NASCAR on TV this week

Who’s Hot/Who’s Not in NASCAR: Bristol/Atlanta Edition

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Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart’s seasons have almost mirrored each other. Both drivers entered Bristol with multiple victories in seasons that have been more up and down then Kurt Busch’s rear deck lid.

Hamlin and Stewart entered Bristol in The Chase, but they knew what was on the line Saturday night. Kasey Kahne has been steadily closing on the drivers in the top 10 and neither Hamlin nor Stewart wanted to be the driver to drop into a wild card slot and forfeit his team’s wins.

Five Points to Ponder: Wild Things On-Track Impact Bristol, the Chase

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Just two races remain before we hit the Chase cut off point for 2012 and the elite field of a dozen is set. With a trip to the high banked, high speed Atlanta Motor Speedway and a second visit scheduled to that gem of a three-quarter mile short track – Richmond International Raceway – we’re sure to see a fair proportion of hijinks as we navigate the final two races of NASCAR’s regular season. But before we look ahead, in this latest edition of Five Points to Ponder, I want to give a nod to Saturday night’s spectacular at Bristol.

Darian Grubb: Ready For High Speed and Atlanta’s Ever Changing Track

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_The track surface at Atlanta Motor Speedway has aged well. While most of the oil and grip is gone from the racing surface, the speed is still there. Drivers have to deal with some of the highest speeds on the circuit with some of the least grip. Darian Grubb knows that the amount of grip can change dramatically during the weekend, especially when the almost guaranteed rain storm moves through at some point._

_For this week’s Tech Talk Grubb touches on adjustability, inner liners and a brand new car. Making a car go around Atlanta well from the beginning to the end of the Labor Day race that goes from daytime into night, on a track surface that changes with the amount of rubber being laid down is a challenge. Grubb did it successfully when he was on the box for Tony Stewart and he hopes to do it again this weekend with Denny Hamlin._

Pace Laps: Sizzling Stewart-Kenseth Feud, Bump-And-Buzzkill & IndyCar Tests

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*Sprint Cup: What Effect Will The Stewart-Kenseth Feud Have On The Chase?* Bristol featured plenty of beating, banging, and crashing, but perhaps no incident had the potential to grow into something more than the one that occurred between Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart as they raced for the lead with 167 laps to go. Stewart made a move to the outside of Kenseth, who parried by pinching Stewart by the wall. Stewart then appeared to turn into Kenseth in an attempt to gain some racing room, sending both the No. 14 and the No. 17 into the inside SAFER barrier. Each driver blamed the other for the incident, with Stewart waiting for Kenseth on pit road and hurling his helmet at his rival’s car.

The Bristol Hot Potato

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You can say what you want about the competition at Bristol. But Saturday night, a repaved Thunder Valley was a throwback to the great races of years past: unpredictable. From the second the green flag flew, for a pole sitter whose team has start-and-parked in several races (Casey Mears), you had as much of a chance of pegging the winner as predicting the right number on a roulette wheel. Only when the ball landed in Denny Hamlin’s court, tying a Sprint Cup season high with his third 2012 victory, did the race assume some semblance of normalcy down the stretch.

IndyCar Race Recap: Penske Power Dominates in Sonoma

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*Key Moment:* The dust-up between Sebastian Bourdais and Josef Newgarden proved to be the difference maker in the race. The collision, which sent a skidding Newgarden head-first into the restraining tires, allowed Briscoe to take the top spot. Bourdais commented that he was unable to steer his car in interviews, and Newgarden was the unfortunate beneficiary of being in the way. Bourdais walked away OK, but Newgarden was reported to have injured his left index finger and will be evaluated upon returning home to Indianapolis.