Since it's my blog, I'm going to imagine that you asked why I thought Brad Keselowski's win on Saturday was so impressive. Let me tell you.

Keselowski has won on a short track, a restrictor-plate track and a superspeedway this season. That's just about all of them.

Let's not forget how down of a season Brad K. had in his first full season with Penske in 2010. He finished 25th in points, with just two top-10 finishes, both 10th. Since then, he's won six races, three last year and now three in 2012.

How can we put Keselowski's performance in perspective and try to find a driver whom he resembles?

Well, let's sort out all the drivers who had a sub-par first season but rebounded nicely who didn't run the full schedule the previous year, or drivers like Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson who won three-plus times each of their first two full seasons.

Five drivers who've pulled that off. Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick and Terry Labonte did it well into their careers -- not early like Keselowski.

That leaves Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch, and the parallels between Keselowski and Busch are uncanny. Busch went winless his first full season, like Keselowski, and then won four races in 2002 and 2003. In 2004, he was the champion.

So, you can call Keselowski "Kurt Busch without the baggage," and I'm sure lots of owners would like a driver with that combo.

Trivia break: Keselowski now has seven career Cup wins. Who is the only driver with exactly eight in his career?

Chase Countdown

This is the time of year when I start thinking Chase. And I'm sure the drivers are, too.

In every year of the Chase, there's been a driver in the field with both nine and 10 races to go to move into the Chase field after being out at that time.

So, who could move in and who could move out? Kasey Kahne moved into the field with his second-place run at Kentucky, taking the second wild-card spot. But that's an obvious one.

Off the radar, watch out for Marcos Ambrose. In the past five races, only five drivers have more points than the Aussie. If he can steal a win at Sonoma, he could be racing for a title.

On the other end is Ryan Newman. Newman's falling out of the second wild-card spot, and since his Martinsville win, he's been terrible without a finish better than 12th in 11 races. That after having a win and three top-10s in the first six races.

Trivia break: Who is the only driver to make the Chase after being outside the top 20 with 10 races to go?

First Time Dominance

Austin Dillon, welcome to the club.

Dillon picked up his first Nationwide Series win Friday night at Kentucky, and it was never really in doubt.

Dillon led all but eight laps in the victory, the fourth-most dominant first win in series history, according to our friends over at Racing Resources.

Ryan Newman led all but six laps in his first win, Morgan Shepherd all but two and Dale Jarrett went wire-to-wire in his first win.

Trivia break: Dillon's victory followed Nelson Piquet Jr.'s first win. Who were the last drivers to get their first Nationwide Series victories back-to-back?

Trivia Break Answers

1. Kyle Petty is the only driver to finish his career with exactly eight Cup wins.

2. Brad Keselowski was 22nd with 10 races to go last year before getting a wild card.

3. Trevor Bayne and Sam Hornish Jr. pulled it off last year.

Here we are this weekend at Kentucky Speedway, a track where the key statistic coming into the race may be the number of parking spots added (PSA) since last year's debacle.

But let's stick to the quality of the racing, and not whether the parking was ample. Of course, it's hard to analyze the racing at a track where there's been one race. However, in that race, Kyle Busch was dominant, finishing with a 145.6 driver rating, the third-highest mark he has had in any of his 24 career Sprint Cup wins.

[+] Enlarge
Chris Graythen/Getty ImagesKyle Busch celebrates after winning the inaugural Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway in July 2011.

But Busch goes into this race struggling in his past four races -- all finishes of 17th or worse -- as well as on 1.5-mile tracks like Kentucky, with two top-5s in his past nine races.

That's the best way to project what will happen at Kentucky -- to take a look at performance at those other 1.5-mile tracks. Those tracks are different, yes, but definitely have similarities.

Problem is, we've had four races on such tracks this year, with four drivers from four teams coming out victorious. There was Tony Stewart at Las Vegas, Greg Biffle at Texas, Denny Hamlin at Kansas and Kasey Kahne at Charlotte.

This is when you call on a guy like me to crunch the numbers.

