There were eight NASCAR Cup races on the 1.5-mile design at Kentucky Speedway and seven of these have been won between three motorists, the exact same few drivers who 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 have dominated at Kentucky, that is the reason they’re the favorites to win Saturday night’s Quaker State 400.
Kyle Busch won the inaugural Kentucky race in 2011 from the pole and he also won the 2015 occasion. His worst finish was 12th in 2016. He leads all drivers with six top-five finishes, a fifth-place ordinary end and 549 rebounds led. He has also won three Xfinity Series races and two Truck Series races along with also an ARCA race there.
Truex Jr. is tied with Busch using a series-leading four wins this season and has only two top-fives in Kentucky, but they have both come in the last two seasons and they were both dominating wins. It might be the most dominating. In 2017, he began second, won the first two stages and led 152 of those 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 stages.
Keselowski was the last driver to win at Kentucky until Truex took over. He’s the track boss with three Cup wins (2012, 2014, 2016) and he has also got three Xfinity Series wins. He has headed laps in six of the eight Cup starts, such as 38 laps led last year when he started fourth and finished third. He has three wins this season and two of these arrived on 1.5-mile tracks. He is the only driver with numerous wins between both races run on 1.5s in 2019.
Truex won at Charlotte in May top 116 laps for his just win on a 1.5 this season, but amazingly, Busch doesn’t have a win on some of these yet. His wins using this race bundle with aero ducts and 550 horsepower came on the 2-mile design at Fontana as well as the 2.5 catchy triangle in Pocono.
Another winners on 1.5s besides Keselowski and Truex have been Joey Logano at Las Vegas, Denny Hamlin in Texas, and Alex Bowman in Chicagoland and three of those should be considered this week also since their odds should be boosted greater than normal because of the reduced likelihood posted on the three favorites.
Logano ought to be a motorist to search around for the best chances. He has never won a Cup race in Kentucky but has led laps in four of the last five starts there having a best end of jelqing in 2015. In addition, he won three straight seasons in Kentucky at the Xfinity Series (2008-10). He has been third or better in the last two races on 1.5-mile tracks.
Bowman is going to be the real interesting odds appear this week based on how powerful he’s been in the previous three races on 1.5s — runner-up at Kansas top 63 laps, seventh at Charlotte, and leading 88 laps and winning at Chicagoland fourteen days past. Hendrick Motorsports has turned the corner and I am anticipating more wins out of the group in the second half of the year from Bowman, Chase Elliott, and Jimmie Johnson.
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