iNSIDE SCOOP: Tick, Tock…

Usually, the drivers who win races in NASCAR’s top division win races on a regular basis. By that, I mean they usually don’t go a full season or more without at least winning once. 

Matt Kenseth used to make a yearly effort to win at least once, and then top-five and top-10 you to death on the way to a good points finish. That’s at least part of the reason we have had the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup these past 10 seasons.

As a result, several drivers have streaks on the line in the final six races of the season.

Denny Hamlin has won at least once every season that he’s been a full-time competitor in the series, starting in 2006. He hasn’t won yet this year, and hasn’t really challenged for a victory since the fifth race of the season.

Of course, he had a fractured vertebrae after a crash at Auto Club Speedway, and has dealt with constant pain ever since, but that’s just part of the story. He and crew chief Darian Grubb have backslid a bit from last year’s performance.

Clint Bowyer has won at least one race in every season since 2010, Brad Keselowski has a two-season streak going starting in 2011 and so does Jeff Gordon.

Of course, Gordon has 87 victories in his career, so it’s not like he’s been a stranger to Victory Lane.

Marcos Ambrose has a two-year streak as well, both road-course victories at Watkins Glen and he missed his shot this year in the shoot-‘em-up skirmish there in August. Unless he gets a shot at Talladega, that one might be by the boards.

And then there’s Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is working on making a streak after winning at Michigan last year.

Junior has run much better of late, and he could win at Charlotte, Talladega, Texas, Martinsville or Phoenix. Of course, he might not, either. 

What that tells me is that success is not just having the best stuff, the best crew and the best driver. It’s about circumstances.

Hamlin was in contention to win at both Bristol and Auto Club before getting into it with Joey Logano at both places. Since then, he’s had worse luck than Sad Sack.

Bowyer was seen widely as a Chase contender until Richmond, when his spin set the whole sport on its ear. Brian Pattie didn’t forget how to set up a car and Bowyer didn’t forget how to drive in the four races since, so karma had something to do with it.

Gordon has run well most of the season, and never better than since he was installed in the Chase as a result of that Bowyer spin and Logano’s “deal” with Front Row at RIR.

Keselowski is a tougher nut to crack. He won the title last year by doing everything right at exactly the right time. This year, it was out of whack a lot. He didn’t get the breaks he had last year, and when he did, he couldn’t capitalize. The Texas imbroglio with the laser measurement device also had something to do with that, I imagine, but it didn’t seem to hurt Logano all that much.

Ambrose is a heck of a driver, but he’s better on road courses than on ovals. He has been fast all year, but when Sonoma and Watkins Glen came and went without a trip to Victory Lane, he was pretty much toast.

At the same time, Matt Kenseth has won seven times, Jimmie Johnson five times and Kyle Busch four times. Kevin Harvick has won three times for a lame-duck operation that he will leave at the end of the season. That’s 19 of 29 right there.

Carl Edwards and Kasey Kahne have each won twice, making it 23 of 29, and Logano, Ryan Newman, Martin Truex Jr., Tony Stewart, David Ragan and Greg Biffle all have won once.

Time is running out on the streakers, which means that it might be more wild and crazy than we expected over the last seven races.