One driver's performance does stand above the others, and that's Biffle's. He's the only driver with a top-5 in all four of those races. He also has put up three of the top eight marks in driver rating on 1.5-milers this season.

Want a sleeper? I'll give you a sleeper. Although he has been slipping down the points and his Sonoma finish was a disappointment, keep an eye on Martin Truex Jr., who has the highest individual driver rating on a 1.5-mile track this season, a 142.6 in a second-place finish at Kansas.

We've seen Joey Logano and some guy named Dale Earnhardt Jr. snap long winless streaks this season, but Truex could top both of their droughts at Kentucky.

Looking for Trouble

Every week, my fellow members in ESPN Stats & Information crunch the crash numbers and tell us what to watch for that weekend. Here's what they found.

If Kentucky is like any of the other 1.5-mile tracks, the middle of the pack is the wrong place to be. Since 2008, 182 of 506 accidents (36 percent) on intermediate tracks have occurred to drivers running in positions 15-25.

The Eliminator: Kentucky

For those of you new to my little blog, every week I use a device called The Eliminator to predict a winner. It's pretty simple: Instead of telling you somebody will win, I'll point out why everybody else has to lose. The driver remaining, by process of elimination, will be the race winner.

And if you want to see who was eliminated in each step, I'll post the info on my Twitter account (@MattWillisESPN).

Don't overlook that I nailed Clint Bowyer at Sonoma.

1. The past 21 Sprint Cup winners on 1.5-mile tracks had previously won a Sprint Cup race (16 eliminated, 30 remaining).

2. The past eight and 11 of the past 12 winners on 1.5-mile tracks had a top-20 finish in the previous 1.5-mile race (12 eliminated, 18 remaining).

3. Each of the past four winners this year finished 11th or better in the previous year's race (10 eliminated, eight remaining).

4. The past two Sprint Cup winners were coming off a stretch of three straight finishes of eighth or better (seven eliminated, one remaining).

Your winner: Jimmie Johnson

Last year was lauded for having a variety of winners and wild endings. While this year hasn't lived up to the crazy finishes (last year set a high bar), we've kept up the string of variety in Victory Lane, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

Clint Bowyer marked the 12th driver to win a Cup race this season, the 13th consecutive year we've had at least a dozen different winners. Before this 13-year run, we had a stretch of eight straight years without more than 12 winners in a year.

And while we have some overlap from year to year, we're seeing new names pop up, too. Whether it's Joey Logano, Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Bowyer, there's no shortage of drivers with the equipment and ability to win, and Michael Waltrip Racing has shown that we're only adding to the pool.

MWR already has eight top-5 finishes this season, the most its ever had in a season, and is just one short of a team record for top-10s in a season.

And who would've thought that Bowyer could win a race on a road course? Oh yeah, he was the Eliminator pick on Thursday.

But also, we're getting to a point where road-course races have never had so many drivers capable of winning on straight-up ability. The past eight Sonoma races have been won by eight different drivers, and the past six all picked up their first career road-course win.

Trivia break: Who is the only driver to pick up his first career Sprint Cup win at Sonoma?

Two For The Road (Course)

Let's heap some much-deserved praise on Kurt Busch and Brian Vickers for finishing third and fourth, respectively, at Sonoma.

For Busch, it's not only his first top-5 finish since joining Phoenix Racing, it's also tied for the second-best finish in team history, and the first time it's had a top-5 finish outside of a restrictor-plate race.

Vickers picked up his second top-5 finish in three races driving the 55 this season for MWR. Vickers' average finish this season is a 9.0. The sample size is small, but that does rank as the fourth-best in the series. It's also the first time Vickers has ever finished in the top 10 at Sonoma.

Trivia break: Besides Busch, who are the three drivers with top-5 finishes for Phoenix Racing?

Piq-uet Of The Litter

I usually don't cover much Nationwide in my little corner blog, but the history of Nelson Piquet Jr.'s win Saturday at Road America was too much to ignore.

