We are mere hours from the first Saturday night race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season. We at the People's Pigskin aren't foolish enough to predict the qualifying order (and that's clearly a good thing), but we are foolish enough to offer predictions about who will finish in the top 10. The Martinsville predictions went a pedestrian 5-5, leaving us with a season record of 22-28.
1. Greg Biffle. Six starts, six finishes in the top 10. What else is there to say?
2. Jimmie Johnson. Regular readers of this blog will recall that he leads active drivers with four wins here. And he also has four...well, you know.
3. Kyle Busch. If you saw the fantastic finish to Friday night's Nationwide race, you know that Mr. Busch doesn't need to start out front to get to the front.
4. Matt Kenseth. Yes, he slipped up in Martinsville, but he still has three finishes in the top five this season. Only Johnson has as many.
5. Juan Pablo Montoya. If I had asked you to guess which driver from Yahoo's A List would be the top qualifier for today's race, how long would it have taken you to guess Montoya? (Here's a hint: There are 10 drivers on that A List.)
6. Jeff Gordon. You could say the fact that he lost the Martinsville race to Denny Hamlin means Gordon is slipping. Or you could say the fact that he nearly won the race on the preceding caution means he's got his car dialed in.
7. Mark Martin. He won last year's spring race here, and he already has two finishes in the top five this season.
8. Carl Edwards. Three top 10 finishes and a top 10 starting position. And a bonus: Personal nemesis Brad Keselowski starts 22nd.
9 and 10. A.J. Allmendinger and Scott Speed. This is normally the point in the predictions where we offer a medium-to-long shot. This week the powers that be (whoever they may be) decided to put the long shots on the front row.
We'll be back Sunday with results and polls for next week's lineup. In the meantime, enjoy the race and/or the Masters. Just make sure you don't call yourself a golf "fan" while watching it.
I'll bet 10 lottery tickets that Jeff beats Jimmy. Hmmmm?
ReplyDelete[...] Greg Biffle. Yes, he’s one of the three drivers who didn’t come through for us in last week’s predictions (and the only one who wasn’t a long shot), but he’s still one of only two drivers with [...]
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