Matty’s Picks – Vol. 6 – Michigan – June 19, 2011
Matty’s Picks
Vol. 6 – Michigan – June 19, 2011
This week brings the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series to Michigan, home of the International Cherry Spitting Championships held each year in Eau Claire. The event is held each 4th of July weekend where in 2003, Eight-Time Champion Brian Krause broke the North American record by spitting his cherry 93’6 1/2”.
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[/media-credit]Michigan is a track, if known for anything, is known for high speeds and violent wrecks. In 1984, a large wreck involving Al Unser Jr and Chip Ganassi would end Ganassi’s driving career. Ernie Irvan crashed in practice in 1994 following a right front blowout, and subsequently was given a 10% chance of survival that night. He would make a full recovery and return to racing in 1995, but five years to the date following his near fatal wreck in 95’, Irvan was airlifted from the track yet again. The wreck in practice would be the cause for Irvan’s retirement just two weeks later. MIS has improved safety as of late, and provisions have been made to help avoid the violent wrecks of the 1980’s and 90’s.
Pocono Recap
I was looking good with my picks last week early on in the race, but as we all know, anything can happen between lap one and two hundred. I had a point in the race where maximum imaginary points were on the board with Juan Montoya at the point, and Denny Hamlin in second, but that was on lap 24 of the 200 that made up the 5 Hour Energy 500. In a race that was full of pit-stops (teams averaging a pit every 28-32 laps), pit strategy became ever-so important. Montoya would gamble on two tires – three times last Sunday, a decision that netted Montoya a seventh place finish, and netting me an undisclosed amount of points in my own Pick Um’ competition. My winner pick in Denny Hamlin ran very well until a flat tire on lap 161 dropped him from the pace. He would eventually lose his breaks on top of the flat tire and bring his FedEx Toyota home in nineteenth place, netting me zero points.
Michigan Picks
Moving along quickly this week, we’re already to my Dark Horse for the week. Kasey Kahne is familiar with Victory Lane at Michigan, scoring his first and only win at the track in 2006. Along with the win, Kahne has six Top 5’s including three runner ups. Kahne has had some tough luck in the Sprint Cup Series in the past month, but this week the #4 car will put up his best finish since his fourth at Darlington Mother’s Day Weekend.
Kevin Harvick is the guy to watch Sunday Afternoon. He scored his first win of the season earlier this year at Auto Club Speedway, a track that is a twin to Michigan. He scored a win last August at Michigan, and is flying high after his cat and mouse game with Kyle Busch last week. Michigan has averaged 20.3 lead changes in the past four seasons, but look for Harvick to linger towards the Top 5 all race and make his move late in the race.
Happy Father’s Day and until next time…YOU STAY CLASSY NASCAR NATION!
NASCAR’s Greg Pursley Goes Wire-To-Wire For Fourth Win of The Season
At this stage during last year’s racing season, Parker, Arizona’s Greg Pursley was sitting sixth in points with only one top-five finish, and a total of 27 laps led in five starts. Pursley who drives the No. 26 Gene Price Motorsports sponsored Ford Fusion in NASCAR’s K&N Pro West touring series, would eventually close out the 2010 season fifth in points with two wins, four top-fives, and seven top-10 finishes while leading a total of 151 laps.
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[/media-credit]The 43 year-old driver knew his team had the talent and determination to compete at this level, and proved it by going to victory lane twice in the last three races of the season. Pursley began the season finale by winning the Coors Light Pole award, while surpassing the record time he set at the one-mile Phoenix track in 2009.
Pursley would pull away on a final restart with seven laps remaining to capture his first victory at the track he called his “absolute favorite,” which capped off a season plagued by bad luck that would carry over into the following year.
The Newhall, California native got an early jump to start the 2011 season when he picked up where he left off the previous season, by going to victory lane in the season opener at Phoenix, for back-to-back wins at the Arizona one-mile track. In his first five starts, Pursley went to victory lane four times, with his only flaw coming at Roseville back in April where led a race high 133 laps before finishing third.
What a difference a year has made when you not only look at the fact Pursley has already doubled the races he won, but also the amount of laps he has led with nine races still remaining on the schedule. Pursley said that, “Time has allowed our team to gel. Communication and preparation is the key and we have both going for us right now,” when talking about some of the changes that were looked at during the off-season.
With an average finish of 1.4 and a 201 point lead over second place driver Moses Smith, Pursley’s blistering pace clearly makes him the driver the beat this season, and even more so after Saturday’s dominating performance in the O’Reilly 200 at the bullring in Las Vegas, Nevada. Once the teams unloaded for Saturday night’s feature race, Pursley wasted no time setting the pace when he broke the track record with a pole winning speed of 90.144 mph.
Pursley who went out in the 16th qualifying spot, bettered that of his 16 year-old teammate Dylan Kwasniewski by 0.467 mph, who went out eighth and finished the race in second. After the pre-race festivities took place, the only thing left for the 27 drivers was to see who would prevail after 200 laps of fighting the Nevada heat once the green flag was waved to start the race.
Pursley took the lead on the first lap of the race, as survival became the order of the night for the other 26 drivers when the first of 10 yellow flags for a Stan Silva solo spin less than 25 laps into the race. A total of 69 laps would be run under yellow before the end of the race, but none of that bothered Pursley as he dominated the race and became the only driver since 2009 to win a race from start to finish.
The last wire-to-wire win in the series was by Eric Holmes at Roseburg, Oregon. As the laps clicked away and the Nevada heat began to slowly dissipate behind a nice warm breeze, Pursley continued to heat up the track once his biggest threat, Eric Holmes who is the three-time and defending series champion left the race because of mechanical problems.
“Holmes was gonna be pretty good but I still kept the pace I wanted to keep and if he was gonna push me harder he would have had to go around me on the outside because I was not gonna give up the bottom and it probably would have been a good race.” Pursley said after the race.
With 34 laps left to go, Taylor Cuzick spins coming out of turn two to bring out the final caution of the night. On the final restart of the night, Pursley pulled away from his 16-year-old teammate and never looked back leaving Kwasniewski, Jason Fensler, and Michael Self to battle for the second position.
Pursley went on to win the race by 0.872 seconds over Kwasniewski who finished second, but more importantly extended his points lead along with picking-up his fourth win and setting the standard for the rest of the season. “Finally when the last caution came out with about 30 to go I had to go. It showed at the end the guys at the shop gave me a great car and I can’t complain,” said Pursley.
Pursley added this about his race winning strategy, “We had a great car strategy was to save the tires until lap 150. The good part about it is you when you start out front. You can pick your way around and I ran the pace I wanted to run and the guys behind me were pressing kind of hard and I didn’t let it bother. This was a dream for me.
