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