Back at the head of the class after a stirring drive from the back of the pack to a runner-up finish in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, Harvick certainly looked the part of championship contender even without points on the line.
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Hendrick Motorsports
No skirting the issue here, Johnson and Co. weren’t quite on their A-game during the Sprint All-Star festivities, spending zero laps among the top five — an infrequent occurrence at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the No. 48 camp.
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Team Penske
In a quest for another big-ticket victory to go alongside his Daytona 500 win, Logano had one of the more eventful All-Star Races with a pair of near-misses. He’ll get another chance to bolster his portfolio this weekend in the Coca-Cola 600.
For four All-Star segments, no driver had a better average finish than Keselowski, but oh, for the late pit-road speeding penalty. Somehow, “I needed to get in clean air,” doesn’t work as a speeding excuse on Interstate 85, either.
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Hendrick Motorsports
Had Denny Hamlin not inched away into the non-turbulent air on the final pit stop, Kurt Busch likely would have hoisted the oversized All-Star check at night’s end. As it stands, he still made a strong case for inclusion among Sunday’s 600-mile favorites.
Second overall in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points but missing out on a berth in Saturday night’s All-Star main event sums up Truex’s hard luck. A win in Sunday’s 600 likely would heal all.
Dale Jr. scored his lone All-Star victory in his 2000 debut. Since then, it’s been an 0-for-15 slump in the non-points invitational, capped by an unremarkable 10th-place run Saturday night.
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Joe Gibbs Racing
What was likely the four-time champion’s final All-Star appearance netted a fourth-place result and plenty of hoopla in the pre-race ceremonies. It also didn’t start until 9:40 p.m. ET and had 20 laps added to the total distance from last year. Talk about your long goodbyes.
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Joe Gibbs Racing
The stealthy Kenseth notched his first big-league victory in the Coca-Cola 600 back in 2000. He has just one other win in the 30 Charlotte starts that have come since, but the race’s endurance-sized pace would seem to favor the 43-year-old veteran, who typically takes care of his car.
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The Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 bunch has typically ranked among the over-the-wall elite. After a blazing crunch-time pit stop Saturday night, all Hamlin had to do was his part in the final 10 laps of JGR’s first All-Star triumph.
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With no wins and an average finish of 15.8 through 11 races, Kahne is still trying to find his groove. But he climbs a spot after a seventh-place finish in the All-Star Race, and he can do more healing this weekend at Charlotte, where he has a career-high four wins.
Rest doesn’t mean rust for Kyle, who looked sharp in his first Sprint Cup Series action of the season. After starting 19th, he finished sixth in the All-Star Race. He’s Chase-eligible after receiving a waiver last week, but getting into the top 30 in the points standings — and netting a win — by season’s end leaves a thin margin for error.
Newman’s four top-five finishes this season ranks fourth on the circuit, ahead of drivers such as Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski. Newman is steady (nine top-12 finishes in 2015), but the second-longest skid of his career (63 starts without a win) has become the metaphoric monkey on his back.
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Stewart-Haas Racing
McMurray, who finished a ho-hum 16th (out of 20) in the All-Star Race, has been up and down. He has just one instance of back-to-back top-10 finishes this season. On a positive note, Charlotte is one of his best tracks (career-best seven top fives at CMS with two wins).
Almirola remains a contender for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, even though he doesn’t have a top 10 this season. His average finish of 15.6 in 2015 puts him on pace for a career-best year.