Texas NRA 500 Preview: Look to Las Vegas For Insight This Week

Vegas is a great barometer for Texas this week

The NASCAR Sprint Cup series has run six races thus far as we head into Texas for some Saturday night racing on a fast high banked 1 1/2-mile track. Following Jimmie Johnson’s win last week at Martinsville, coupled with a poor run by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Johnson finds himself perched at the top of the standings heading to a track where he’s won twice over his career, including last fall.

Johnson is still the 3/1 favorite (Bet $100 to win $300) over the LVH Super Book (Las Vegas Hotel and Casino) to win the Sprint Cup championship, but for the first time since his rookie season, we might not be considering him one of the drivers to beat on these type of tracks. The 1 1/2-mile tracks have been Johnson’s bread and butter over his career, but the change to the Gen-6 car may have given away some of Johnson’s edge over his competitors.

We’ve seen two races on high speed down force tracks -- Las Vegas and California -- with Johnson coming in with his best effort at Las Vegas in sixth-place. At Las Vegas he led three times for 66 laps, but at California -- a place he typically dominates, he didn’t lead a lap and finished a very un-Johnson-like 12th.

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