Roush drivers look ahead, expect to boot competition

By Duane Cross, NASCAR.COM
April 1, 2009
02:52 PM EDT

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The Sprint Cup Series returns to cookie-cutter racing this weekend after two weeks of short-track bump-and-run action -- but fear not, Texas Motor Speedway holds the promise of high-speed jockeying.

Among the storylines this week (and stop me if you've heard this): four-time Cup Series champion and 81-race winner Jeff Gordon is 0-fer at Texas (it's now 16 and counting, for those of you just crawling from under a rock). In fact, Texas has played host to Gordon's only 43rd-place finishes in his 551-race career.

As you would imagine, Texas does not bode well for Gordon -- or does it? In the past 10 races at TMS, Gordon has:

• Six top-10 finishes, second to Matt Kenseth (7) and Jimmie Johnson.

• The fifth-best average finish (12.2), tied with Clint Bowyer.

• Tallied the third-most points (1,349) and led the fifth-most laps (272).

So for those with their sights set on possibly unseating Gordon as king of the points hill, Sunday may not be the cakewalk others would have you believe. Nonetheless, several top-10 drivers excel at the 1.5-mile self-proclaimed Great American Speedway (and home to the best Victory Lane in NASCAR; sorry, Vegas).

Texas Motor Speedway

Best Average Finish

Rank	Driver	Races	W	T5	T10	Avg. Start	Avg. Finish	RAF	LLF

1	Jimmie Johnson	11	1	5	8	8.9	9.1	10	9
2	Matt Kenseth	13	1	5	8	17.9	10.1	12	10
3	Denny Hamlin	7	0	2	5	10.4	11.6	7	5
4	Clint Bowyer	6	0	2	3	15.2	12.2	6	3
5	Jamie McMurray	10	0	3	6	27.7	12.7	10	7
6	Kevin Harvick	12	0	2	5	20.2	12.8	12	7
7	Martin Truex Jr.	7	0	1	4	15.6	13.0	6	6
8	Tony Stewart	14	1	3	8	21.1	13.2	12	9
9	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	13	1	3	7	8.3	13.4	11	9
10	Carl Edwards	8	3	3	3	18.9	13.9	7	6

Bold denotes drivers in the top 10 in the point standings entering Texas.

There is a modern-day six-shooter of drivers -- plus one who seemingly holds the silver bullet -- capable of turning up the heat on Gordon and knifing into his lead, including second-place Clint Bowyer, who trails by 89 points.

"Texas is a track where as it ages and we move around you've got more options, and those options seem to be more fitting for me," Bowyer said. "We've had good runs at Texas in the past, we've just struggled to get the finishes that we deserved. Last year we finally got the finish to show for it. We led laps in the fall race and looked like we had a shot to win it, but we fell a little short. It's a track I really look forward to getting to.

"We've been good on the mile-and-a-half tracks so far this season, and I look forward to building on that this weekend," he added, giving a nod to runner-up and sixth-place finishes at Las Vegas and Atlanta.

Inside the Numbers

Gordon's 40somethings

Finish	Date	Track

43	April 6, 2008	Texas
43	March 28, 1999	Texas
42	August 17, 2008	Michigan
42	Oct. 6, 2002	Talladega
42	March 9, 1997	Atlanta
42	Feb. 18, 1996	Daytona
41	Nov. 9, 2008	Phoenix
41	May 27, 2007	Charlotte
41	March 21, 2004	Darlington
40	July 1, 2006	Daytona
40	May 6, 2006	Richmond
40	Sept. 7, 2002	Richmond
40	March 18, 2001	Darlington
40	Sept. 11, 1999	Richmond
40	Feb. 25, 1996	Rockingham

Johnson and Kenseth are the only drivers who have averaged a top-10 finish at Texas. However, defending race winner Carl Edwards swept both events last year at Texas and is the only three-time winner at the track.

For Kenseth, getting off the short-track circuit and back to an intermediate track is a welcomed change. He was fifth, 88 points behind Gordon after Atlanta; he's now 12th, 255 points behind after finishing 33rd and 23rd at Bristol and Martinsville.

"The track is pretty high-banked in the corners, but it is very flat on the corner exits," Kenseth said of Texas. "The most unique part is trying to get off the corners, especially in Turn 2. You have to have a car that can go through the middle of the corner and the bumps very fast.

"We've had a lot of strong races there and we expect to go there and run well this weekend. We've had a pretty rough couple of weeks and I can't think of a better track that we'd like to go to get back on track."

Kenseth also has two wins, six top-five and 11 top-10 finishes in 13 Nationwide Series races at Texas. That said, he will have to contend with Roush Fenway Racing teammate Edwards for a second trip to Victory Lane in the Lone Star State.

"It takes a really, really good race car to win at Texas -- that's the bottom line," said Edwards, who led a race-high 123 laps in this race last year in addition to a follow-the-leader 212 in the fall event. "You have to have a very powerful engine and you've got to have a great aerodynamics package. Your crew chief and engineer have to have the car put together really well and sometimes you need great fuel mileage on top of that."

But not to be overlooked is Jamie McMurray, who finished third at Texas in November, which kick-started a streak of three consecutive third-place finishes to end the 2008 season.

"I feel that our group of drivers here at Roush Fenway seem to suit those 1.5-mile tracks really well," McMurray said, "and because of that, our group seems to always perform well at these types of tracks.

"I just think that Texas is a great track for us and I'm sure that we'll see similar performances this weekend. Texas is my best-finishing track on the Cup circuit right now as well."