First, he was the first Brazilian-born driver to win a race in the Cup, Nationwide or Trucks series, and just the fifth foreign-born driver to win a Nationwide Series race.

And thanks to my friends at Racing Resources, I found out that Turner Motorsports now has five Nationwide Series wins from five different drivers.

They're the first team, Cup, Nationwide or Trucks, to ever get its first five wins from five different drivers.

Piquet was the first of those winners to lead more than one lap in his win. That also gives Turner Motorsports the record for most Nationwide victories where the driver leads just one lap with four, thanks again to Racing Resources.

Trivia break: Who were the first four drivers to win a Nationwide Series race for Turner Motorsports?

Trivia Break Answers

1. Juan Pablo Montoya picked up his first win at Sonoma in 2007.

2. Brad Keselowski won at Talladega for Phoenix in 2009, and Geoff Bodine and Mike Wallace each had a top-5 in the Daytona 500.

3. Mark Martin, Justin Allgaier, Reed Sorenson and James Buescher have won Nationwide races for Turner.

Crunching Numbers: Top Drivers May Struggle at Sonoma

For those of you who know me (we're all just one big happy family in this blog circle), you'll know that I love variety. Which is why I'm glad NASCAR has at least a couple of road courses on the schedule.

I love seeing drivers tested, and the drivers who excel at this type of racing get to the front. I'm also fond of the pit strategy and different approaches that take place during the race.

If you know that about me, you might also know that, as a sports fan, I love me some mayhem.

Unless I have a strong rooting interest, I'm behind a series going to a seventh game, or I'll pull for the underdog. And if you like a turnover in the points, you might get it this weekend in Sonoma.

What do Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Greg Biffle all have in common? If you said they're the top three in the points, you've given me the simple, obvious answer. Try harder.

If you said they all struggle on road courses, now you're smelling what I'm cooking.

All three of those drivers are still looking for their first Cup Series road-course win, and all struggle, especially at Sonoma. Let's use driver ratings going back to 2005 to break this down.

(Driver rating is a formula encompassing many of NASCAR's loop data categories and mirrors the NFL's quarterback rating. Anything over 100 is very good, and it maxes out at 150.)

Well, Biffle's driver rating at Sonoma is a paltry 78.4, 18th-best in the series. But that's the best of the three. Kenseth is a 71.8 (ranking 24th) and Earnhardt's is a 65.4 (27th).

That's why this weekend at Sonoma, I expect some points shuffling, both up from those who excel on road courses, and down from those who aren't in their comfort zone.

Looking for Trouble

Every week, my fellow members in ESPN Stats & Information crunch the numbers and tell us what to watch for the following weekend. Here's what they found:

There are 12 turns at Sonoma, but it's one of the final ones that does the most damage. In last year's race, all three accidents occurred in Turn 11, the hairpin turn, involving 10 cars. Since 2004, Turn 11, along with Turn 8, have accounted for more than half the accidents at Sonoma.

And, for a little more analysis, I went to my main man Ricky Craven, "NASCAR Now" analyst and all-around nice guy. He explained that Turn 11 is dangerous because drivers lock up their brakes in the hairpin. And Turn 8 is a danger zone because drivers don't complete their passes in Turn 7.

The Eliminator: Sonoma

For those of you new to my little blog, every week I use a device called The Eliminator to predict a winner.

It's pretty simple: Instead of telling you somebody will win, I'll point out why everybody else has to lose. The driver remaining, by process of elimination, will be the race winner.

And if you want to see who was eliminated in each step, I'll post the info on my Twitter account (@MattWillisESPN).

1. There has been only one first-time winner in 23 Sonoma races all-time (15 drivers eliminated, 29 remaining).

2. Since 1987, every road-course winner had a top-5 finish earlier that season (11 eliminated, 18 remaining).

3. Of the past 14 Sonoma winners, the 13 who previously had raced at Watkins Glen finished in the top 14 in the last race there (seven eliminated, 11 remaining).

