Those that shined at M'ville should again at Phoenix (cont'd)

Dark Horses

By the numbers, Mark Martin should be a favorite this week along with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Johnson and Gordon. This organization is picking up where it left off at the end of 2009 -- the front of the pack. However, Martin is driving like he has something to prove, which can always be dangerous on short tracks. He was impatient with Greg Biffle at Bristol and crashed, then he overdrove into the wall at Martinsville to record back-to-back results outside the top 20, but it's hard to imagine he will continue to race with this much urgency. He'll have an easier job of staying out of trouble at Phoenix. Better still, this track has been kind to him during the past two seasons. He won this race last year and has finished in the top five in three of his past four attempts.

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Martin Truex Jr. is having a much better year than his average finish of 18.2 would suggest. His fifth-place finish at Martinsville was only his second top-10 of the season, despite the fact that he has spent a lot of time among the leaders during the first six races before ultimately falling down the order. His strong run two weeks ago will have him on your radar screen, but it's his 2009 Phoenix record that recommends him. Last year, he swept the top 10 at PIR with a seventh in the spring and a fifth in the fall. That is part of four top-10s in his past five Phoenix attempts and the only time he finished worse than eighth was when he failed to finish at all in the fall 2008 race.

Joey Logano does not race like a teenager. He is one of the most patient drivers in the field at the moment and coupled with Greg Zipadelli's ability to adjust on the car, he is becoming one of the strongest closers in the field. Despite winning the first New Hampshire race last year, the short, flat tracks were not overly kind to him as a rookie. He started off the 2009 season with a 32nd-place finish at Martinsville and then went on to record six results of 12th through 21st in six of the next seven races at New Hampshire, Phoenix and Richmond. That obviously gave the team a great set of notes from which to work, however, in light of his runner-up finish to Hamlin last week.

Underdogs

At the start of the 2010 season, Ryan Newman did not look like the same driver who qualified for the Chase last season for the fledgling Stewart-Haas Racing team. In the first five races of 2010, he failed to crack the top 15, but got progressively better with an 18th at Auto Club Speedway, a 17th at Atlanta and a 16th at Bristol. All the pieces finally seemed to fall into place at Martinsville as he practiced well and finished fourth. The timing is fortunate because he enters the weekend with four top-10s in his past five attempts on short, flat tracks. Last year Phoenix was his Achilles' Heel on this track type with a 16th in the spring and a 20th in the fall, and that is why he's an underdog and not a dark horse.

Clint Bowyer has been the king of consistency on short, flat tracks since last fall. In the final regular season race at Richmond, he finished sixth and then started the Chase with a 10th at New Hampshire. His most recent results at Phoenix and Martinsville are both sevenths, which suggests he is going to earn another top-10 this week.

In light of his performance last week, Sam Hornish Jr. deserves close attention. At the start of his career, we anticipated he would be strong on short, flat tracks since he came from the open wheel ranks with their focus on road courses. Those tracks also require drivers to slow down before entering the corner and rocket out of the apex, but it took a while for Hornish to live up to expectations. Last season, he performed admirably and earned four consecutive top-10s on this track type beginning with a ninth in this race. At Martinsville last week, Hornish overcame an illness and finished 13th; just imagine what he can do at Phoenix when he's healthy.