Originally Posted by patrickmartin
As a Gordon fan Im aware Im a little biased, but in all honesty, he had the car to beat the past three races and has the most momentum heading into the Chase even without the win at Richmond. At Bristol it was all anyone could do to keep up with him (clean air there this past race was absolutely ridiculous for the leader) and he worked through lap traffic like they weren't there. Atlanta they had to make all the adjustments from going to the night race to tuesday, so it shows they can adjust. And then at Richmond, minus the cuation with 12 left, it was his to lose. That being said, they have yet to run a strong Chase since the implentation of it, but that could change, seems to be a man on a mission.
I think only 5 drivers are really in the true hunt: Gordon, Johnson, Harvick, Kenseth, and Rowdy.
Johnson is too good to keep out of contention, Harvick has the lightswitch factor (can be fantastic when he wants to), Kenseth has been uber consistent all year long, and Kyle Busch is too crazy and too fast to hold down much longer, though he hasn't really had a great race the past couple of weeks.
That being said, if Keselowski had not have backed off when he was close to knocking Jr. out of the top 10 (which I completely convinced NASCAR made him do, he was flyinggg and Jr. was in a demolition derby car. They know how to keep fans coming, without Jr. in the chase, they probably lose 5-10,000 ticket sales at least per race which is sadfully true.) So Keselowski is my darkhorse, had he made the top 10, he probably wouldve been in the top 4. So consistent as of late.
I also look for Newman to have a good Chase, just not good enough.
I didn't put Kurt in there simply do to the fact he always seems a turn away from either wrecking or something going wrong with the car. Great driver, but just doesn't seem like the team has it together as well as usual this year. A couple tweaks here and there and they could win a championship or two with what they have.
Im now out of breath.