With 3 laps to go, Kevin Harvick stole what could of been FNG's 3rd winning pick in 6 races (correctly picked Edwards in Vegas and Busch at Bristol previously). Obviously our coin flip turned out in our favor by starting Dale Earnhardt Jr. over Juan Pablo Montoya, especially with the bonus points for Junebug leading in the closing laps.
Our team of 11 - 33 - 88 - 47 racked up 298 points this week, moving us up 15% from 54th to 69th percentile in the Yahoo nation. Oddly enough it feels like the most disappointing good points day. Considering at the half way point Clint Boywer, Denny Hamlin, and Junior were 1-2-3 with Bobby Labonte leading all C-List'ers in about 16th. Things went downhill after Kurt Busch/Brian Vickers tangled and and torpedo'd Labonte into the Turn 3 wall. Later in the race the 33 team made an adjustment that turned Bowyer from a Top 5 car into a back-marker, to which he could never fully recover. Denny Hamlin got caught on pit road with the caution, and then somehow the wave around cars got jammed up, and never got caught up to the field when the green flagged waved with 30 to go. Hamlin restarted more than 1/2 lap down to the leaders, and could never catch the back of the field with the race going green for the remainder of the distance.
All things considered, you could of made a lot worse picks than what we ended up with today. Both Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman had Top 10 days going before their respective problems. Burning a Jimmie Johnson start with him finishing 11th would still have be banging my head against the table, likewise burning a Paul Menard start with him being in/out of the garage (although at his pace before his problems, he would of finished in the mid 30s anyways).
With Richmond coming up at the end of the month, looking back on Phoenix and Martinsville will be important. So keep in mind names like Harvick and Gordon to pair with Kyle Busch or Denny Hamlin on your A-List. Newman, Kahne, and Junior are all names that should rank up there, as well as A.J. Allmendinger as a great start-save option with a 9th and 14th place runs respectively. Bobby Labonte flat track performance looks like someone we could potentially get more starts out of than we first thought, which would free us up to use our Menard/Ragan starts a little more liberally and not have to lean as much on Trevor Bayne.
Stay tuned this week as we preview Texas 1. This is another week where we will get to see a Thursday night practice before we have to lock down late Thursday night. There will be 1 more practice Friday after lockdown, followed by qualifying. However due to SPEED's Barrett Jackson coverage, it does not appear (at least on SPEEDTV.com) that we will get to see the 2nd/Final practice session on TV. So keep it locked here as we will follow the action as it unfolds this weekend in Texas.
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