4. The past five Sonoma winners had never won a Sprint Cup Series road-course race (four eliminated, seven remaining).

5. Three of the past four race winners this season finished in the top eight in the previous Sprint Cup race (five eliminated, two remaining).

6. Of the past 13 Sonoma race winners, 12 entered the race fifth or lower in points (one eliminated, one remaining).

Your winner: Clint Bowyer

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Michigan win on Sunday did a lot of things for a lot of people.

It stirred up emotions. It set off a firestorm, both in support of his "being back," and of the "one win doesn't mean anything" variety. It also solidified his status as a championship contender.

But, while appreciating the cultural and social impact of the victory, let's also talk about the historical impact of it, namely how much history Junior made.

First of all, a 143-race winless streak wasn't just an eternity for Junior Nation, it was also the sixth-longest stretch a driver has ever gone without a win.

The top four drivers on that list all have something in common. They all changed teams during the winless streak, giving them a chance to basically start over in new equipment.

So Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s streak is second only to Terry Labonte for most starts between wins, all with one team. Labonte's came when he was out of title contention, outside the top 10 and well on the downswing of his career. He has not won another Cup race since and is in semi-retirement.

Junior, on the other hand, is now on the short list of title contenders, with a series-best 12 top-10 finishes in 15 races this season.

Another number is 26. That's the number of different Cup Series winners during Junior's winless streak. That includes eight drivers who picked up their first Sprint Cup Series win, three of whom have gone on to win again. Junior's teammate through the entire ordeal, Jimmie Johnson, leads all drivers with 23 wins in that span.

In one of those 23 Johnson wins, Earnhardt finished second, which brings me to my next number: seven. That's the number of times Earnhardt finished second between his past two wins.

Twice Earnhardt finished second to his former employee at JR Motorsports, Brad Keselowski. At the time of Junior's previous win, June 2008 at Michigan, Keselowski hadn't even made his Sprint Cup Series debut.

Those seven runner-up finishes between wins is also historically significant. Since 1985, only three other drivers had at least seven runner-up finishes between wins: Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Jeremy Mayfield.

In fact, the record for seconds between wins is eight, done by Gordon, Mayfield, Bobby Allison and Bobby Isaac. I'm sure Junior fans remembered each one of those runner-up finishes distinctly, but have let them go Sunday night.

Another number, and perhaps the most important one, may not be able to be measured quite yet, and that's the number of extra viewers, rating points and fans in the seats that this win may create.

As NASCAR prepares to go head-to-head with college and professional football during its championship Chase, it now might be able to play with an extra bullet in the chamber.

Greetings to all my NASCAR stat-loving, knowledge-seeking friends. You know who you are.

Today, let's talk a little Michigan, since that's the next race on the schedule and all. It's a repaved Michigan, which means speeds on an already-fast track are going to be up. And Pocono was pretty pacey last week with its fresh asphalt.

In this race, if the numbers are any indication (they usually are), I like a little combination I call Three Men and Five-Time at the front: Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson.

Since 2005, when Edwards became a full-time Cup driver, those four drivers are atop just about every loop-data category at Michigan International Speedway. They're the only four with a driver rating over 100, they rank 1-4 in fastest laps, average running position, and speed both early and late in runs (not to mention overall green-flag speed).

But let's take a look at those results. Let's say, in theory, that anything outside the top 15 is a "subpar" finish, especially for those four. In those 14 races since 2005, Kenseth and Edwards each have a pair of subpar finishes, while Biffle and Johnson have six apiece.

Those stats can be backed up by looking at the green-flag pass differential for those four drivers. Edwards is plus-261 and Kenseth plus-159, while Biffle is just a plus-38 and Johnson is a minus-36.

And what makes that even more damaging is that the bulk of Biffle's and Johnson's losses have taken place at the end of the race. In the final 10 percent of races since 2005, Johnson is minus-71 in pass differential, while Biffle is a minus-64, by far the worst two totals. The third-worst mark is a minus-33.

So Biffle and Johnson might join the other two Roush Fenway Racing drivers up front Sunday at Michigan, but let's see if they stay there.

