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| Martinsville quick takeaways: Kenseth's finishes aren't a true barometer |
The 2003 champion finished 15th on Sunday at Martinsville. But he restarted the race with 12 laps to go in second. He just had the unfortunate circumstance of starting on the outside line on the final restart. You'd almost rather wrestle a couple bears with no weapons than start the final restart of the race at Martinsville on the outside. It's near-impossible to hold your ground.
Kenseth has just one top-10 finish this season. But remember, he was in first in turn 3 on the final lap at Daytona where he finished 14th. He finished 19th at Atlanta – leading 47 laps – after a crazy circumstance involving a pit-road penalty and a lack of communication that he had nothing to do with. He had a fast car at Las Vegas before he spun. And at California he finished a 19th that probably wasn't what he deserved.
Kenseth has had plenty of speed so far this season. That's impossible to deny. And given the Chase's win-and-in format, there's no reason to get worried about his Chase chances even though the regular season is almost 1/4th over. It's one thing if Kenseth is scraping together top-20 finishes. This is another.
• AJ Allmendinger's second-place finish was the second second (say that 10 times fast) of his career.
Allmendinger didn't have anything for race-winner Kyle Busch over the race's final laps but his finish was no fluke. He had a top-10 car all day long and kept the brakes good enough to be able to divebomb drivers like Brad Keselowski and Jimmie Johnson as he worked his way up through the field.
"We passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville, that's pretty cool," Allmendinger said.
His other second-place finish came at Martinsville as well. Allmendinger was second in 2012 when he was driving for Team Penske. Now he's in the middle of a long-term contract with JTG-Daugherty Racing.
You have to be very good under breaking (among other things) at Martinsville, similar to how you would drive a car on a tight turn at a road course. We all know that Allmendinger is one of NASCAR's best on road courses, so it's not surprising that he's good at Martinsville too. Though he downplayed a link between road course racing and Martinsville.
"I wouldn't say it's – if you're good at road course racing you're going to come here – I know the first couple times I came here, I couldn't figure this place out to save my life.
You know, it's just a rhythm racetrack. There's a fine line between needing to be aggressive enough, using the brakes and the things you have to do and be fast, and then overusing them, and that's kind of the way road course driving is. It's always a fine line. You can be aggressive but you've got to know that line to where you overstep it. I would say a place like Richmond, that's more way finesse and things like that.
And perhaps his success at the half-mile paperclip comes with a lack of perceived pressure. When the Cup Series heads to Sonoma and Watkins Glen, Allmendinger is instantly mentioned as one of the favorites and how the races are his best chances to get in the Chase. There's little (outside) feeling of that coming to Martinsville.
Allmendinger mentioned after the race that he didn't like who he was in 2015 and how he was "frustrated." Well, through six races in 2016 he's 12th in the points standings. He got off to a hot start in 2015 before fading during the summer. The challenge is to make sure it doesn't happen again.
• NASCAR's caution-calling once again seemed inconsistent. During the middle portion of the race, a portion that Fox broadcaster Mike Joy had just mentioned was the longest green-flag run of the day, Martin Truex Jr. sent the slower car of Josh Wise out of the groove.
Wise slowed before hitting the wall and kept going. NASCAR threw a caution before he was even a quarter of the way down the backstretch despite virtually no evidence that there was something wrong with Wise's car. And if there was, there didn't seem like enough time had elapsed to make the determination that his car was wounded and an impediment to the rest of the field.
Fast forward to 15 laps to go. Jamie McMurray's car had a left-rear tire rub that finally caused it to deflate. The tire lost air in turns 3 and 4 and McMurray limped his car down the frontstretch. All under green. It wasn't until McMurray looped his car in turns 1 and 2 that NASCAR threw the caution.
We get that NASCAR wanted to finish the race under green and hoped McMurray would make it to pit road without incident. But that same courtesy should have been given to Wise earlier in the race. Treating similar incidents very differently isn't a good look. Oh, did we mention that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got back on the lead lap because of Wise's caution too?
Don't give the conspiracy theorists a fresh roll of tinfoil, NASCAR.
• Sunday's race was the first short-track race of the season. And broadcasting a race on a short track is different than one on a 1.5 or 2.5-mile track. But boy, there were a lot of rough spots throughout Fox's telecast on Sunday.
On multiple occasions – especially towards the end of the race – the booth of Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon would be talking about something happening on the track while Fox's cameras were focused on another. Then, either Fox's cameras would swap too late to what the booth was referencing or not switch at all. It was a somewhat-maddening viewer experience.
It would also be appreciated if Waltrip would quit guessing what maladies were affecting cars who had trouble. When Denny Hamlin slammed into the wall, he opined that "something happened to the car." While factually true; Hamlin did crash his car, the phrase provides absolutely no insight whatsoever.
• Thanks to Kevin Harvick's still-very-good-but-not-as-torrid start to the season, the gap from first to 20th in the points standings is 30 points smaller than it was at this point last year. 20th-place Kyle Larson is 95 points back of Harvick. Last year, Greg Biffle and AJ Allmendinger (tied for 19th) were 125 back of Harvick.