Burton Gets To Drive Harvick’s 2010 Michigan Winner This Week

Jeff Burton will race chassis No. 288 from the RCR Sprint Cup Series stable. A former #29 racer, teammate Kevin Harvick raced this chassis eight times in 2010, earning three top-five and six top-10 finishes. The top-five runs included second-place finishes at Auto Club Speedway (2/21) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (7/25) and Harvick’s win at Michigan (8/15). Most recently, this RCR entry competed at Pocono Raceway last weekend where Harvick scored a fifth-place finish.

I think the urgency from Richard Childress to get Burton some quick wins — and make the Chase that way — forced this move. It will be very hard for the No. 31 team to mess this car up and makes them an instant contender. When I saw the team press release I immediately made several driver matchup bets on Burton and also took him at 50-to-1 to win the race.

I’m interested to see how Harvick feels about this and also to see how many more times Childress rolls this strategy out. RCR truly defines the word “team” with this move and I love it

Hamlin To Win Fifth Time at Pocono?

Denny Hamlin just got his second top-five finish of the year at Kansas and comes in with a little momentum going to a track that he’s won at four times and owns the top average finish (8.2) among active drivers. I like him to win this week and finally break out of his hangover that began at Phoenix last season en route to his championship choke job.

But we have some solid contenders from Roush, Childress and Stewart that have exhibited recent horsepower to get the job done on the long Pocono straightaways. Make a case for Hamlin not to win and who will be the one, and why, to stop Hamlin from winning for the fifth time on his most successful track. Interested to see all your thoughts on the matter.

Great Story Would Be Joplin Native McMurray Winning Coca-Cola 600

I always love the sentimental approach to handicapping games where sometimes teams get up a little more when having a heavy heart. I use it quite often in football and basketball. Jamie McMurray is a Joplin, Missouri native who will definitely have a lot on his mind. Will he be able to focus in a normal capacity or will he be pre-occupied like many of us might be in the same situation?

The combination of what happened at Joplin and how well McMurray has done over his career could be a positive situation on the track. Two of his six careers wins, his first and last win, have come at Charlotte. Last season he was runner-up in this race and then won the fall event.

The only problem in the whole equation is that McMurray’s car looks no where near the 2010 level. He’s bringing the chassis from last week which was horrendous in practice and the race itself. I will be rooting for McMurray to do well in hopes of maybe bringing some joy to his hometown, but it’s more likely that he’ll perform poorly based on his teams’ recent trends.

Could this be the week Joey Logano turns it around?

Logano is using chassis #287 this weekend. This car raced at Fontana earlier this year to a 25th-place finish after an engine change and a pass through penalty. Logano also drove this chassis to a seventh-place finish at Charlotte in October and to a fourth-place finish at Texas in November. I’m thinking this could be the week we see the awesome Logano from the Chase races last season.