Richmond Preview: Phoenix success translates well to Richmond

Richmond fun is captured well by the TV

After non-stop weekly NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing since early February, it was kind of a weird feeling as the series took Easter Weekend off. And while I was ready for little break during the week from sifting through all the team press releases and extensively reviewing practices, when Sunday came around, I must say I really missed not having a race to watch.

But if there was ever a track that was well worth the wait it’s definitely a Saturday night special at Richmond’s three-quarter mile flat track where the racing is tight and the speeds are slow enough that allow drivers to feel not too bad about punting another.

Between the drivers getting after one another and the rowdy fans from the Capital of the Confederacy partying strong all weekend, there is always an electric buzz that translates well to television. Richmond also provides a great betting opportunity. It’s been fairly easy to predict just because of being able to utilize results from similar tracks already raced on during the season.

Richmond has it’s regulars that always seem to perform well there, but the better data has been to look at what happened at either Phoenix or New Hampshire in previous races. Phoenix and New Hampshire are both one-mile tracks, but they are also flat and run similar.

Last season we saw Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards each win at both Phoenix and Richmond, and we’ve also seen Kurt Busch (2005), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2004) and Matt Kenseth (2002) do it, as well as Harvick again in 2006. Jimmie Johnson also did in twice in recent years (2007-08). There are several others too prior to that sample. If we throw in New Hampshire, it's an even longer list, but we haven't seen a race there yet this season.

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