Martin continues knocking as Talladega comes calling

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Beau Estes and Mike Bell break down the wild pack racing and ponder if Dale Earnhardt Jr. can turn his season around at a track he has won at five times.
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Mike Bell picks a former winner to repeat this weekend in Talladega, but holds out hope for Junior fans.
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No driver fell out of the top 12, but with his victory at Phoenix, Mark Martin is 13th and knocking on the door. Martin, who spent consecutive weeks 34th in the standings last month, moved up five spots and is nine points behind No. 12 Matt Kenseth. Bill Marx of the Sporting News Wire Service breaks down the top 12:

1. Jeff Gordon, 1,242 points. Well, you can't finish in the top five every week. Here's the recipe for a 25th-place finish, Gordon's worst of the season: contact on the track, a tire rub and lug-nut issues. His lead over second place was trimmed by 77 points.

2. Jimmie Johnson, 1,157. Johnson's team also had a hiccup with lug nuts but still finished fourth for his fourth consecutive top-five. The 48 team took extra time in the pits to deal with a lug nut, and although that cost Johnson track position, he avoided a penalty.

No Margin for Error

The on-track spotlight is on Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart, who are separated by six points in the standings. Among full-time drivers, they have the best average finish at Talladega.

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By the Numbers

Double-dipping is nothing new, but at Talladega it's a little more intense. And winning both races at the 2.66-mile track is almost unheard of. Yet, 15 drivers not only will race 312 laps on Sunday, but another 117 on Saturday in the Nationwide race.

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3. Kurt Busch, 1,144. Busch finished third for his best outing since his victory last month at Atlanta. He led 63 laps; in his win he led 234. Last season, the most laps Busch led in a race was 64. With 301 laps led this season, Busch already has surpassed his total from two of the past three seasons in addition to his rookie season, 2001.

4. Tony Stewart, 1,138. Based on Stewart's performances so far, it's only a matter of time before he gets his first win as an owner-driver. He finished second for his third consecutive top-five finish. Combine that with his three eighth-place finishes and Stewart has six top-10s in his first eight races.

5. Denny Hamlin, 1,088. Good call by the team to go with two tires on the final pit stop with 10 laps to go. That enabled Hamlin to restart fourth, and Hamlin held on to finish sixth. Hamlin, Stewart, David Reutimann and Jeff Burton were the only drivers to move up in the standings.

6. Clint Bowyer, 1,052. Bowyer and Kenseth were the only drivers to drop in the standings. Bowyer posted his worst finish of the season, 26th, and fell two spots. Bowyer finished 22nd the previous race to give him consecutive finishes outside the top 15 for the first time since last August. He wasn't a factor Saturday, recording no laps in the top 15.

7. Kyle Busch, 1,026. A penalty for leaving pit-road too quickly on Busch's final pit stop took the air out of his night. Instead of a likely top-five finish, he finished 17th, the last car on the lead lap. How fast was too fast? According to crew chief Steve Addington, ".005 too fast."

8. Carl Edwards, 1,023. "Lacking grip" was Edwards' problem for most of the night. Although he finished 10th, Edwards failed to lead any laps for the third time in the past four races. The aura invincibility the No. 99 displayed in the Chase last year hasn't been there in 2009.

9. David Reutimann, 992. Reutimann turned in another solid performance, finishing eighth for his second top-10 of the season. He was one of four drivers to spend all 312 laps in the top 15, and he led a lap to pick up five bonus points. Reutimann started eighth, and his 10.4 average start is fifth best in the series.

10. Kasey Kahne, 975. Kahne held onto his spot in the standings with a 13th-place finish, his seventh consecutive top 20 of the season. Kahne still isn't challenging for wins, though. He never ran higher than 11th Saturday night, and the one lap he led at Las Vegas is the only lap he has led this season. Kahne's average green-flag speed is the slowest among drivers in the top 12.

