Thursday

Busch-Kahne Showdown Enters Season Second Half

The end of June is generally the point of departure for the season’s second half, and with the sport’s playoff format kicking off in mid-September that point of departure has become more marked. With the end of the first half of the “regular” season as well as the calender season now upon the sport, a look at who stands where gives clues on what might transpire in the run to the playoffs and final run to the title.

The showdown that merits watching as the run to the playoffs kicks off is between Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne. Kyle Busch has led the points pretty much since the start of the season and with five wins is head and shoulders above most of his pursuers performance-wise. His surge to the front has caught some by surprise, but one should not have expected any less from the combination of Busch’s aggressive attack on tracks and traffic with Toyota’s horsepower and resource edge, a combination that has JGR on a path for its fourth title this decade.

But in the last month a legitimate rival has emerged, and it is Kasey Kahne of Gillett-Evernham. Voted into the All-Star Race by fans, Kahne surprised a lot of people, including apparantly himself, by winning it. But from there it’s been upward and outward with a win at the World 600 and another at Pocono to go with second at Michigan, the first three top fives of Kahne’s season. His five additional top tens despite a dismal Sears Point kept him in point contention, and now his surge in power is putting him into a shot at the title.

The points spread between Busch and Kahne should not fool anyone, because Kahne has pounced when Kyle Busch began running out of steam; Busch’s cutback in running support series races is clearly a result of the slump that hit in the last few weeks, but even with the Sears Point win Busch may not be able to get all the momentum from Kahne, who showed in 2006 that when he gets momentum he runs with it for the bulk of a season.

This, though, should not be considered a counting out of Busch, as emphatically made clear by the Sonoma rout. What it illustrates is that the title fight appears ready to come down to these two. Of the other ten drivers in playoff contention entering Sears Point, none impress as much as Busch and Kahne. Dale Junior ended a two-season winless streak, but needed fancy fuel mileage to do it. Jeff Burton has been consistent all season but has not shown anything like the kind of raw muscle needed to take on Busch and Kahne. Carl Edwards won three races in the first half, but since then has struggled to find that magic. The Hendrick and other Roush racers have been hot and cold all season (Jeff Gordon’s third at Sonoma was a rare “hot” finish), as has been Busch’s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin; his other teammate, Tony Stewart, suddenly doesn’t look committed to winning a championship with JGR amid continuing scuttlebutt about his post-2008 situation. RCR’s other two drivers are both in playoff contention but none of the RCR Chevys shows the muscle needed to truly take on the two strongest contenders right now.

Realistically it will take a miracle for anyone else to get a sniff of the playoffs, even with surprising improvement David Ragan on the short underside of the playoffs entering Sears Point. The only non-Chaser with any kind of hope of a wildcard run appears to be Brian Vickers, because he has Toyota power and has been stringing together some superb efforts the last number of weeks.

Other than this, the 2008 Chase looks to be a Busch-Kahne showdown as the season enters its second half.