After a week off, NASCAR returns Saturday night with a pair of teammates again leading the way.
After a six-week run featuring races from Virginia to Arizona, Florida to California, the Sprint Cup Series took a hiatus over the Easter holiday -- the first of three byes this season.
With the selection of a select few, the off week came at an opportunist period for many within the NASCAR garage. A time not only to recharge, but also to determine the areas where improvements can be made and then implement the needed changes.
"We needed some downtime," Clint Bowyer said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. "Sometimes when you're running good, you're not really looking for an off weekend or anything like that, but for us we got done with that West Coast swing and were behind and needed some time to get caught up.
Bowyer and Michael Waltrip Racing are among those who see Texas as a chance to resurrect what has been a sluggish beginning to the season. Outside of a seventh in the Daytona 500, Bowyer has shown little with his best other result a 13th two weeks ago at Martinsville Speedway.
"The guys have been working really, really hard. I'm looking forward to getting on the racetrack and seeing what we've got. We've changed some stuff and I know it was for the better on paper -- let's see if it's for the better on the race track."
Yet despite the sense of optimism of those viewing Texas as some sort of fresh start, the early indication suggests not all that much has changed during the off week.
As it has throughout the season, Stewart-Haas Racing again demonstrated it is the class of the field Friday. For the second time in three races, teammates Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick qualified 1-2 earning them the status of co-favorites to win the Duck Commander 500.
"It's an exciting time to continue to make Stewart-Haas stronger," Busch said. "Everybody seems to be pulling the rope in the same direction."
Since returning from a three-week suspension, Busch has two top-five finishes in three races and nearly won at Phoenix International Raceway and Auto Club Speedway. And Harvick has been even more imposing. Before an eighth-place at Martinsville, the defending Cup champion had finished second in eight straight races dating to last season. On the year, he's led 37 of all laps.
"I'm just really proud of (Busch's) team and Kurt and those guys for doing what they do; and really everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing," Harvick said. "I feel like we all get better every week and that's what we need to do."
The definitive answer of where SHR stands to everyone else comes Saturday night, an ideal track to help determine a benchmark of where everyone is at entering a stretch of 11 consecutive races. Similarly to many ovals comprising the Cup schedule, Texas is intermediate in size measuring 1.5-miles and requires a supreme handling car, an optimum aerodynamic package and sheer speed to be successful.
It's no surprise then that a Texas win almost ensures a driver will be strong throughout the course of the season -- the elements necessary to win carryover elsewhere on a multitude of tracks. As each of the past five winners of the spring Texas race would go on to finish no worse than fifth in the year-end point standings.
Texas, however, is also its own entity with a coarse, worn surface that chews rubber up and puts a premium on tire conservation. Whereas most other intermediate tracks have undergone a repave in recent years and do not experience the same kind of tire wear.
"Texas is a very abrasive surface -- it's worn out, similar to California and Atlanta, but it's very unique," Matt Kenseth said. "It's real rough, real flat transitions from the straightaways into the corners and off the corners. It's a tricky race track to get your car fast in the banking, but also to handle the transitions well."
Said Jeff Gordon: "As you're running the race here, you're going to see a lot of cars that are going forward and going backwards and sort of up and down that way as well. It is definitely a rollercoaster ride. It's a tough racetrack."
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