The Eliminator: Michigan

For those of you new to my little blog, every week I use a device called The Eliminator to predict a winner.

It's pretty simple: Instead of telling you somebody will win, I'll point out why everybody else has to lose. The driver remaining, by process of elimination, will be the race winner.

And if you want to see who was eliminated in each step, I'll post the info on my Twitter account (@MattWillisESPN).

1. Eighty-three of the past 84 Michigan winners had a previous top-5 finish at the track (22 eliminated, 23 remaining).

2. The past eight Michigan winners had a top-20 finish in the previous Michigan race (eight eliminated, 15 remaining).

3. Nine of the past 10 spring Michigan race winners finished eighth or better in the most recent Darlington race (nine eliminated, six remaining).

4. Each of the past seven Michigan winners finished 19th or better in each of the previous three Sprint Cup Series races (four eliminated, two remaining).

5. Four of the past five spring Michigan race winners had a top-5 finish in the previous year's spring Michigan race (one eliminated, one remaining).

Your winner: Matt Kenseth

Almost three years ago, Joey Logano was mired in a subpar Sprint Cup race in a very mediocre rookie season. Sitting 24th in points, Logano spun after the halfway point at New Hampshire, which allowed him to play pit strategy when the weather began to look threatening.

The rest is history: Logano became the youngest winner in series history, and it looked like the "Sliced Bread" dynasty was about to begin.

Then, a funny thing happened ... it didn't happen. Logano's 2010 started in a very blah fashion, but he was one of the hottest drivers to finish the season. Then 2011 was a letdown, and the beginning of this year didn't look much better.

Sunday, Logano finally picked up a win in which he got to cross the finish line, checkered flag waving, and do the burnout.

Now 182 drivers have won Cup series races, but about a third of those have never won a second race. Logano now is among the fortunate two-thirds who have. And not only does Logano have a more "legitimate" win, he did it by outdueling Mark Martin (more on him later).

We now can fairly ask: Is this Joe Gibbs Racing's best three-car tandem (with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Bush)? If Logano continues to show this strength, you can make a very strong case.

This is the third time Gibbs has had three teams win Cup races in a season, but this is the earliest it has happened, just 14 races into a season. Now Gibbs will try to put all three teams in the Chase for just the second time, after pulling it off in 2008.

Trivia break! Who has the most Cup series wins for Joe Gibbs Racing?

Always a bridesmaid

Martin was 31 years old when Logano was born. Let that one sink in.

Logano got the upper hand on Martin at the end of Sunday's race at Pocono, getting Martin all wiggly with four to go then pulling away from the 55.

That marked the seventh time Martin has finished second at Pocono, a track where he has never won. That's the most second-place finishes a driver has had at a track without a win in Cup series history.

Martin broke a tie with Bobby Allison, who was second six times at Martinsville without a win.

Trivia break! Martin has 40 career wins and 60 second-place finishes for a differential of minus-20. Who is the only driver in Cup history with a worse differential?

Busted

Usually in NASCAR, speed is a good thing. Except when you're on pit road.

Fourteen drivers were busted 22 times for speeding in Sunday's race, which, according to our friends at Racing Resources, is the most that have been recorded since they began documenting infractions in the summer of 2006.

Five drivers were tagged multiple times, and no driver was busted more than Travis Kvapil, who was ticketed four times. I imagine his insurance premiums will go up.

Trivia break! Before Logano, who was the last driver to go more than 100 starts between wins?

Trivia break answers

1. Tony Stewart leads all Gibbs drivers with 33 wins, then Bobby Labonte with 21.

2. Buddy Baker had 19 wins and 42 second-places for a minus-23.

3. Juan Pablo Montoya went 113 starts between wins from 2007-10.

We're at Pocono Raceway, and this is the point of the year when I usually have two main points to make:

1. Triangle racing is more interesting than it's given credit.
2. Denny Hamlin flat owns this place.

Don't let last year's lackluster finishes fool you; Hamlin's still the man there. Despite two finishes outside the top 10, Hamlin still had the second-most fastest laps run (behind the absent Kurt Busch), and he averaged a top-5 running position.

