Making it into the top 10 and potentially qualifying for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is one thing.
Staying there for another 13 races is another.
Sunday’s 5-hour ENERGY 500 at Pocono Raceway could be a case study in both opportunities.
Tony Stewart currently ranks eighth but his hold on a Chase spot is tenuous. He’s only 12 points ahead of a surging Denny Hamlin.
But when the calendar flips into June, it’s been Stewart’s time. The two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, winless in 2011, doesn’t figure to show a zero in the “W” column come September.
• Stewart boasts 21 of his 39 victories in June, July and August.
• He’s also a multiple winner in summer stops at Pocono, Daytona International Speedway, Infineon Raceway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen International.
Hamlin, who led last year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup until faltering in the Homestead-Miami Speedway finale, also has yet to win. Pocono, where the Virginia native has won four times – including last year – is an obvious place to jump start Hamlin’s season. A victory would match Bill Elliott’s win record at the 2.5-mile, triangular-shaped speedway – and potentially give Hamlin a wild card entry into the Chase.
Considering Hamlin’s strength of late, it’s unlikely he’ll need that wild card.
• The 30-year-old moved to 12th after a 10th-place finish in last month’s Coca-Cola 600. He picked up one more spot with a finish of third (and fourth top 10 in five starts) at Kansas Speedway to stand a single point behind 10th-ranked Ryan Newman.
• Newman, a former Pocono winner, hopes to end a two-month slide from second to 10th, fueled by finishes of 20th or worse in five of his last eight races.
• Greg Biffle is another Chase veteran who started slowly but has picked up steam over the last couple of months.
• Biffle won Pocono’s August event last year and has posted four top 10s in his last seven races. The string has cut his deficit from the top 10 from 41 points after the season’s third race to just five.
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