Welcome to The Pace Lap, your catchall preview post! Let's get you started on race weekend with a metric truckload of stats, facts, opinion and innuendo.
The race: Price Chopper 400, 2:15 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 4 at Kansas Speedway
The specs: 267 laps on a 1.5-mile track
The broadcasts: ABC, plus the live chat right here on Yahoo! Sports.
Defending champ: Jimmie Johnson. Here's where it began last year. Get ready for it all to happen again.
The standings leaders: Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson (-10), Juan Pablo Montoya (-65).
The history: Kansas is one of NASCAR's newest tracks, and it gets grief for being allegedly boring and lacking history. Even so, it's nonetheless hoping to get a second Cup date beginning in 2011. There have been plans proposed to build a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on the site, but that's on hold due to the economy. Trivia to stump your friends: Who's the first guy to win both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races at Kansas? Give people 30 guesses and they won't get it. Answer below.
The appropriate video: From 2002: the wreck that effectively ended Sterling Marlin's ranking as a viable NASCAR driver. Sad to see Sterling hit so hard, but check the young pups here at the front of the pack:
Guy with the most to gain: Jimmie Johnson. He's playing with house money right now; there's not a person alive who thinks that Mark Martin's 10-point lead will hold up for more than three laps. And with most of the remaining tracks favoring Johnson, it's looking like the 48 is gearing up for a historic march at No. 4.
Guys with the most to lose: Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. I'm basically counting out the lowest four guys in the Chase -- Vickers, Edwards, Kahne and Biffle -- and you could probably add Newman to that group, too. But while Hamlin is mired low in the standings, I don't get the sense he'll stay there for long. Stewart and Gordon, on the other hand, haven't shown the ability to rebound in the Chase yet this year, and this could be their last chance to do so before the lead becomes insurmountable.
Our pick to win: Gordon. This is probably the last race I'll pick him in if he flames out again; he's got to start having more consistent runs or he'll be out of the Chase in a matter of weeks. I'm thinking it happens here this week ... or not at all.
All right, you're up. Who's your pick for this weekend? (Will it be Joe Nemechek, answer to the trivia question above? Doubt it.) Go!
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