By Staff
This weekend the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series makes another visit to the Northeast stopping at the Dover International Speedway, appropriately named the Monster Mile.
This one mile concrete track is one of the toughest on the circuit for crew chiefs to set a car up, as the track is so sensitive to changes in weather and racing line.
The series visited Dover back in June and Matt Kenseth went home with the concrete monster trophy and a big check so he is one of the favorites but the most interesting fact about the June race at Dover was where the other nine drivers who are now in the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup finished.
All of the drivers in the Chase finished in the top 12 meaning there will be extra pressure to perform well on Sunday.
The battle for the Chase began last weekend in Loudon, New Hampshire and Kevin Harvick continued to be the hottest driver on the circuit walking away with another victory.
Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Bush both took a huge hit in the standings after they struggled. Johnson fell from second place in the standings to ninth while Bush is now at the bottom of the heap looking up. Momentum is everything in NASCAR and while Harvick is white hot Johnson has not had a top 10 finish in three races dating back to Bristol in August.
Looking at how our local drivers have been doing I see that David Stremme of late has been doing a great job qualifying during the last several races.
At Loudon he qualified a very impressive sixth and though he finished 20th it is easy to see his team is beginning to gel.
David mentioned to me in June when I interviewed him that he expected to see much better results the second time his team visits these track, he was right on that one. Ryan Newman had a solid 12th place finish last week after starting a very impressive fourth.
I am beginning to see signs of life in the Alltel No. 12 team and hope they can build momentum for 2007.
Tony Raines started 28th at Loudon and brought the DLP Chevrolet home in 26th place.
The television coverage for this weekend will be on TNT again and the pre-race show starts at 12:30.
Get the chores and errands done early fans, this is going to be a good one to watch.