Lady luck shaking up Sprint Cup standings during the early season
Luck's wild swings, both good and bad, have taken Matt Kenseth for a ride this season.
In Las Vegas last week, he experienced what Mark Martin or Kyle Busch or any one of the other top drivers who had been slammed with the epidemic of bad luck going around NASCAR's Sprint Cup series had felt through the first two races.
On the race's first lap, Kenseth's engine started making funny noises.
On the race's sixth lap, Kenseth's engine had blown up, and he was done. After winning the season's first two races, Kenseth finished the third race dead last.
"I think it's the first failure we've had in over two years," Kenseth said. "These guys do a great job with engines. It's just one of those things that happens now and again."
Between engine failures, rain-shortened races, broken parts and pit-road mistakes, very little has gone as planned. The best teams aren't finishing on top even if their cars are the fastest and the best drivers are making uncharacteristic mental errors.
Because of that, the top-12 looks a little strange right now. But it won't be for long. Through the next 33 races, we'll see the true contenders rise to the top.
Nowhere was the strangeness of this season more clearly in view than last week.
"Yeah, it was an interesting race," Jimmie Johnson said. "I never would have thought the No. 17 would have troubles that early in the race. Those guys rarely break engines, so I was shocked to see that. For a long time there it looked like the winner was going to be the No. 24 or the No. 16 or us."
Jeff Gordon in the No. 24, though poised for a win, erred trying to enter pit road and his tire exploded, setting the team back. They still finished sixth, but might have been able to win without that.
Greg Biffle in the No. 16 faded, too, and finished seventh.
Johnson, while trying to make a move for the win, spun out and finished 24th.
And Kenseth wasn't the only driver with engine trouble. Three Roush Fenway Racing engines blew. Several Toyotas had issues, Mark Martin's No. 5 engine failed and the No. 2 broke a part in its engine.
"I felt like I had a car capable of winning the race," said Kurt Busch, who drives the No. 2. "We just ran into a tough break that didn't allow us to run the entire race on full power. We found a weak link today, but we'll put our heads together and fix it and try to push as hard as we can next week in Atlanta."
In California, the engines of both the No. 5 and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 failed. In Daytona, a nine-car wreck started by contact between Earnhardt and Brian Vickers swept up some of the day's best cars, including Kyle Busch, who thought he had the race's best car. Rain also fell at the wrong time for everybody but Kenseth.
Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck.
And because of the freakish way the season has started, a lot of teams that have started poorly aren't worried yet. They're still leading laps — Johnson has led more than any other driver — and running well.
At some point, the best teams will stop making silly mistakes and their equipment will start working like it's supposed to.
Then we'll see the real contenders. Then we'll see which teams belong at the top and the bottom.
