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| Is Kevin Harvick the 2017 version of Martin Truex Jr? King of the 1.5s? |
Let's do a quick recap of what happened in the first six races so far. Clint Bowyer came up with an awesome performance two weeeks ago at Martinsville for his first win since 2012 and Martin Truex Jr. ended Kevin Harvick's bid for four straight wins three weeks ago at Fontana. Austin Dillon won a thriller in the season opening race at Daytona.
Yes, Kevin Harvick has three of the six wins. He's won half of the races and he's a huge favorite to win Sunday, a place he won at the last time there in November for the first time in his career.
This week, he won't be using any of the winning cars from this season or the fall Texas winning chassis, but you still know it will be fast with sweet set-up notes they aren't sharing. The chassis he's using started second and finished sixth last season at Indianapolis. The team has done a great job changing over those Chevy bow-ties from last year to a blue Ford oval logo.
There's been three down force tracks this season and he won on two of them (Las Vegas, Atlanta) and the the only reason he probably didn't win at Fontana is because he foolishly wrecked himself early. The No. 4 has got an edge over everyone, but the one element that could some drama and excitement this week -- and maybe a new winner -- is the track itself which was resurfaced before last season.
“Texas has become a very unique racetrack," said Harvick who is the 3/1 favorite. "I know we have a different left-side tire that we’ll have to get used to this weekend. When they repaved the racetrack, they made the two ends of the racetrack so different – turns one and two have become very challenging, especially in the Cup Series car because of how flat it is.
"Really, the hardest thing about turns one and two at Texas is that it’s so wide when you get to the entry that you have a hard time picking up the bottom of the corner. When you enter the corner, you don’t use the entire racetrack anymore because they put the bottom of the corner so far down the racetrack. It’s very unique and different. You have to make your car turn well and not be too loose into the corner of turn one, and it has to turn well in the middle of the corner in order to carry speed off, otherwise you’re just lugging up off the corner. As you get to turns three and four, it’s about letting off the throttle halfway and hope you can put it right back down. There are already a few bumps in the corner that, when you’re trying to maintain speed, it either hits the splitter or bounces a little bit. That end of the racetrack has always been very fast through turns three and four but, once the repave came, it’s become really fast every lap.”
I haven't seen any evidence to believe any other driver will be better than him on Sunday which makes it tough to bet, but the track surface does an an element I like. So is him using a different chassis giving it an unknown element on 1.5s. I'm just eager to take a few drivers at 12/1 odds or higher, but Harvick is so good and ahead of everyone else that the only way he doesn't win is if he wrecks himself again, his pit messes up late or he had a late speeding penalty, all of which he's done in the past year. And let's add the surface in the mix as well.
I'd like to take Kyle Busch to finally win a race this season after finishing second or third almost every week, but I can't get justified odds on him. It's like the sports books are saying, "Yes we know Harvick is going to win, but if he doesn't it'll be Kyle or Truex, so how about we bait you with some Jimmie Johnson at 25/1?". Busch and Truex are both 4/1 offerings this week at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook.
Yeah, no thanks sports books, even though Johnson is a seven-time Texas winner, including winning this race last season. Johnson has a junky jalopy and I never thought I'd say that about the seven-time champ who is also losing his Lowe's sponsorship after the season.
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