Some look to add on at Texas, others need boost

Here's a look at the top five drivers in the Sprint Cup Series standings and five drivers to watch in Sunday's Samsung Mobile 500 (3 p.m. ET on FOX). All statistical references are for Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway unless otherwise indicated. Driver Rating is based on the past 10 races at the track.

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The top five

1. Jimmie Johnson, 96.1 Driver Rating -- Johnson has finished 38th twice at Texas, and both times he was involved in wrecks. His worst finish in his other 11 starts is 15th. Overall, he has one victory and nine top-10s in 13 starts.

2. Matt Kenseth, 105.0 -- Only Tony Stewart has a better Driver Rating at Texas. Kenseth is tied with Stewart and Mark Martin for most top-10s (10), and his 9.3 average finish is the track record. He has finished outside the top 10 once since April 2005. His lone victory came in 2002.

3. Greg Biffle, 95.4 -- Biffle's streak of top-10s to start the season ended last week at Phoenix. He has finished in the top 10 at Texas in his past three starts and has five overall. On the downside, Biffle has four DNFs, which is second to his five at Talladega for his most DNFs at a track in the Cup Series.

4. Kevin Harvick, 82.8 -- Harvick has cooled since starting the season with four consecutive top-10s. He is winless at Texas with six top-10s. Texas is not one of his more competitive tracks. He has led four laps in 14 starts.

5. Jeff Gordon, 91.4 -- Gordon's last victory came a year ago at Texas. He won the pole in the fall race but finished 13th. He has nine top-10s in 18 starts and has led laps in five of the past six races at the track. He finished second last week for his second consecutive top-five.

Five to watch

7. Carl Edwards, 99.7 -- Edwards has three victories in 10 starts, so you'd think Texas would be a good place for his first Cup victory since the final race of the 2008 season. But when the 99 team tested the new spoiler at Charlotte, another 1.5-mile track, Edwards was vocal about the team's lack of speed. That's not a good sign at Texas, where speed is king. (read more)

9. Tony Stewart, 106.1 -- Smoke has one victory and 10 top-10s in 16 starts. He finished sixth and fourth last year. Although he is ninth in the standings, he hasn't exactly set the series on fire. Since finishing second at Bristol, Stewart has finishes of 26th and 23rd. In the season's first three races on intermediate tracks, Stewart finished ninth, seventh and 13th.

10. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 94.4 -- Earnhardt has the eighth-best Driver Rating and has had the most quality passes (passing a car running in the top 15 while under green) in the past 10 races at Texas. He also has run the most laps in the top 15 in that stretch. Earnhardt's lone victory at Texas (2000) also was his first Cup victory. He has seven top-10s in 15 starts but none in the past six. His average finish in those six races is 21.2.

12. Kyle Busch, 98.6 -- On Saturday, Busch will be gunning for his fifth consecutive Nationwide Series victory at Texas. That success hasn't translated to the Cup Series, where he is winless in 10 starts with four top-10s. He has led a lot of laps, though, including 232 this past November before running out of fuel with two laps to go. He finished 11th.

18. Denny Hamlin, 95.6 -- This is Hamlin's second race since surgery on his left knee. He finished last week's race -- a 3-hour, 48-minute marathon -- and will have an easier time this week at Texas, which doesn't require the braking drivers must do at Phoenix. Hamlin finished second this past November and has six top-10s in nine starts. Although he dropped three spots in the standings to 18th with his 30th-place run at Phoenix, he is only 72 points out of 12th, the final Chase-eligible spot.

Footnote

In 2008, Carl Edwards won a Cup Series-leading nine races and led a career-high 1,282 laps, behind only Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch. Since then, however, Edwards is winless and rarely has paced the field, leading 164 laps, none this year. In fact, since leading 103 laps at Pocono this past June 7, Edwards has led seven laps in the 29 races since. He last led a lap in November at Talladega. Forty-six drivers have led laps in the past 29 races, and Edwards' total places him tied for 32nd with David Gilliland and John Andretti. Johnson has led the most laps during that stretch, with 1,906.