Jeff Gordon says that Jimmie Johnson is still the one who has the championship mechanism to beat. (photo : Getty Images)
HAMPTON, Ga. – Forget the Chase for the Sprint Cup for a moment. It doesn’t make much difference in the Emory Healthcare 500. Barring the unforeseen, the composition of the 12-driver Chase is a done deal.
Who’s going to win this particular race?
Kurt Busch has won two of the past three races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but in six races, he’s fallen from fourth to 10th in the point standings. Kyle Busch won the most recent race, but in the nine races before Bristol, the average finish was 20th.
Kasey Kahne won this race a year ago, and since the race here earlier this season was in the daytime and this one is at night, that ought to count for something. But Kahne has just one top-five finish in his last six starts.
Jimmie Johnson is slumping. Carl Edwards hasn’t won since November 2008. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s absence goes back even further.
Perhaps the paragraphs above, taken together, indicate that this race is wide-open.
“The group fourth to 10th (in points), you can put a blanket over all of us; we’re the same,” said Kyle Busch. “(Kevin) Harvick has run consistent this year, and then you have Denny (Hamlin) and Jimmie (Johnson) that have those (five) wins and (Jeff) Gordon’s run consistently and doesn’t have any wins.”
What Kyle Busch said about the Chase could be applied to this particular race. An argument can be made for and against all the drivers mentioned above as well as Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, Jamie McMurray and others.
Gordon, who, like Johnson, has won four championships, addressed what seems to be a dearth of drivers who have their act together with the mechanism that determines the championship just two races away.
“Right now, two races to go, (Johnson) could go win these next two races, and I’d say they’d be the absolute favorite,” said Gordon. “It’s just that momentum can come so quick and so late. Yes, they’re having things happen to them that we haven’t seen in the past, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get all out of the way, and then they go into the last 10 (races, i.e., Chase) and just tear it up.”