For Kasey Kahne, last Saturday night showed that he is still the one to beat on 1.5 milers and bigger and that he is not out of this championship by no means. With that for the second straight week, Kahne, who has finished 2nd at Talladega and won last Saturday nights Charlotte race has brought himself to just over one race out in the championship.
On the flip side of that was Jeff Gordon who had troubles during the race and yet again finishing well down in the standings, now finds himself 10th -216 points out of the lead, but still in the hunt. But surprisingly, No one driver has yet taken off with this championship points lead and it appears that no one will.
For all ten of these drivers, the championship chase is not over, one bad finish for the points leader like what happened last week at Talladega and one good finish or even a victory by another chaser could result in as much as 156 point swing. Its still too early for anyone to say that they are out of this championship hunt, but if Jeff Burton continues with top 5-10 finishes for the remainder five races, only to top 5 in points will have any shot.
Point Standings and finishing position in last Saturday night's race in Charlotte:
1. Jeff Burton Leader and finished 3rd
2. Matt Kenseth -45 -- 14th
3. Kevin Harvick -89 -- 18th
4. Mark Martin -102 -- 30th
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -106 -- 4th
6. Denny Hamlin -137 -- 28th
7. Jimmie Johnson -146 -- 2nd
8. Kasey Kahne -160 -- Winner
9. Kyle Busch -195 -- 6th
10. Jeff Gordon -216 -- 24th
(Credit: Turner Sports New Media/NASCAR.com)
More on Car of Tomorrow: Going beyond the Chase and looking toward 2007, the Car of Tomorrow continues to make noise with another test session this time down at Homestead Motor Speedway. This test has 56 COT cars testing between Monday and Wednesday. Most of the Nextel Cup teams have COT's already made and now there is talk about several teams asking NASCAR to consider debuting the COT superspeedway program, a little early at the spring Talladega race instead of the fall Talladega race. It seems that with the repaving of the Talladega superspeedway, it has made the track very different from its sister track Daytona and that now teams must build all new cars for just that one race.
I like this idea too, its at least $150,000 per car plus labor to build and for some of these car owners, triple to five times that amount. Don't forget the backup car as well. I hate to say this, but a couple of weeks ago, Jeff Gordon made the comment that he would rather wait until 2008 and just run the COT and I still agree with that.
Just added (Oct. 18th at 10:10pm): I just read Darrell Waltrip's column on allwaltrip.com and he has an interesting look at the COT, does anyone remember The Team Racing Auto Circuit, or TRAC, the racing series that was going to take on NASCAR, those cars look a little like NASCAR's COT. Look at the photo below of the Mustangs, Camaros, Firebirds and Corvettes with splitter noses and wings on the back and then look above at the #26 Ford Fusion Nextel Cup COT, interesting, I do see it, its similer...thanks DW.
Team Racing Auto Circuit unveiled three cars at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in April 2002 (Las Vegas Review-Journal) Photo also from allwaltrip.com
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