Though Phoenix International Raceway doesn’t evoke volumes of motor sports history like a Daytona or Darlington might for some aficionados, the track has a special place for many of today’s top drivers because the track is part of their maturation in motor sports and where some learned to race.
As we get further away from the thought of NASCAR being just a “Southern thing” and more into NASCAR just being a fun sport that children from all over aspire to be part of, we start to realize that we have quite a few drivers that are being born and growing up West of the Mississippi.
If a question were to be posed ten years ago asking what state had more regular Cup drivers, North Carolina or California, the answer would have been simple. In today’s NASCAR, California is the leader. Staples of NASCAR statehood like Virginia are now being caught by the likes of Washington state and Nevada as the leaders in producing NASCAR drivers.
P.I.R. has been running consecutively in the Cup series since 1988. It is a unique configuration which makes it a very welcome sight in this age of diluted dull tracks. Last season, Phoenix had their first year with two Cup dates, and rightfully so.
As we see more and more new drivers come up through the ranks, we start to see where these newer tracks from the recent past are now older than the drivers. P.I.R. has been around for a short time but has been there from the start for many drivers in various USAC Sprint car events. Drivers like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne, and J.J. Yeley made names for themselves at P.I.R. before NASCAR entered their minds.
For others, NASCAR was always on their mind and they traveled up the ladder to the top with Phoenix being a stop driving anything from modified, pro stock, to Legends. Kevin Harvick, Greg Biffle, Ron Hornaday, Carl Edwards, Kurt, and Kyle Busch all made pit stops in Phoenix along the way to their successes.
That is quite a lengthy list of top name drivers.
Kasey Kahne may be the hottest name right now in NASCAR. Kahne has led the Dodge Charge with two of the three wins they have on the season. The three victories by Dodge this season equals what they did all last season. Currently, Dodge trails in the Manufacturers Championship race by two points.
Kahne isn’t only winning the hearts of Dodge and NASCAR fans across the country but he’s also gaining a tremendous amount of respect from his peers in the garages.
“He’s a talented kid,” said Stewart, who finished second when Kahne won his first series race last May at Richmond and also third to him last week in Texas. “He’s one of those guys that when you explain something to him, he does a lot more listening than he does talking, and that’s hard to find with guys that are really competitive.”
Another young driver, Las Vegan Kyle Busch, has received the opposite treatment from Stewart. Busch has been in Stewart’s doghouse for his first two Cup seasons and can’t seem to catch a break from him, who is now one of the elder statesmen of the sport. Busch won the fall Phoenix race last season in what became a bit of irony due to the fact that his brother, Kurt, who had won the spring Phoenix race, was suspended for the final two races by Roush Racing for reckless driving. In yet another piece of irony and twist to the story, Kyle got pulled over last week in Richmond while testing for reckless driving. Alcohol and speeding weren’t cited as reasons for the ticket. This will go a long way in developing the brothers’ image to NASCAR Nation.
Kyle Busch has a 4.5 average finish in his two races at Phoenix International Raceway, the best of all drivers. He has a knack for the track and his team, Hendrick Motor Sports, also has an edge.
Teammate Jeff Gordon has the best overall average finish among all drivers that have more than two starts. However, it remains one of the few tracks that Gordon has never won on. There are currently four racks that Gordon has never won on currently in the Cup series. He’s 0 for 11 at Texas, 0 for 14 at phoenix, 0 for 5 at Chicagoland, and 0 for 6 at Miami. Gordon has won on 20 of the 24 Cup tracks he’s raced on. Two of them, Rockingham and North Wilkesboro, are no longer on the circuit.
Jimmie Johnson has never won at Phoenix either, but does have a second place finish and has finished no worse than 15th in five races.
Kurt Busch has four straight top 10 finishes, the longest such Phoenix streak in the series. Had he raced in the fall race, he would have surely been in the top five just because of the winning chassis that he brought with him. Busch swept the 2004 season at New Hampshire with a dominant car, the same one used at Phoenix in the spring last year. The two tracks are very similar in set up requirements and teams often take the same cars to each if success is found at Phoenix or New Hampshire.
Obviously, things are different for Busch this year since he’s driving the Miller Lite Dodge, and not the Roush machine. Busch likes the track and will run decent, but don’t expect too much from Busch this year on any track other than short tracks.
The team Busch used to drive for just had a major shakeup. Jamie McMurray and the former Kurt Busch team have been terrible and the Cat in the Hat had seen enough. Roush changed crew chiefs for both McMurray and Carl Edwards in attempt to salvage something for each in 2006. Edwards should be okay, but it could be a long year for McMurray.
Greg Biffle has been just as bad as his teammate Carl Edwards this year. Biffle led the most laps in the fall race last season but couldn’t get past Kyle Busch down the stretch and settled for second. Some have said that Biffle is just running his car into the ground too quick and not saving anything for late. He gets out to these huge leads and dominates for the early stages and then nothing is left late. This is in complete contrast to what they did last season when he was able to finish.
Mark Martin won his only Phoenix race back in 1993 and is one of only three active drivers to have raced in every Phoenix Cup race. Dale Jarrett and Ken Schrader are the other two. Martin 13 top 10 finishes over his steady career, more than any other driver at Phoenix.
Three of the last four Phoenix races have been won by a Chevrolet led by Dale Earnhardt Jr who won in 2003 and 2004. Junior will be a factor again this week and should be expected to have a top 5 finish.
Kevin Harvick is one of the hottest drivers on the circuit right now. He has made a steady climb in the standings over the past three races, moving all the way from 23rd to ninth during that period. His fifth-place showing at Texas marked his third straight top-10 finish. Look for both Harvick and teammate Jeff Burton to have strong races this week.
Burton joins Dale Jr. and Davey Allison as the only back to back winners in Phoenix history. When Burton was driving for Roush Racing at the time, it should come as no surprise that Burton also dominated New Hampshire as well. From 1997 to 2000, Burton won a race each year at New Hampshire and in 2000 and 2001, Burton took the Phoenix checkers.
The Phoenix-New Hampshire correlation is strong. Both are mile tracks with slight banking. The configuration of each is different but required set ups for cars are the same. Drivers that have done consistently well recently at both tracks are Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Jimmie Johnson, and Matt Kenseth.
On of the amazing stats over the entire life span of Cup racing in Phoenix is that not one driver has ever won a race from the pole position. Kasey Kahne who just won his second race of the season, and third of his career, has won all three of his career Cup races from the pole. Four of the last five phoenix winners have been won from outside the top 10 starting position.
We’re going to look at Tony Stewart this week as the driver to key on. He had success in both New Hampshire races last year, winning one and second in the other, and he also did well at Phoenix with a fourth place finish in his last race there. He is a past winner at Phoenix, but it’s been a long time. His last win there was his rookie year of 1999. Of all the drivers participating, he has the most diverse experience on the track going from USAC, to the Indy Racing League, to NASCAR. Mix in the fact that the best car set up for this track, the one Kurt Busch drove, is in the midst of turmoil and an operation change.
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