There have been eight NASCAR Cup races around the 1.5-mile design at Kentucky Speedway and seven of them have been obtained between three drivers, the exact same three drivers that have combined to win the most races in 2019.
Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr, and Brad Keselowski have combined to win 11 of the 18 races this year and they’ve dominated at Kentucky, which is why they’re the favorites to win Saturday night’s Quaker State 400.
Kyle Busch won the inaugural Kentucky race 2011 in the pole and he also won the 2015 occasion. His finish was 12th at 2016. He leads all drivers with six top-five endings, a fifth-place average finish and 549 rebounds led. He won two Truck Series races and three Xfinity Series races and also an ARCA race .
Truex Jr. is connected with Busch with a series-leading four wins this season and has just two top-fives in Kentucky, but they have both come in the last two seasons and they were equally dominating wins. It may be the very dominating. In 2017, he started second, won the first two phases and led 152 of the 274 laps prior to winning. Last year he took it up another notch by winning from the pole, leading 174 laps and winning the first two phases.
Keselowski was the last driver to win at Kentucky until Truex took over. He is the track leader with three Cup wins (2012, 2014, 2016) and he has also got three Xfinity Series wins. He’s led laps in six of his eight Cup starts, including 38 laps led last year when he started fourth and finished third. He has three wins this season and two of these came on 1.5-mile tracks. He is the only driver with multiple wins involving both races run on 1.5s in 2019.
Truex won at Charlotte in May leading 116 laps because of his just win on a 1.5 this season, but amazingly, Busch doesn’t have a win on any of them yet. His wins employing this race package with aero ducts and 550 horsepower arrived on the 2-mile design at Fontana and the 2.5 catchy triangle at Pocono.
The other winners on 1.5s besides Keselowski and Truex happen to be Joey Logano in vegas, Denny Hamlin in Texas, and Alex Bowman at Chicagoland and all three of those should be considered this week also because their chances ought to be boosted higher than normal because of the low odds posted on the 3 favorites.
Logano ought to be a driver. He’s never won a Cup race at Kentucky but has led laps in four of his last five starts there having a best end of jelqing in 2015. He also won three straight seasons in Kentucky in the Xfinity Series (2008-10). He’s been better or third in the previous two races on 1.5-mile tracks.
Bowman will be the real interesting chances look this week based on how strong he has been in the last 3 races on 1.5s — runner-up at Kansas leading 63 laps, seventh at Charlotte, and top 88 laps and winning at Chicagoland two weeks ago. Hendrick Motorsports has turned the corner and I am anticipating more wins from the group in the second half of the year from Bowman, Chase Elliott, and Jimmie Johnson.
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