Back from Martinsville, all 4 of the remaining races in the Chase, beginning with Week 7 at Atlanta, are on intermediate tracks, and 3 of these tracks have seen races earlier in the season.

Race #7 of the Chase / #33 of the Season
October 31, 2005

Track Specs:
1.54-mile oval: banking = 24' (turns), 5' (straits)
Attendance: 124,000

Stats of Note:
Most Recent Track Winner: Carl Edwards (3/05)
Winners at the Track in the Last 5 years: Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Bobby Labonte (2), Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick
Track Race Record: Bobby Labonte ('97)
Best Avg. Finish Among Active Drivers: Carl Edwards (2.0) over 2 starts; Kasey Kahne (4.3) after 3 starts; Jimmie Johnson (12.0) with 8 starts.

Comments:
It's been a wild ride at AMS this year - quite literally given the tornado that struck and severely damaged the facility in early July. The storm destroyed grandstands, tore down a scroing pylon and generally roughed-up the place. Managers, however, were steadfast that repairs could and would be completed in time for the Cup race in October. They appear to be moving in the right direction - the track has already reopened for limited purposes and even played host to the first on-track test of the new Fusion this week. I like a good comeback story... :)

The spring Atlanta race, in March, jumpstarted the beginning of the 2005 Cup season, with Carl Edwards barely edging Jimmie Johnson in the final stretch to become the first driver to secure his first career Busch and Cup victories in the same weekend (and at the same track!). It was a good race, with a fantastic finish! Fans will be well-served if the October race proves similarly unpredictable.

Predictions:
To Win
Greg Biffle finished 3rd in the March race in Atlanta, and declared it one of the worst days of his life. A bit dramatic, I'd say. But, that's the way Biff is - he just expects to be able to bring home the win when he knows he has a car capable of doing it. That intensity is a large part of his break-out season this year, I think... He is capitalizing on the combination of crew and equipment that has finally come together. Well, that plus the fact that he likes driving a loose racecar better than just about any driver on the circuit.

In any case, I will be very surprised if Biff doesn't win at least 2 of the 1.5-milers in the Chase (watch for the intensity to go up yet another notch come Loudin), and Atlanta is an excellent candidate to be one of those wins. This track is one of the few on which Biff has the stats, even outside of this year, to back up such a prediction. He has 3 top-10s in his 5 Cup starts here with an average finish of 13.6 (including one DNF). No win at the track in a Cup car yet, but that's just a matter of time. He also has 5 Busch starts, all of which resulted in top-10s, including 4 top-5s, 2 poles, and a win. Not bad... not bad at all...

To Do Well
OK, so I'd be stupid not to list March winner Carl Edwards as a possibility here. No, I don't think he's going to repeat (just as I didn't think he would at Pocono), but he has a great chassis for the track, and has the will and motivation to be a strong competitor. I'm thinking top 5. He also has the Busch win here from March as well. This track has also been good for another young driver... Kasey Kahne. Now, Kasey's been having a rather uneven season, but this is perhaps his strongest intermediate track. His 3 Cup races here have all been top-5s (2 5ths and a 3rd)... a statistic that no one is going to laugh at. I don't think either of these guys are going to make the Chase (although Carl definitely still has a shot if he finishes well at Indy), but they are young enough to look past that and see this race as an opportunity to gain momentum for 2006.

So, Kahne and Edwards are my young'uns for the race... but really, I'm going to be predictable, safe, and somewhat boring by also throwing Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson into my mix. Sure, these are names that you see me mentioning week after week... but can you blame me? Johnson, the points leader, very narrowly lost this year's March race to Carl, as I mentioned above, so it would be entirely arbitrary to leave him off the list. Oh, and there are also that win and 5 top-5s he has here in the last 8 starts. Tony, the hot hand at the moment of this writing (but we all know how fast that could change), finished an unimpressive 17th (but on the lead lap) in March. Nonetheless, he has a win and 7 top-10s in the last 5 years here, for an average finish of 9.0 in that period. I'll be looking for the 20 among the leaders (not that the ever-present orange paint scheme makes it hard to miss!).

Also watch
I try to shake things up a little with my picks in this category, although too often they aren't all that out-on-a-limb either. This week, I'm going with Brian Vickers, who has a solid, but ininspiring record on intermediate tracks in his 2 years of Cup racing. He seems to have sort of unlocked Atlanta, however, going from 43rd and 21st in his first two races here to 7th and 6th in his two more recent attempts... that's the kind of improvement in a young driver that makes an owner sleep well at night. He turned it up a notch in the June Pocono race, and it looked like he might get his first win there, which, I think, renewed both his confidence and his passion to get that win (and others to follow it). He's hungry, and this is a track he likes.

Next up: Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.