Gordon, Stewart top Cup regulars on road courses

It's time to mix things up with NASCAR's first road-course race of the season, and for some the Infineon race couldn't come too soon.

To win a NASCAR championship, drivers have to be well-rounded. They must have skill on short tracks, intermediate speedways, restrictor-plate superspeedways and even road courses. Many in the garage view the two road races as a necessary evil, but the events at Infineon Raceway and Watkins Glen International pay just as many points as the other 34 races on the schedule.

As on every track, 43 cars will start the race on Sunday, but the points implications are different this week. Several teams on the cusp of the top 35 in owner points will employ road ringers to give them their best possible result, which means that cars normally well down the order will be challenging for top-10 positions.

The point spread is greater at the top of the order, but drivers who are vying for a position in the top 12 and a spot in the Chase might well find themselves much further back in the pack when the checkers wave. For a driver like Matt Kenseth -- who sits 14th in the standings without a single road-course top-10 in the past three years -- or 13th-place David Ragan -- who finished 29th and 32nd in his first two twisty track runs -- the points lost this weekend could make a critical difference at the end of the regular season.

Of course, the drivers' concerns are not the same as those for fantasy owners. This week, salary cap management will be far less important than picking the right road ringers, because these specialists have been strong in the past, but far from perfect.

Two Who Rule
While the road ringers will provide the best value this week in terms of cost compared to their finishing position, the Sprint Cup regulars are most likely to win. In the last decade, two drivers have combined for 70 percent of the road-course victories and only one other has more than a single win.

Jeff Gordon owns the all-time record for road-course victories at nine, eight of which have come in the last 10 years and one of which is barely outside that mark. Tony Stewart has six victories on this track type, while Robby Gordon swept Victory Lane at Infineon and Watkins Glen in 2003. That leaves only four remaining races and they have been won by four different drivers. Two of these racers -- Steve Park and Ricky Rudd -- are no longer competing in Cup, leaving only Juan Montoya and Kevin Harvick as active winners.

It's a fair bet that both Gordon and Stewart will battle for the victory again this week, the same as they have in virtually every race they've run head to head.

Gordon won six consecutive road-course races from 1997 through 2000 on the heels of six consecutive top-10s on these two tracks. While he has occasionally run into trouble on the twisty tracks in recent years, he's continued to add to his record with victories in 2001 at The Glen as well as 2004 and 2006 at Infineon. Last year, he was gunning for a 10th win at Watkins Glen before a rare mistake had him wheel hopping off the course in Turn 1. Even with that bobble plus a penalty by NASCAR last June at Infineon that forced him to start at the back of the pack, he swept the top 10 on this track type. This year has been a frustrating one for Gordon as the team has struggled to find the handle on the new body style, but most of his problems have occurred on the downforce, unrestricted, intermediate speedways. This week will provide a welcome relief.

The other favorite this week is also struggling to get his first victory of 2008. Gordon may currently have the all time record, but Stewart has been much more successful in recent years. His first road-course victory came at Infineon in 2001. The next year, he finished second there and won at The Glen. Four of his last seven road races have also ended in Victory Lane, including the most recent attempt in New York last August. He also spun off the course at Watkins Glen in Turn 1 after wheel hopping, but his mistake happened early enough in the race that he was able to overcome it.

Changing Face
Last year, Montoya used a combination of strategy and speed to win at Infineon. He made his final pit stop earlier than most and coaxed the fuel to the end while others with a similar strategy ran out behind him. At The Glen, the No. 42 was running near the front when he and Harvick tangled to end their bids for victory, or else he likely would have factored into the equation late in the Centurion Boats at The Glen. His success is significant because it may signal the changing face of road racing in NASCAR.

This year's crop of rookies has been largely unproductive from a fantasy racing standpoint, but most of them have significant road racing backgrounds. To stay at NASCAR's top level, they are going to have to improve their results on the ovals, but if that happens and their teams are able to develop, these new drivers could become perennial threats to win at Infineon and The Glen. Watch Dario Franchitti, Sam Hornish Jr., Patrick Carpentier, Michael McDowell and second-year driver A.J. Allmendinger closely this week, because they could become legitimate dark horses by the time the series rolls back onto a road course in August.

Other dark horses to watch include veteran Cup regulars such as Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. Edwards was running in the top five at Infineon last June before he had to take his fuel-starved Ford to the pits. If not for that mistake, he would have a four-race streak of road-course top-10s entering this weekend.

Hamlin has never finished worse than 12th in four road-course attempts and last August he finished in the runner-up position to his teammate Stewart at The Glen after running with the leaders all afternoon. Each successive race has shown improvement, and with only one spot to advance, he could contend for victory.

Busch has also gotten progressively stronger on the road courses in his last four attempts. He was 11th at Infineon in June 2006, finished ninth at The Glen later that year and was eighth and seventh on these two courses last year. To make him even more attractive, he won the Nationwide series race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City this spring and he's got more momentum on his side than ever in his career.

There is very little incentive to start them this week, however, because there are several road ringers with successful records to take their place on your roster.

Road Ringers
Sitting 30th in the point standings, only 37 markers ahead of 36th, the No. 01 DEI team will put Ron Fellows behind the wheel of its Chevrolet. The team 32nd in the standings will substitute Scott Pruett for Reed Sorenson and "Mad Max" Papis will campaign the 36th-place No. 66, while Scott Riggs slides into the No. 70.

Joining them will be Boris Said in the Mark Simo-owned No. 60 and Marcos Ambrose in the Wood Brothers No. 21. Each of these drivers has the capacity to earn a top-10 finish, and with the right track position at the end of the race, they could be a surprise winner. Said and Fellows both swept the road course top 15 last year with a best of ninth at Infineon for Said and a fourth at The Glen for Fellows. Both have also won junior division races on NASCAR's two Cup road courses and they deserve a spot on your roster because of the quality of their equipment.

Likewise, Pruett will be a favorite for at least a top-15 if not a top-10 finish in the Ganassi No. 41 Dodge as that team provides a powerful 1-2-3 punch. Former open-wheel drivers Montoya and Franchitti as teammates can only help improve the baseline performance of this car and the owner's plan to get a little more wiggle room in the points will most likely be successful. The last time Pruett was in a Cup car was at the 2006 AMD at The Glen and he finished sixth. He comes with one caveat, however: This same weekend, he will compete in a sports-car race at Mid-Ohio and will have a long commute.

Papis and Ambrose will attempt to make their first Cup race, but their road credentials are impressive. Papis has two senior division road-course victories in the now defunct CART series at Laguna Seca and Portland International Speedway as well as several victories in the SCCA series, while Ambrose is the all-time winner in the V8 Supercar series in Australia. Last year, he almost certainly would have won the Nationwide race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal if not for a retaliatory bump by Robby Gordon that sent him off course with the checkered flag in sight.

Track each of these drivers in practice and liberally season your roster with them based on the results of those sessions.