The first leg of the Sprint Cup Series playoffs got off to a sizzling start last Sunday, with Martin Truex Jr. emerging victorious in Chicago becoming the first driver to clinch a sure spot in the Round of 12.
Who will be the next driver to win this weekend in Loudon, New Hampshire at the newly-minted Bad Boy Off Road 300 and earn an automatic bid to the next round of The Chase? Let’s find out below.
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Despite his disappointing 20th-place finish last week in Chicago, we certainly can’t count out Kevin Harvick just yet. Let’s recall that the Stewart-Haas Racing standout, who’s currently tied with Truex as the current +500 frontrunner to become 2016’s Sprint Cup champion, had four-straight top-five finishes prior to his disappointing outing in the Windy City.
Harvick will definitely relish another trip to Loudon, as he has three top-five finishes over his last four starts on this Sunday’s track with a combined 379 laps led during that stretch.
With Kyle Busch sitting pretty at third place in The Chase’s standings, the 31-year-old is all but assured to make it to the Round of 12 barring back-to-back epic collapses in the next couple of races ahead.
Then again, Busch is tied with Brad Keselowski for the most victories this 2016 season (four), so you can bank that he’ll be aiming for another win this Sunday to break that tie and further exert his dominance this campaign. Given that he has top-10 finishes in six of his last seven races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, you can bet that Joe Gibbs Racing’s golden boy will be in the thick of the race until the final lap in Loudon.
No. 22 Joey Logano hasn’t won a race since June in Michigan, but his current form says that he’s well in line for another victory over in the East Coast. The Middletown, Connecticut native has a six-race streak of top-10 finishes entering Sunday’s event, including a pair of runner-ups at that: last week in Chicago and at Watkins Glen back in August.
What’s more impressive is that Logano also has four-consecutive top-five finishes at NHMS, which includes a win in 2014. He even finished a cool third in this past July’s installment of the race in Loudon.
As the defending champion in Loudon, calling Matt Kenseth as a mere sleeper in this week’s race sounds like a joke. Heck, he’s won back-to-back races at NHMS and has three wins on the track in his last six appearances.
Then again, Kenseth’s overall numbers for the season may have been the reason why his stock fell, as he has the fewest top-five finishes (four) amongst drivers in the top 10 of the current standings. Then again, the 44-year-old veteran has only failed to qualify for The Chase once in his career (2009), so you can never count him out from championship contention, let alone prevail victorious in New Hampshire for the fourth time in four years.
Last Sunday’s fourth-place finish in Chicago marks the second time this season that Ryan Blaney ended up with a similar top-five finish. However, those two fourth-place finishes are pretty much all that the 22-year-old youngster has to show four in the Sprint Cup circuit this year, as his three other starts had him end up outside of the top 10. He didn’t even crack the top 30 in two of those races.
As an added insult to injury, Blaney already fell short of qualifying for the The Chase’s Round of 16 earlier this month, meaning he basically has nothing left to play for this weekend. As such, the Wood-Brothers-Racing product will be nothing more than a pesky entrant in Loudon with a really slim chance of bagging a podium finish at the very least.
Writer’s Prediction
Logano (+750) secures his sport in the Round of 12 with a win in New Hampshire.
