The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will make its way to the Lone Star State for the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Everything is bigger in Texas and that includes the races. The race next week will be a 500-mile marathon in the Midwest. The O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET on Fox.
It will be back to a normal schedule for the MENCS this week. The first practice will be Friday at 3 p.m. ET and qualifying will be at 6:30 p.m. ET (FS1). There will be two practices Saturday for the teams to dial in their cars. The first is at 9 a.m. ET and final practice is at 11:30 a.m. ET. I will post my Garage Talk Notes after final practice.
My early week pick for the pole is Kevin Harvick. I am not sure what the qualifying rules will be for Texas (They should be announced early this week), but if it is anything similar to what we had at Auto Club, Las Vegas and Atlanta; Harvick will have a good chance to win the pole. The No. 4 car won the pole at Las Vegas and qualified 2nd at Auto Club. Stewart-Haas Racing said they could not wait to get to Texas because they knew where they were lacking speeding. Harvick should qualify up front Friday.
Each week I use different stats in my model to create the best rankings possible to give you an edge on the completion. This week I used some past stats at Texas, but my main focus was on the results from Atlanta, Las Vegas and Auto Club. The drivers who were fast in those races should be up front Sunday.
Here are the early week driver rankings for Texas…
|
Driver |
| 1. Kyle Busch |
| 2. Kevin Harvick |
| 3. Brad Keselowski |
| 4. Martin Truex Jr. |
| 5. Joey Logano |
| 6. Ryan Blaney |
| 7. Kurt Busch |
| 8. Kyle Larson |
| 9. Arik Almirola |
| 10. Denny Hamlin |
| 11. Erik Jones |
| 12. Clint Bowyer |
| 13. Chase Elliott |
| 14. Ricky Stenhouse |
| 15. Alex Bowman |
| 16. Austin Dillon |
| 17. Daniel Suarez |
| 18. Jimmie Johnson |
| 19. Ryan Newman |
| 20. Chris Buescher |
| 21. Paul Menard |
| 22. William Byron |
| 23. Matt DiBenedetto |
| 24. Daniel Hemric |
| 25. Ryan Preece |
| 26. Ty Dillon |
| 27. Michael McDowell |
| 28. David Ragan |
| 29. Darrell Wallace Jr. |
| 30. Ross Chastain |
| 31. Matt Tifft |
| 32. Corey LaJoie |
| 33. Landon Cassill |
| 34. Cody Ware |
| 35. B.J. McLeod |
| 36. Reed Sorenson |
* I will post my final driver rankings Saturday evening.
**Stats from Driveraverages.com and NASCAR Media. Career stats from Racing-Reference.Info…
*** Photos from NASCAR Media
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