March 23, 2010
By Allen Madding
Most of the teams competing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series are certainly tired of finishing behind the Hendrick Motorsports' No. 48 Chevrolet -- driven by Jimmie Johnson. Penske Racing seems to be attempting to do something about it.
Since the beginning of the season, Kurt Busch has led 441 laps of the 1555 laps run in the first five events of the season in the Penske No. 2 Miller Light Dodge. Johnson has led 203 laps so far in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Johnson has won three races, the Auto Club 500 at California, the Shelby American at Las Vegas, and the Food City 500 at Bristol this past weekend.
Busch scored his first win of the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season in the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta, ironically the race sponsored by Kobalt Tools, the tool brand of Lowe’s the primary sponsor of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet that Jimmie Johnson drives.
Five races into the season, Busch has led more laps in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition than Johnson, but on three occasions Johnson has led the most important lap -- the last one -– the money lap. But, there is one old adage in racing: if you start leading a lot of laps, you are going to eventually start winning some races. Busch seemed to fulfill that prophecy at Atlanta.
A late race debris yellow at Bristol left Busch and the Penske No. 2 team relegated to a third place finish. But one has to consider, before Carl Edwards gave Brad Keselowski a punt at Atlanta, Penske had two cars in the top ten. Keselowski finished 13th in the Food City 500 at Bristol. Penske Racing has stepped up its game over the winter, and the results are becoming quickly apparent on the race track.
While many fans are filling blogs, facebook, and twitter postings expressing their dismay with Johnson’s dominance in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Kurt Busch is quickly becoming the dog nipping at his heels. Busch only recorded two wins and ten top five finishes last season. In the first five races of the 2010 season, Busch already has one win and two top five finishes. Even more notable, Busch led a total of 738 laps in 2009 for the season. He is already over half that mark in five events this year.
There are four distinct types of tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, Superspeedways (like Talladega and Daytona), intermediate tracks (like Atlanta and California), short tracks (like Bristol and Richmond), and road courses (like Watkins Glenn and Infineon). The bulk of the schedule is intermediate tracks.
To date, Kurt Busch won at Atlanta, a 1.54-mile intermediate race track, finished sixth at California on a 2-mile speedway, and he led the most laps this weekend at Bristol, a .533-mile short track. This seems to indicate the folks at Penske Racing have stepped up their intermediate program and their short track program. Throw in the fact that Busch led 33 laps in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 and Kurt Busch and the Penske No. 2 Miller Light Dodge team appear to be well on their way to disturbing Jimmie Johnson’s stranglehold on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Victory Lane.
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