“The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I here to unload my picks for the best races of 2015.
Welcome back to this special edition of The White Zone. Today, I’ll give you my seventh and eighth place picks for the 10 best races of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
As a reminder, this is not a collaborative effort among the Speedway Media staff. This is entirely my opinion.
I know that this list will stir up more debate than my list of the most disappointing races because we all have different standards for every race. As always, leave your thoughts below and tell me what you think.
Yesterday, I gave the number 10 spot on my list to the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway and the myAFibRisk.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
Without further ado, let’s get this countdown back on track to restart the race.
#8 STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway
Leading us to the green flag in eighth place is the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
It would be very hard to do a list like this without including, at least, a race from NASCAR’s last original track. Our first of two trips to the Virginia paperclip this season delivered us a great showcase of short track racing.
For a short track race, the battle for the lead was unusually competitive. With most short track races, it’s not unusual to see maybe 10 to 15 lead changes among four or six different drivers. This one had 31 lead changes among 13 different drivers. There was also the typical caution-heavy carnage that one would expect at Martinsville.
The race had some memorable moments in it. Kevin Harvick led 154 laps, but got hung on the outside lane on a late race restart and his eight-race streak of finishing second or better was snapped. Jeff Gordon was leading the event late in the going before a speeding penalty cost him a chance to score the victory. However, he rallied back from 23rd-place with 34 laps to go to finish ninth. I know Martinsville was always Gordon’s playground, but rallying from 23rd to ninth at a track where cars click off 20-second laps is pretty darn impressive, even for him.
In the end, Denny Hamlin put a lackluster Joe Gibbs Racing stable – as they were struggling for speed at the time – back in victory lane.
While it was a good race, there was nothing that makes it stand out from other races at Martinsville. Maybe it’s just me because I have really high expectations for races at Martinsville, but I can’t think of anything in this event that puts it above the races ahead of this one in this list.
In the context of the 2015 season, I still think the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway was good enough to take the number eight spot on my countdown.
#7 Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway
Taking the lead at number seven is the Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway.
If I had to pick one word to describe this race, it would be nutty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more bizarre race than I saw on this day at the Tricky Triangle.
For the first half of the race, we could hardly go more than 10 laps without a caution. It started just five laps into the race when Kasey Kahne – coming off Turn 3 – lost control of the car, slid down the track and slammed into the inside wall lining pit road. I’m not saying the wall that divides pit road from the race track. I mean the wall that separates the track from the infield area. What was even more strange was that it was almost identical to Jeb Burton’s wreck in almost the exact same spot the day before. On lap 20, race leader Kevin Harvick’s engine expired and he suffered his first DNF in over a year.
What really made this race so bizarre was the way it ended. For those of you who don’t remember, Joey Logano dominated the race and was on his way to his 10th career victory when he ran out of gas on the Long Pond Straightaway and Kyle Busch assumed the lead. A number of cars up front began running out of gas and it played havoc on the final results. After taking the white flag, the No. 18 car began to sputter as the fuel tank ran empty. Matt Kenseth, who was 15 seconds behind Busch when he began his final lap, overtook his teammate in the tunnel turn and scored the victory.
If not for the races ahead of this one on the list, this race would be higher. The action we saw in Long Pond, Pa. was great enough to land the Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway in seventh-place on my list.
Do you agree with the list so far? If not, where do you think I went wrong in the placements? That’s all for part 2. Come back tomorrow for picks five and six.
