| | Well, what do you know? It's back to Pocono for the 19th race of the Winston Cup season, the Pennsylvania 500. Jeremy Mayfield won at Pocono just over a month ago. Bobby Labonte is the defending champion of this race.
In case you haven't noticed, there have been five different winners in the last five races. Tony Stewart won last time out at New Hampshire, making him the only three-time winner this season. Stewart has won three of the last six races. He comes back to Pocono with six straight top-10 finishes. And in his three starts at Pocono, two last year and the one last month, Stewart has finished sixth, fourth and sixth again.
|  | | After a slow start, Tony Stewart appears poised for another strong second half. |
After the Daytona 500, Stewart was 17th in points, He climbed as high as sixth in points after Darlington, then finished 42nd at Bristol and fell back to 12th in the point standings. For the next six weeks, he floated between 10th and 13th in points, and everyone was wondering what went wrong? Where was the freshman sparkle that Stewart flashed throughout 1999?
At the end of May, following the Charlotte race, Stewart was still 10th in points and still looking for his first win this century. Since then: three wins, six straight top-10s and he is fifth in points -- just one point behind fourth place Ward Burton, and 147 behind third place Dale Jarrett. Stewart trails point leader Bobby Labonte by 215 points.
A lot of people think Stewart will make a run at the top spot in the point standings. I believe there is strong support for that line of thinking. The big reason Stewart has a shot is nobody has taken full control of the points championship. And we have really seen some strong teams struggle this season.
Labonte is having a good year, but not a great year. He is leading the points and that is the ultimate goal. But, the team has just one win and that came at Rockingham in February, more than five months ago. Labonte has 12 top-10 finishes in 18 races, and only twice has he finished worse than 13th. That's pretty solid, but it does not slam the door on the competition.
Dale Earnhardt was 21st in the Daytona 500, 39th at Bristol and 17th in California. Every other finish is a top 10, including the win-by-an-inch victory in Atlanta. That's 15 top-10s in 18 starts. That's pretty solid.
Dale Jarrett has just one win, in the Daytona 500. He has nine straight top-10 finishes. His three "worst" finishes are 36th in Atlanta, 33rd at Texas, 21st at Bristol and 17th at Talladega. In the other 14 races he has finished ninth or better. That's pretty solid, too.
I could go on here, but hopefully you get the idea.
The top three drivers have had a very good season to this point, and I am glad these three are just 68 points apart. I think that it is important to keep in mind that Ricky Rudd, eighth in points, is just 251 out of first.
Right now, the opportunity is there to make a charge, to break away from the pack if you are in the top three. There's still time for a driver named Ward Burton, Stewart, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton or Rudd to come charging out of the pack.
But, back to that talented but temperamental Stewart fellow.
Here's some groundwork for those who think he can still be the guy that comes charging out of the pack. Last season, as a rookie remember, he finished fourth in the second Pocono race. Starting with that race, in the last 16 races, he finished seventh or better in 11 of those races, including three wins, two second-place finishes, a third-place, a fourth-place and a fifth-place finish. Stewart's worse finish was a 41st at Martinsville in October when he scored just 40 points under the lights.
Over the final 16 races of the 1999 season, Stewart scored 2,369 points. Only Bobby Labonte (2,510) and Winston Cup champion Dale Jarrett (2,423) scored more.
What does all this mean? For one thing, there is some evidence that Stewart should be strong from here on in. And here is something else to think about. Pocono is the second week the Winston Cup series makes a "second" visit to a race track this season, Daytona being the first return trip to a track. Now the teams have some notes with the new body styles and the "new generation" tires that everyone has been b------ about, I mean talking about.
Here's what to watch for and wonder about. In the next 16 races, going back to tracks we have already been to (with some exceptions, of course) will the good teams get even better? I would think so. But who will be the best of the best? That, I don't know.
But that's why they invented Sundays.
| |
ALSO SEE
Weber's mailbag
Ask Bill Weber
|
