Great Early-Season Competition Comes In Threes
After three races, it’s fitting that the results have come in threes in key NASCAR Nationwide Series competition categories:
* There have been three different race winners: Tony Stewart at Daytona International Speedway; Kyle Busch at Auto Club Speedway and Greg Biffle at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
* A trio of different drivers have won poles: Kevin Harvick at Daytona; Carl Edwards at ACS and Scott Speed at Las Vegas.
* Three different leaders have been atop the driver standings: Stewart following Daytona, Busch after California and current leader, Edwards, following his comeback second-place finish at Las Vegas.
* And there have been three different owner standings leaders thus far: The No. 80 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet after Daytona; No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota following ACS and the current leader after Las Vegas, the No. 60 Roush Fenway Racing Ford.
Edwards Capitalizes On Vegas Luck To Take Standings Lead
Carl Edwards “cashed in” at Las Vegas last Saturday during the Sam’s Town 300, finishing second behind Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle. He also took the lead in the series point standings for the first time since claiming his 2007 series championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Kyle Busch, the standings leader coming into Las Vegas, was involved in an accident on Lap 21 that dropped him to a 39th-place finish at his home track. It also dropped him four spots to fifth in the standings.
Edwards capitalized and opened a 48-point lead over 2003 series champion Brian Vickers when he posted his fourth top-10 finish in five races at Las Vegas.
Edwards has rattled off impressive finishes thus far in 2009: Second at Daytona, fourth at Auto Club Speedway and the aforementioned runner-up result at Las Vegas.
Edwards isn’t the only driver at Roush Fenway to jump to a good start this year.
Greg Biffle is third in the series and ended a 76-race series winless streak with his victory at Las Vegas.
David Ragan is sixth in the rankings with two top 10s in the first three races.
When the series returns to racing at Bristol Motor Speedway following a two-week hiatus, Edwards will be raring to go. He owns one win, two top fives and four top 10s in nine races on the .533-mile high banks.
Additionally, NASCAR Season-to-Date Loop Data shows Edwards ranked first in Driver Rating (116.9).
2009 Rookie Class Impressive Out Of The Gate
The 2009 NASCAR Nationwide Series Raybestos Rookie of the Year class has started the season off strong and looks to raise the level of competition this season.
Brendan Gaughan (No. 64 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet) is pacing the new group of rookies. He’s fourth in the standings, just nine points behind third-place Greg Biffle. He also leads the rookie standings by five points over Michael McDowell (No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Racing Toyota).
Gaughan has begun to build off his experience in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. At his home track in Las Vegas, he posted his second consecutive top-10 finish in his first three starts this season.
“Big-time teams pull off big-time feats and that’s exactly what our Rusty Wallace Racing team did,” he said. “We were able to pull off another top 10. I have to tell you, this is the most fun I’ve had in racing in a long, long time. I can’t wait to get to Bristol.”
While Gaughan has yet to start at Bristol in the NASCAR Nationwide car, he’s made five starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series there with a best finish of second in 2007.
McDowell seems to be parlaying his 20-race NASCAR Sprint Cup experience last year into immediate dividends this season.
He’s second in the rookie standings and a surprising 10th in the series standings. Last Saturday he was sixth at LVMS, his career-best finish in NASCAR national series competition. Likewise, he’ll take his first laps at Bristol in any of NASCAR’s national series in the first NASCAR Nationwide practice March 19.
Justin Allgaier (No. 12 Verizon Dodge), driving for Penske Racing, is third in the rookie rankings but may be the most-watched young driver thus far.
He had a career-best race last Saturday, leading five laps and finishing eighth. He’s 11th in the standings after moving up 14 spots from 25th. Like McDowell, Allgaier has never competed in NASCAR’s national series at Bristol.
Scott Lagasse Jr. (No. 11 America’s Incredible Pizza Co. Toyota), who’s fourth in the rookie standings, was ninth at Las Vegas, also his career best.
The four rookies in the top 10 were a first for the series since 2007 at Talladega, when four rookies also registered top-10 finishes (David Ragan, Kyle Krisiloff, Juan Pablo Montoya and Brad Coleman – who also won the pole).
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