It's easy to go on about Hamlin, but I wanted to take some time, words and Internet space to analyze the curious case of Jeff Gordon.

Gordon is 21st in points, but doesn't deserve to be. I wrote in Tuesday's blog that he's second in fastest laps run this season, but it doesn't stop there. He's also fifth in overall green-flag speed, much faster than your average 21st-place driver.

This slow start is actually reminiscent to last year, when he was 13th in points after 13 races. Check out the chart!

The good news for 24 fans is that in the next 13 races of last season, nobody was better than Gordon. He had 508 points, 43 more than any other driver, with 10 top-10s in 13 races.

He also was much improved on those loop-data numbers, with a 108.1 driver rating, nearly 20 points higher, and 335 fastest laps run, compared to 184 in the first 13 races.

Looking for Trouble

Every week, my fellow ESPN Stats & Information staffers crunch the numbers and tell us what to watch for this weekend. Here's what they found:

Pocono is called the "Tricky Triangle" due to its three distinct turns, making it almost like a road course.

Some believe that the "Tunnel Turn" (aka Turn 2) is the trickiest of the three, but with the highest banking coming in Turn 1 (14 degrees) and drivers hitting 200-mph plus on the frontstretch, that area of the track leads to the most accidents.

Since 1990, there's been 48 accidents in Turn 1, compared to 31 in Turn 2 and 30 in Turn 3.

The Eliminator: Pocono

For those of you new to my little blog, every week I use a device called The Eliminator to forecast a winner.

It's pretty simple: Instead of telling you somebody will win, I'll point out why everybody else has to lose. The driver remaining, by process of elimination, will be the race winner.

And if you want to see who was eliminated in each step, I'll post the info on my Twitter account (@MattWillisESPN).

1. The past 16 Sprint Cup Series winners finished 16th or better in the previous race at the track (29 eliminated, 15 remaining).

2. The past seven Pocono winners had a top-20 finish in the most recent Sonoma race (five eliminated, 10 remaining).

3. The past seven Pocono winners had a top-10 finish in the most recent Watkins Glen race (five eliminated, five remaining).

4. Fourteen of the past 15 Pocono winners did not finish better than 15th in the previous year's running of that Pocono race (four eliminated, one remaining).

Your winner: Brad Keselowski

For last Thursday's blog, I wrote that we were in line for a dominant Jimmie Johnson day and that Dover was the best of Johnson's tracks.

THE PROPHECY HAS BEEN FULFILLED!!!

Actually, I can't claim any clairvoyant tendencies. Johnson's strength and Hendrick's red-hot streak (more on that later) made my job analyzing stats that much easier.

But now let's do some postrace analysis. You don't pay me just for prerace analysis.

Johnson led a whopping 289 laps in the win, the second time he's led that many laps in a Dover race. He entered the race eighth on the all-time Dover laps led list, and was third by the time the race was done.

In all, Johnson led more than 72 percent of the laps run Sunday. This is just the second time in the past two seasons that a driver led more than 70 percent of the laps in a race. The other was Johnson last year in the Kansas Chase race.

Digging deeper, Johnson put up an oh-so-close-to-perfect 149.8 driver rating (perfect is 150). That's the highest driver rating in a race over the past two seasons and the best at Dover since Johnson himself was perfect three years ago.

Oh yeah, and he picked up his seventh career Dover win, tying him with Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Bobby Allison for the most in track history.

Trivia break: Who is first, with Johnson second, for most laps led per race at Dover all-time?

Hendrick stays hot

Make it three straight points wins and five straight event wins (counting the All-Star Race and Showdown) for Hendrick Motorsports.

Over the past seven races, nobody has more points than Kasey Kahne, the only driver with a top-10 in each race. Third on that list is Jimmie Johnson, and fifth is Dale Earnhardt Jr., who leads the series with nine top-10 finishes this season.

