Wednesday, May 28, 2014

2014 Dover FedEx 400 Preview: Johnson's Charlotte win could spark more, beginning this week

Jimmie Johnson has eight wins on the Dover concrete
This Sunday’s racer at Dover Downs International Speedway marks the half-way point of the regular season before the 10-race Chase for the Championship starts. Ten drivers have already punched their ticket for NASCAR’s version of the playoffs by virtue of winning a race with six other spots still available. Jimmie Johnson joined the club last week with his first win of the season has great shot this week of joining Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano as two-time race winners.

For the first 11 races of the season, Johnson didn’t look like the six-time champion we have all respected because he didn’t have speed on the down force tracks, but during practices at Charlotte, you could tell that crew chief Chad Knaus found some speed for the No. 48 car. They led a race high 164 laps in NASCAR’s longest race of the season, and the hopes of every other competitor in the series that Johnson might not be as good this year were quickly put to rest. Heee’s back!

Dover’s 1-mile high banked concrete layout is unique to itself, with maybe some comparison to be made with Bristol’s half-mile track. Over the years, no one has been better at Dover than Johnson. The last time the series rolled through Dover, Johnson took the checkers there for the eighth time. He has won at least one of the two races in four of the past five seasons, and in 2009, he swept the season. Based on how he looked last week, don’t expect to get any number higher than 5/1 on him. And if you do find 5/1, grab it because it’s great value based on his Dover resume. You could argue that even 4/1 betting odds is decent value -- that‘s how good Johnson is at Dover.

Jeff Gordon is a four-time winner at Dover, but hasn’t won there since 2001. However, he’s currently on a great run on the season has finished fourth or better in his past three Dover starts, including runner up to Brad Keselowski in 2012. Last week at Charlotte, despite painful back spasms that forced him to miss final practice, Gordon ran an outstanding race, finishing seventh and was leading with 17 laps to go.

Read More Here.....Top-5 Finish Prediction

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