5 Points To Ponder

Five Points to Ponder: Firsts, Families And Failing Pit Crews

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What a weekend it was for Regan Smith who not only won the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega with a thrilling last ditch push, but also established a 27-point lead in the battle for the Nationwide Series crown; the first time in his career he has led the standings. Smith was in seventh place coming to the white flag before a push from Kasey Kahne made all the difference.

“Coming down the backstretch I thought, ‘Ah, we’re going to take fifth or sixth.’ I thought that’s the way it was going to go. I can’t even tell you the order of the guys who were leading,” said Smith. “I just saw cars at that point. They got all jammed up, we had a run and I made a move. I wasn’t really sure if I was clear, but I figured it was the only chance I had to win the race. I wanted to make that move to see if it was going to pay off for us, and it did.”

Five Points to Ponder: Politics Surrounding Short Tracks, Injuries, And Jeff Burton

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*ONE: Build More Short Tracks*

A lot of what you read on Twitter is not much more than garbage, but there was one tweet late Saturday night from USA Today NASCAR beat writer Jeff Gluck that really hit the mark.

“The longer I’m around this sport, the more I’m convinced additional short tracks would be the solution to many of NASCAR’s problems,” “tweeted Gluck.”:https://twitter.com/jeff_gluck/status/328595945480654848

Five Points To Ponder: Stenhouse Amongst Sprint Cup Trio Hitting The Ground Running

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Much of the talk in the early part of this week has been of the seamless transition of Matt Kenseth to Joe Gibbs Racing following his ruthlessly dominant second win of the fledgling season – and rightly so. Kenseth has looked mighty impressive showing the form you would expect from a champion driver of his caliber, leading multiple laps at six of the eight circuits we’ve visited to date.

However, lost just a little in all the hype for the driver of the No. 20 car is another great third-place finish for old “Five Time” Jimmie Johnson, who now leads the standings by 37 – nearly a full race’s worth of points. In addition, Double J has finishes of first (Martinsville), second (Phoenix) and sixth (Texas) at the three other Chase tracks we’ve run at thus far. Johnson’s two solitary finishes outside the top six came at Fontana (12th) and at Bristol (22nd), where he blew a tire. Those are tracks that won’t matter in the long run, though.