Not pictured is Jeff Gordon, who remains outside the top 20 in points, but isn't as slow as you'd think.

This season, three Hendrick drivers are 1-2-3 in fastest laps run -- simply how many times they've been the fastest driver on the track on a lap -- with Gordon second behind Johnson and Kahne third.

And he didn't accumulate all the laps in a single race, either. He was fastest on 98 laps at Dover, 86 at Martinsville and 35 at Texas.

Trivia break: Who ranks fourth in fastest laps run this season?

The end of wreck-less racing?

In true Dover fashion, we had a massive wreck early on.

There were 12 cars involved in all, making it the biggest accident (in terms of cars involved) this season, bigger than in both restrictor-plate races. In races at intermediate tracks this season, we hadn't had more than a three-car wreck prior to Dover.

Dating back to 1990, this is the fourth biggest wreck we've seen at Dover, and the largest since a 19-car pileup in the spring 2004 race.

Trivia break: We're now at a Cup record with 30 straight races not won by the polesitter. Who is the last polesitter to win?

Trivia break answers

1. David Pearson led 128 laps per Dover start, the only driver ahead of Johnson's 108.

2. Matt Kenseth is second this season in fastest laps run.

3. Ryan Newman is the last polesitter to win, last July at New Hampshire.

This weekend at Dover, it looks like the stars are aligning for a classic, dominant Jimmie Johnson kind of day.

His team, Hendrick Motorsports, has won the past four events: two points races (Johnson at Darlington and Kasey Kahne at Charlotte) to go with Johnson's All-Star win and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Sprint Showdown victory.

This week, the Cup series heads to Dover International Speedway, where Johnson has won six times, just one off the track record shared by Richard Petty and Bobby Allison.

Sure, Johnson has won six times at other tracks. But going back to the start of 2009, Dover hasn't been just his dominant track, it's been the best track for any Sprint Cup Series driver.

Let's start with a basic number: laps led. Johnson has 1,349 in those six races, over half the total laps run and 1,000 more than any other driver. In fact, only four other drivers even have 100 laps led at Dover in that time.

Johnson has been the fastest car on the track on nearly a quarter of the total laps run at Dover -- 24.7 percent to be exact -- since the start of 2009. That's the second-highest mark of any driver in that time, behind road course specialist Marcos Ambrose at Watkins Glen.

Going back to driver rating (an overall statistic incorporating many of NASCAR's loop data stats), Johnson gets back to the top of the charts with a 139.4 average in that span, the best of any driver with at least two starts at a track.

The next-best mark is more than 10 points behind, Johnson's 126.7 at California.

Count me in the camp looking for great things out of the 48 on Sunday.

Looking for Trouble

Every week, my fellow members in ESPN Stats & Information crunch the numbers and tell us what to watch for the following weekend. Here's what they found:

Dover used to be the site of some early-race mayhem, but that's not the case anymore. In four of the past six races, there hasn't been a wreck in the opening 100 laps. And in the past seven races, there have been multiple wrecks in the first 100 laps once.

That's a stark difference from 1993-2004 at Dover, when there were multiple wrecks in the first 100 laps in 10 of the 12 races.

But if there is a wreck, don't be surprised if last week's winner, Kahne, is in it. Since Kahne's first race at Dover, no active driver has been involved in more wrecks there than him.

The Eliminator: Darlington

For those of you new to my little blog, every week I use a device called The Eliminator to predict a winner.

It's pretty simple: Instead of telling you somebody will win, I'll point out why everybody else has to lose. The driver remaining, by process of elimination, will be the race winner.

And if you want to see who was eliminated in each step, I'll post the info on my Twitter account (@MattWillisESPN).

1. The past 15 Sprint Cup Series winners finished 16th or better in the previous race at the track (31 eliminated, 15 remaining).

2. The past nine Dover winners had a top-12 finish in the most recent Phoenix race (11 eliminated, four remaining).

3. Six of the past seven Dover winners finished in the top seven in the previous year's race (three eliminated, one remaining).

Your winner: Kyle Busch