Organizations have combined to win last four Cup races at New Hampshire
LOUDON, N.H. — The past two weeks, we’ve seen a Joe Gibbs Racing — in both cases, Kyle Busch — and Team Penske one-two finish.
Both organizations manhandled New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend across the Sprint Cup Series and XFINITY Series with a JGR sweep of both Coors Light Pole Awards and victories in the Lakes Region 200 and 5-hour ENERGY 301, so are we set for a battle for the ages between the six drivers when the sport returns north in September during the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup?
If July 18 and 19 were any indication, yes.
Between the two races, JGR and Penske cars led a whopping 414 of 501 laps with an average finishing position of 4.7 among the 10 cars entered (Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Busch and Daniel Suarez in the XFINITY race; Hamlin, Busch, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Keselowski and Joey Logano in the Cup race).
Needless to say, both teams know their way around the “Magic Mile.” With every trophy since September 2013 residing in one of their shops, it’s a near certainty that a JGR or Penske car will wind up in Sunoco Victory Lane after the Sylvania 300 (Sep. 27, 2 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network, PRN, SiriusXM) — and onto the Contender 12 round of the Chase. The six Cup drivers all have wins that practically put them in the Chase, although Busch has some work left to do to meet the top-30 in the point standings requirement.
“I look at the cars that are in front of us,” Joey Logano said on pit road after placing fourth. “Those are our competition. I look at the Gibbs cars.
“Gibbs definitely got fast (overall) the last three or four weeks. They’ve got a lot of speed in their stuff and they figured something out on both sides; their XFINITY cars are super fast, too. They figured out something that’s giving them a lot of speed.”
Penske and Gibbs cars have always seemed to run especially well at New Hampshire — Brian Vickers‘ 2013 win is the only thing standing between six straight victories, since Busch finished second in that one — but it seems they’ve turned up the dial even further since last season.
One of the most dominant performances the sport has seen the past few seasons came during the 2012 Chase when Hamlin “called his shot” a la Babe Ruth and tweeted that he would win at New Hampshire. He backed it up by leading 193 of 300 laps en route to victory.
RELATED: Hamlin calls shot, takes New Hampshire
Somehow, these teams look even stronger than that right now.
“As of late, we’ve really put some good finishes together and had some strong runs with (crew chief) Darian Grubb coming over and helping on the 11 car,” said Kyle Busch. “I feel like maybe that was a little bit of (why we’re so good at New Hampshire.)
“But Dave (Rogers, crew chief) also. We just kind of completely revamped what our thought process was for this place. When we did that, it seemed to really help us.”
This season’s Chase is already shaping up to be something special. The oncoming battle between two of the sport’s premier organizations less than 70 days from now guarantees it will be.