Among the drivers entered this week in the Nationwide Series race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, three share the mark for most top-fives with eight: Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth. Fitting, seems how each driver also holds a mark of their own at the track.
4Wins by Kyle Busch, most of any driver entered in this week's race.
4Poles for Matt Kenseth, most in track history. He is the last driver to win from the pole, in October 2000, marking just the eighth time in 55 races it has happened.
15Top-10s for Jeff Burton, most in track history. He has three wins among his 31 starts.
Both Busch and Burton have current five-race top-10 streaks, while Kenseth has started on the front row in each of the past four races he has entered (he did not race at LMS in 2008).
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.8Difference in average finish between Justin Allgaier (24.0 in two starts) and Steve Wallace (24.8 in four races), the two drivers battling for the fifth position in points. (Allgaier holds the spot by 52 points). Each driver posted their best finish at LMS in May, with Allgaier finishing 14th and Wallace 17th, for a difference of nine points.
1Times Brad Keselowski has started better than 30th in six total starts: 12th in May 2008. In his four races at LMS in JR Motorsports' No. 88 Chevy, he has a 7.5 average finish.
2Career wins for Mike Bliss, both at LMS. Bliss won there in 2004 and again this year in May.
2.0Average place of finish in two races for Ryan Newman, who will make his first start at LMS since October 2005. He finished third and first in two races that year. This week, he's entered in Kevin Harvick Inc.'s No. 33 Chevy.
6Place of finish in the May race this year for Jason Leffler, his first top-10 in the past seven starts and just his third overall in 12 races.
8Times a driver has won three consecutive races in the Nationwide Series. Joey Logano is trying to add to that list. In two starts at LMS, he has finished 14th and fifth, the latter in the May race this year.
9.8Negative difference between average starting position (6.3) and average finish (16.1) for Carl Edwards. He has finished better than he started one time in nine races.
THE BUSCH WATCH
Last week, an ill Kyle Busch exited his car after leading 36 laps, then lost 90 points off his championship lead when relief driver Denny Hamlin wrecked late in the race. Busch led a race-high 98 laps at LMS in the rain-shortened event in May, finishing third.
4Consecutive top-three finishes for Kyle Busch at LMS, including a sweep in 2008.
THE WOW FACTOR
4DNFs for Tony Stewart at LMS, one more than races he has finished. Three times those DNFs were for crashes, one more than top-10s. He'll make his first start at LMS since October 2006, driving JR Motorsports' No. 5 Chevy.
THE SUPER LOOPER
20.3Difference in Driver Rating for Kasey Kahne at LMS between the Cup Series (99.5), where he is a three-time winner, and the Nationwide Series (79.2), where he has one win but only three top-10s in 14 starts.
Driver Rating (since 2005, nine races)
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| Pos. |
Driver* |
Starts |
Rating |
Pct. Laps / Top 15 |
Avg. Run Pos. |
Avg. Fin. |
| 1. |
Ryan Newman |
2 |
138.3 |
100 |
2.8 |
2.0 |
| 2. |
Kyle Busch |
9 |
115.7 |
78.5 |
10.0 |
10.2 |
| 3. |
Matt Kenseth |
5 |
107.3 |
79.0 |
9.6 |
21.0 |
| 4. |
Joey Logano |
2 |
106.8 |
75.4 |
8.0 |
9.5 |
| 5. |
Jeff Burton |
7 |
106.1 |
80.2 |
10.8 |
9.3 |
| 6. |
Brian Vickers |
4 |
103.3 |
74.0 |
9.4 |
6.3 |
| 7. |
Carl Edwards |
9 |
100.1 |
67.2 |
11.7 |
16.1 |
| 8. |
Brendan Gaughan |
1 |
88.8 |
55.9 |
14.1 |
2.0 |
| 9. |
Michael McDowell |
1 |
80.8 |
77.1 |
12.8 |
20.0 |
| 10. |
Kasey Kahne |
8 |
79.2 |
40.3 |
21.4 |
19.6 |
BLAST FROM THE PAST
3Wins at LMS for Rob Moroso, coming consecutively in his final three starts there. His victory there in October 1989 was the sixth and final one of his career. He made two more series starts to finish out the year and was running in the Cup Series in 1990 when he was killed in a traffic accident that September.