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Daytona around the corner!

Written by Rich Hemstreet · June 30, 2008

With his first victory of the season at New Hampshire Kurt Busch is ready to return to the track he’s run the strongest on this season. Granted, his Loudon win was more due to pit strategy than having the best car, but any cup victory can be capitalized on. There were four Dodges in the top ten finishers, two of which actually started in the top ten, Reed Sorenson and Bobby Labonte.

Heading back to Daytona, with the dreaded restrictor plates and “competition” yellows, marks the halfway point to the season. It looks like the top eight in the twelve car Chase are pretty well locked in. It would take a major collapse for one of them to fall out of the chase at this point, barring an injury, of course. But it looks like nine drivers are competing for the remaining four positions. Despite Kurt Busch’s victory on Sunday, it doesn’t look like he’s going to join his little brother in the Chase.

Right now Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch are the only two drivers with victories that are outside the top twelve, looking in. I’d still like to see NASCAR make that change, to include all the winning drivers along with the top twelve in points.

There’s been growing speculation about Tony Stewart’s future. Even though he has one year left under contract with Gibbs Racing. Is he going to be offered a ride with the Hendrick Motorsports Team? Or is he going to move into ownership with the Haas CNC Team?. But why would he want to leave the dominant team currently in the sport? Especially for the Hendrick Team? I understand his ties to Chevrolet. And Stewart probably would be happiest making all his own decisions. But I doubt that he would be any better off on the Hendrick than he is with Gibbs. He won’t be a decision maker there. And while he is currently taking a back seat to Kyle Busch on the Gibb’s team, Stewart might end up much lower in the pecking order at Hendrick. There’s a possibility Gordon, Johnson and Junior could all run stronger than Stewart at the start of next season.

Finally, would ownership be a step in the right direction? He already owns race teams and a race track. But that’s different from running a Cup team while driving for it. I think Stewart will go the owner route, but I hope he will be able to make the team truly competitive.

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