11. Jeff Burton, 953. Steady Burton finished 15th for his sixth consecutive top-15 finish. Green-flag speed also is an issue with Burton. He is 15th fastest overall with only RCR teammate Bowyer (17th) and Kahne (18th) slower among drivers in the top 12. Speed has been an issue with Richard Childress cars this year. Collectively, the four Childress drivers (Casey Mears is the fourth) have led only 79 laps through eight races, 61 by Burton. Mears' average green-flag speed ranks 28th.

12. Matt Kenseth, 946. It's hard to believe this is the same team that started the season with back-to-back wins. An ill-handling car coupled with troubles in the pits relegated Kenseth to a 27th-place finish, his fourth finish 23rd or worse this season.

All statistical references are for Cup Series races at Talladega unless otherwise indicated. Driver rating is based on the past eight races at the track.

Top five ...

Hamlin

1. Jeff Gordon, 92.3 driver rating. Talladega is a crapshoot. Just look at the finishes for Gordon in the past eight races on which Gordon's third-best driver rating is based: 1, 37 (crash), 15, 36 (crash), 1, 1, 19, 38 (crash). Three wins and three DNFs. That's the ultimate in feast or famine.

2. Jimmie Johnson 83.9. Johnson has more DNFs, five, at Talladega than at any other track. And despite that fact, Johnson still has a win and two seconds the past three seasons. He has led at least one lap in 13 of his 14 races.

3. Kurt Busch, 86.2. Busch had a run of seven finishes between third and eighth end last season with finishes of 39th (crash) and 21st. Busch has never won at Talladega in 16 starts, but his 11 top-10s rank sixth among full-time active drivers.

4. Tony Stewart, 95.9. Fans can argue about Regan Smith and the yellow line for the next 100 years, but it won't change the fact Stewart won his first Cup race at Talladega last fall. And don't let only one win in 20 races fool you. Stewart is solid at Talladega with 12 top-10s, including six second-place finishes among nine top-fives.

5. Denny Hamlin, 93.2. Despite his first DNF at Talladega in the fall, Hamlin sports the second-best driver rating. He has led laps in all six of his races. His two top-10s are a third and fourth.

Five to watch ...

Harvick

7. Kyle Busch. Busch won this race last year. In his six previous starts, his best finish was 11th, with four DNFs and an average finish of 36.7. With his win and 15th-place run in the fall race, it is now a more "respectable" 25.8. Busch is one of NASCAR's best drivers, proving again what a crapshoot Talladega is.

12. Matt Kenseth, 84.3. Kenseth hasn't finished in the top 10 since 2006. He suffered his first DNF because of a crash at Talladega last fall when Carl Edwards ignited a "big one" late in the race that collected 11 other cars, including front-running Roush Fenway Racing teammates Kenseth and Greg Biffle. Now, Kenseth returns to Talladega barely holding onto a spot in the top 12. He leads Mark Martin by nine points.

13. Mark Martin, 60.4. For a guy who doesn't like Talladega, Martin has done pretty well there with two wins and 22 top-10s in 42 starts. The two wins came in the '90s, though, and he skipped both races in 2007 and 2008 when he was running part time. Even if Martin runs one of his patented smart, patient races, there's no guarantee he will avoid a "big one." Such is the essence of Talladega.

16. Kevin Harvick, 76.9. There's trouble in RCR-ville. It was announced Wednesday that Harvick and teammate Casey Mears would switch teams. That means Harvick's longtime association with crew chief Todd Berrier will come to an end after Talladega. And speaking of Richard Childress Racing, even though it has nine wins at the track, it hasn't been to Victory Lane since Dale Earnhardt in 2000.

19. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 86.8. There are two versions of Junior at Talladega: Early and Lately. Early Junior had eight top-10s in his first 10 races, including five wins and two second-place finishes. Lately Junior has two top-10s in the past eight races, including four DNFs. The No. 88 team desperately needs Early Junior to show up this weekend.