Fantasy Preview: Lowe's

Drivers worry about the "Big One" at Talladega Superspeedway -- a massive crash that nearly always occurs and can wipe out up to half the field in a single incident -- but in 2007 that seems to be the least of the worries for championship contenders.

The 2007 Chase is taking on a distinct "bull in a china shop" feel, particularly where the top 12 are concerned. Massive crashes with playoff implications have been the order of the day recently and the lumbering bovine has put its hoof print on three of the first four races. Six of the 12 Chase drivers have finished 25th or worse in at least two races, and conventional wisdom says they are out of contention.

A 12-car accident on Lap 386 of the 400-lap affair at Dover International Speedway affected five Chase contenders, a six-car incident just after a rain-delay restart at Kansas Speedway ultimately claimed four Chasers and last week's 11-car pileup at Talladega slowed two of their number.

Bulls have four feet, which leaves drivers waiting for the final shoe to drop.

An accident at Lowe's Motor Speedway most often involves only one or two cars, but the outcome is no less catastrophic. This spring, six cars retired with crash damage in the Coca-Cola 600; last fall, 10 wounded cars retired in this race.

Last week, the new RCR/DEI consortium suffered through their worst race ever when five of seven cars experienced an engine-related problem and a sixth car crashed before it could blow. Both this spring and last fall, four engines blew in each of the races, so the Chasers are not out of the woods yet.

The Points Leaders

Last year, no one seemed to want to take on the mantle of points leader until Jimmie Johnson finally claimed the spot late in the Chase. This season, he and teammate Jeff Gordon have swapped the top spot in each race. Talladega is a good case in point. Johnson entered that race with a mere six-point lead over Gordon and left nine points in arrears.

If history is a predictor, the points lead should change again after the Bank of America 500, only this time one of the drivers might have a more distinct advantage.

Johnson has been the absolute master of Lowe's during his entire career. He's finished outside the top 10 only once in 12 starts and since the beginning of 2003, he's amassed five victories and eight top-three finishes in nine races. He's going to be on a lot of rosters this week and he's almost guaranteed to earn a top-five for his owners.

Conversely, Gordon has struggled more on this track in recent seasons than anywhere else. In the last three years, he's crashed four times and blown an engine on another occasion in five starts. This spring, he was running with the lead pack when he got taken out by a back marker -- his fans can take a little solace in the fact that he was running strong -- but with a price tag of $116.20 in the Superstar Cap Challenge, it's going to cost way too much to find out if he can turn his fortunes around.

Last week, crew chief Gil Martin called Clint Bowyer's 11th-place finish, "a small victory" since he had never left that Superspeedway with an undamaged car. Lowe's has not been much kinder to the No. 07 team with a best result of only 19th in three career starts. If he clears this one race with a top-10 finish, Bowyer will have to be taken seriously as a title contender and with momentum on this team's side, they may just accomplish that task.

Carl Edwards has been just as consistent as Johnson, but not as strong. In five previous starts, he's earned four top-10s and never finished worse than 15th. These two drivers share one other thing in common since both struggled slightly at Lowe's this summer with Johnson finishing 10th and Edwards 15th, but they have not had this much on the line in a long time. Four of Edwards' seven career Nextel Cup victories have come on the unrestricted, intermediate speedways -- two at Atlanta Motor Speedway and one each at Texas Motor Speedway and Michigan International Speedway -- so this fits perfectly in his comfort zone.

Their Best Foot

With two-thirds of the Nextel Cup schedule contested on similarly-configured, 1.5- and two-mile tracks, teams put a lot of emphasis on these courses, so it should come as no surprise that several dark horses have run strong at Lowe's in the last few years.

Casey Mears earned a fuel mileage victory in the Coca-Cola 600 and that was his first top-10 on the "cookie-cutter" tracks behind the wheel of a Hendrick Motorsports Chevy. He proved it was not a fluke, however, with back-to-back top-fives in his next two outings on the similarly configured Chicagoland and Kansas Speedways. He also has recent momentum on his side, with a four-race streak of top-10s to his credit on a diverse range of tracks. Given his struggles in the first part of the season, his price tag is affordable, which makes him an excellent value.

The 1.5-mile doglegged ovals of Atlanta and Lowe's used to be the personal playground of Bobby Labonte. With six victories in Georgia and two in North Carolina, he certainly knows how to find Victory Lane on this type of track and his strong runs are not in the distant past. His last victory at Atlanta came in 2003, while his last Lowe's win came in 2000. When he misses at Lowe's, it's not by much and 20 of his last 21 starts in Charlotte resulted in top-20 finishes. The only time he finished worse than 18th during that span came as the result of an accident in 1998.

If Tony Stewart practices well, he should be considered a favorite. Along with Johnson, he's been the class of the field on this type of track in the past, but he's struggled a little lately. Since the start of 2006, he's won four of 15 races on the "cookie-cutter" courses and that might have been five if the Kansas officials had not dried the track two weeks ago. In addition, he has three more top-fives and two more top-10s in that span, but when things go wrong for him, they tend to go desperately wrong. Mixed in with those results are five finishes outside the top 20, so start him with your eyes wide open.