The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Veteran drivers corner market on contender role
HOMESTEAD, FLA. » NASCAR has spent so much time this year ushering in a new generation of freshfaced, young drivers. Now that it’s championship time, it’s the same old — really old — in the championship four.
The finalists for NASCAR’s championship race Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway are veterans looking to cement their place in history.
Kevin Harvick, who turns 42 next month, has 609 races, 17 seasons and the 2014 championship on his resume . Martin Truex Jr. is 37, a NASCAR journeyman with two secondtier titles and a favorite for the first time to win the Cup championship.
Kyle Busch started so young , he was sidelined to meet the minimum-age requirement of 18. Nearly 15 years later, he’s the 2015 champion and has nearly 200 victories in NASCAR’s three national series. Brad Keselowski has the least amount of time in the Cup Series among his rivals, but he’s 33, has a 10-year career and was the 2012 champion.
So Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon will have to wait their turn. The highprofile stars of NASCAR are the show Sunday.
The highest finisher of the four contenders will take the title, and few expect anyone from this bunch to be rattled.
“These guys are (not) going to cave in and give up on what they’re doing,” Harvick said. “Three of us have won championships, and Martin has won a lot of races this year. Our intention is to go down there and win the championship,
and I think if you’re one of those four and you don’t have that mentality, you’re not prepared for what you’re getting into.”
Indeed, Sunday has the makings of one of the better showings in NASCAR’s championship history.
Truex has won seven races this year and leads the series in nearly every statistical category. He has been the fastest of the contenders all weekend, and anything short of a victory would be a deflating end to a dream season.
“I’m ready to go,” Truex said after leading Saturday’s final practice .
Truex and the Denver, Colorado-based Furniture Row Racing team have excelled through adversity all season: Truex’s longtime partner, Sherry Pollex, had a recurrence of ovarian cancer; a mechanic died of a heart attack the night before Truex’s win last month at Kansas; and team owner Barney Visser is sidelined in Colorado because of emergency heart surgery a week ago.
Then Truex scraped the wall during Saturday practice and his crew — with a borrowed mechanic from Toyota teammate Busch’s team — had to hammer away any damage.
“The teamwork has been amazing all year long, and that’s what’s got us to this point, both of us really,” Truex said.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will retire from full-time racing after Sunday , is openly rooting for his hunting buddy. Earnhardt gave Truex his start in the sport, and Truex went on to win a pair of second-tier titles driving for Earnhardt’s team.
“Drivers have such big egos, all of us do, but Martin is not on that list,” Earnhardt said. “He just doesn’t abuse the opportunity and what the sport has provided him. I just think that says so much about his character as a person and a man.
“I don’t know how you put into words what it would mean for him to win. It is bigger than words. It would be popular among his peers and around the garage and the industry for sure because everybody knows what kind of person he is. I think that whole team has that reputation.”