Roush Fenway Racing could become the first team in NASCAR national series history to win a drivers championship and an owners championship in the same series in the same season – but with different drivers.
That impressive feat seems very real, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. closing in on his first drivers title in the No. 6, and Carl Edwards and RFR’s No. 60 closing in on the owners standings lead.
Stenhouse Jr., the current driver standings leader, is 20 points in front of second-place Elliott Sadler with five races to go. Stenhouse has ripped off five consecutive top-10 finishes in the last five weeks, and four of them were top fives. He sat on the pole at Charlotte earlier this season and finished fourth. His pre-race Driver Rating is 67.0 and his average finish at Charlotte is 24.5.
Sadler hasn’t given up. He gained two points on Stenhouse after his third-place finish at Kansas last weekend. In nine starts at Charlotte, he has posted one top five and two top 10s. His pre-race Driver Rating is 82.3 and his average finish at Charlotte is 21.6. Both are better than Stenhouse.
At the other end of the spectrum, Edwards has his sights set on the series owner championship. He’s moved his No. 60 Roush Fenway Racing team to within seven points of the owner champion leader, the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Edwards has made up a lot of ground over the last few weeks, especially in races where Kyle Busch has been absent. However, Busch, winner of four of the last seven overall series races at Charlotte (but shut out of the last two), is back in the No. 18 on Friday night. He’ll run twice more this year while Edwards will compete in each of the last five races.
In head-to-head competition this year, Busch has eight wins while Edwards has five. But here’s where Edwards has made up the deficit: He has two wins and six other top-five finishes in 10 of the 11 races in which Busch hasn’t competed (neither ran at Road America).
| 
|