild card of Daytona and the fast, flat Phoenix, now we get to see what everyone has with this new car on the 1.5 mile cookie cutters... so this could be an interesting weekend.
Anytime they come up with these new cars, it takes some time to figure out how to pass, how to adjust it, and just get a general hold on the car. Until then, I think whoever qualfiies well nad has a good strategy to get the car up front and keep it there will be the cars to watch for a win at Las Vegas.
The Ford Teams
A lot of people, including me, thought that maybe Ford was behind this Gen 6 curve a little bit. It seems like we might be wrong. Biffle and Brad K were fast at Daytona, and Edwards and Brad K were fast at Phoenix. The Ford's have always been fast at the 1.5's, so it could be interesting...
Roush Fenway Racing
Clearly, the 99 is back! He has won twice at Las Vegas, so I've got to think he will be strong and carrying momentum now. Biffle is a good 1.5 miler and we still have to wait and see what this STenhouse guy is all about. At one time, Roush was the only car owner that had won at Las Vegas... so this is a good Ford track!
Penske
One of hte strongest teams right now seems to be Brad KEselowski. BK was strong at Daytona... a caution falling with him in front may have seen a different Daytona 500 winner. Joey Logano is having decent runs, but is more of a flat tracker. And you know, last eyar, Keselowski was in a great position as Las Vegas when his car decided it didn't want to pick up fuel for the first of like 9 times.
Petty Enterprise
I feel like Almirola might be getting closer and closer to a win. Petty is good at coming out of the box strong, but the problem is that they have a new car. Almirola will be running that Mustang in the Nationwide series to get that experience too. Ambrose seems to always show up at Las Vegas and do good.
Chevrolet Teams
The Chevy's are fast, as they always are. But which Chevy's do you want?
Hendrick
The 88-48 shop seems to be quickly on top of this new car. I want to wait until at least after Vegas and Bristol before saying Jr. is a major threat, but the Jimmie Johnson/Chad Knaus combo wants another championship and they want some race wins! Jimmie has won Vegas 3? times and always seems to be in the hunt here, no matter waht car they are driving. So I think Johnson has to be the major car to watch out for. Then Junior. Then Kahne, then Gordon. But all of that could change.. it's all about which guy and his crew chief figures out the car first.
Stewart Haas
Stewart is always really good at Las Vegas... he should have won in 2011, when Edwards last won, but had an issue in the pits and infamously said "Someone better explain to me how we lost this race" when it was all over. Newman is just a big guy without luck.... he'll win 1-2 races a year and run like crappy everywhere else. will he win this week? I dunno... These 1.5's are good for Danica... heck she might run better than Newman this week.
Childress
Harvick is hte man, but Burton has run well for a couple of weeks now. Burton was flirting with the top 10 all day at Phoenix and it would be cool to see Jeff Burton win a race again... Paul Menard is known to start the season out strong so we'll see how that goes.
Furnitrue Row
Anyone want to tak ebets on when Kurt will have a meltdown? He made it to Darlington last year...
Toyota Teams
Las Vegas is another demanding track on engines... I remember Ford's dropping like flys at Vegas a few years back and I wonder if TRD won't see engines dropping at vegas. They are working 24/7 on resolving the issue, but the thing is, this has been a recurring issue for over a year now that just seems to come and go. And even if they discovered the issue tonight, would they be able to get the correct parts produced and in the engines for Vegas? As a guy who has built engines, I'm going to say that's a tall tall order. Which 'Yota engine will stay strong and which one will dump valve train parts on the back straightaway with 75 miels to go is a hard question to answer. One will likely win or run top 5, but it's hard to say which one will finish 36th...
Joe Gibbs Racing
Denny was good in the new tests, and so was Kyle and Kenseth is a major strong horse on these. I do'nt know if Kyle ever won here or not, I know the Busch Bro's like to run well here since it's home, but I can just already picture Kyle dominating the race to blow an eninge wiht 30 to go for the Ford's and Chevy's to cruise on to victory. While I think these cars will all bes fast in practice and qualifying both, they are just gambles on these engine punishing tracks.
Michael Waltrip Racing
The quesiton for this organization is will the ypick up where they were last year. Martin was strong in a ton of these races but on about 3-4 occasions, blew his engine in the late laps... one tiem at Michigan he blew up with 10 to go and TNT didn't even meniton it because the unmenitonable name was leading the race.
I actually think Martin Truex is the better ebt. When running for the championship last yea,r Bowyer did find something, but it's usually Truex who runs better on 1.5's while Bowyer struggles a little bit and seems to find some of that bad luck and crashes or hurts his powerplant.
If you want one of the guys from this team, just take Martin and hope his engine lasts.
My Picks
This is strongly subject to change if there is a bad qualifying run or an engine change... I just think starting towards the front is that important. so if these guys look good in practice and qualify near hte front, I'm taking...
1) Kasey Kahne
2) Carl Edwards
3) Jimmie Johnson
Last edited by Cowboy6622; 03-09-2013 at 06:27 PM.
#6
03-03-2013, 08:05 PM
Dale Jr
Biffle
Harvick
Maybe this can get me back on top of the points. These type of tracks are typically my better ones. I got my only win at Michigan but outside of that these 1.5s are where I finished the most consistently.
Biffle
Harvick
Maybe this can get me back on top of the points. These type of tracks are typically my better ones. I got my only win at Michigan but outside of that these 1.5s are where I finished the most consistently.
#7
03-03-2013, 09:00 PM
I have only won two races, one at Bristol, one at Phoenix. I am still searching for my first win on a big track. I seem to do best on short tracks, road courses, and any "oddball" tracks like Pocono.
#9
03-03-2013, 10:55 PM
1. #48 Jimmie Johnson
2. #2 Brad Keselowski
3. #15 Clint Bowyer <center>
2. #2 Brad Keselowski
3. #15 Clint Bowyer <center>
Last edited by carlm54stl; 03-09-2013 at 04:45 AM. Reason: Add Picture
#10
03-04-2013, 05:49 AM
Classic NASCAR Photo of the Day
Here is David Pearson relaxing before a race at Michigan in I believe 1969-1970
Here is David Pearson relaxing before a race at Michigan in I believe 1969-1970