Harvick On A Roll
Friday, September 15th, 2006 9:56pm CDT
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
[thumb:166:l:s=1:l=http://thunderlounge.com]Kevin Harvick started the first weekend of the Chase in the same place he ended up in the last race before the Chase. Sitting in first. Winning his first pole this season, Kevin bumped Jeff Gordon off the inside of the front row by 2/10ths of a second with a 28.72.
Other qualifying runs of note were Denny Hamlin in 5th, David Stremme in 6th, Robby Gordon in 9th, and Ken Schrader closed out the top 10. On the flip side Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin will start 25th and 26th respectively, while Tony Stewart continues to struggle and he will roll off the grid in 32nd.
David Gilliland and the #38 team hit on something and qualified 15th, which has to at least be a breath of fresh air in light of their recent struggles with getting David adjusted to the Cup cars as well as the Cup series. If anyone can get it done it’s Todd Parrott, and he’ll have David whipped into respectable shape come February.
Now comes Sunday’s event. What this day holds in terms of the race, or the Chase, is anyone’s guess. Could a Chaser start it off on the right foot and gain momentum early on? Could one of them have some really bad luck? Could someone not even considered as a contender for the hardware Sunday find their way into victory lane? All these questions and more will have to wait until Sunday afternoon for an answer.
Filed Under: Nascar, Nextel Cup, The Chase
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Why do we have to wait for the answers? As you know I’ve already selected Kurt Busch to win this weekend.
And I have a strong feeling one or two more “non-Chasers” will win in the next ten weeks. The triumvirate of Busch, Stewart and Biffle are sitting there waiting to pounce.
Marc said this on September 15th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Exactly Marc, along with 15 or 20 other drivers or so that have a shot at it between now and November.
Something that has caught my eye with Harvick lately is that he seems eerily cool, calm, and collected. Very comfortable with what’s going on. When Kevin gets like that, watch out. He’s been known to go on a tear. I’m sure having the Busch title all but walked away with is quite a confidence booster as well. At the rate he’s going, it will be a done deal in a couple more races over there.
Here’s something else that’s kind of scary for this weekend. Jeff Gordon commented during qualifying that his current Chevy feels like the old ones used to, and he wasn’t referring to 2005 either. I can’t recall him saying anything of the sort since Ray left.
Chase or no Chase, the competition is still where it was before. Far too close to rule any one of 20 drivers or so out of the picture of holding the hardware in victory lane.
Luke said this on September 16th, 2006 at 7:12 am