Because of the wrecks that typically occur at Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway, those two venues are generally considered the “wild card” tracks in NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup.
But Chase driver Kevin Harvick said he believes this weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway could be added to the list. Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 will be the first race there since a repaving of the track, which included some reconfiguration of the banking.
“I think Kansas is much more of a wild card than Martinsville at this point,” Harvick said on this week’s NASCAR teleconference. “Any race can be a wild card. You can have some crazy things happen that we’ve seen in the past, whether it’s Martinsville or Kansas repave, going to Homestead and Phoenix is still a relatively new race track. …
“You never know what’s going to happen, when the caution is going to fly, blow a tire, whatever the case may be. Anything can happen.”
As far as his Chase progress, Harvick needs something to happen. He’s 10th in the standings, 56 points behind leader Brad Keselowski. He has yet to post a top-10 finish in a Chase race this season. He has a best Chase finish of 11th and a worst of 16th, which came Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Harvick’s entire 2012 season hasn’t been up to his usual standards. The four-time winner in 2011 is without a victory this year, although he does have two runner-up finishes – in the second race of the season at Phoenix International Raceway and in the first Dover race. But in the past 12 races, he has just one top-five finish, at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Labor Day weekend, and just one other top-10, that coming a week later at Richmond.
Harvick is hoping that two extra testing at Kansas this week is just what his team needs at this point.
“It’s a great time for us as we obviously need to have a little more speed in our cars,” he said.
Harvick was 11th fastest in the opening test session.
Keselowski seeks Chase rebound
Keselowski has just five career Cup starts at Kansas Speedway, the fewest of any driver in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. But that’s not to say that he’s at any disadvantage.
It was at Kansas last spring that Keselowski stretched a tank of fuel to score his first Cup victory with his current team, Penske Racing. His first overall Cup victory came at Talladega Superspeedway in 2009 driving for Phoenix Racing and its owner, James Finch.
Keselowski said in his team’s weekly release that he’s hoping to use this weekend’s race at Kansas to prove that his 11th-place finish last Saturday at Charlotte, when he led the most laps but was unable to stretch his fuel in the latter stages, wasn’t the norm for his No. 2 Dodge team.
“We can’t wait to get to Kansas to prove that our finish at Charlotte was an anomaly, a blip on the radar,” he said. “And going to a track where we’ve won before gives us a little extra confidence, although it is a new surface that we’ll be breaking in.”
Also in his favor is the fact that he was one of the drivers who participated in the tire test at Kansas, giving him more laps on the new surface.
Honors for Fayetteville’s Clanton
Shane Clanton of Fayetteville has been named the 2012 Georgia Racing Hall of Fame’s driver of the year.
Clanton won dirt racing’s most lucrative event, the $100,000 Dream at Eldora (Ohio) Speedway, along with feature wins at Deer Creek Speedway in Minnesota, East Alabama Motor Speedway, Brushcreek Motorsports Complex in Ohio, Tyler County Speedway in New York and Dixie Speedway in Woodstock.
He’s currently third in the points standings of the World of Outlaws Dirt Late Model Series.
Clanton will be honored at the Hall of Fame’s induction banquet on Oct. 26 in Dawsonville. This year’s Hall of Fame inductees are Pete Hamilton, Bill Ingram, Warren Johnson, Doug Kenimer, and Herman Wise.
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