Keselowski Kicks Ass in Kentucky

Hola Mfers!  Happy pre-4th of July to everyone!  I hope you have a nice long weekend and safe travels if you are heading anywhere...

Keselowski dominated in Kentucky and was the class of the field pretty much all day... but there were some other interesting developments last Saturday.  Let's get to it...

Top Picks:

1st Keselowski - Picked by Dust, Kiss, Pursuit, and Empty.  Dust jumps up 4 spots to 3rd and gets his 3rd win!  Kiss jumps up 2 spots to 7th and gets his 3rd win!  Pursuit jumps up 2 spots to 9th and gets his 3rd win!  Empty jumps up 2 spots to 13th and get his 2nd win.  3 more teams are now locked into the Chase and another got a lot closer.  Nice job guys!

3rd Newman - Picked by Graziano.  Nice Newman pick!  Graziano moves back to 2nd and is only 18 points off the lead.  One win to his credit, but he is only 9 more solid picks from making the Chase.

4th Kenseth - Picked by Chonk, Shepard and Rusty.  Chonk continues his domination, Shepard and his 2 wins inch closer to the 7th spot (18 points away), and Rusty gains a position (12th) and he and his 2 wins are 40 points out of the 7th place spot.

6th Gordon - Picked by Ideal.  Ideal continues his climb up the leaderboard.  He is now tied for 7th, but with only 1 win I deal will need to keep up the good work over the next 9 races.

9th Logano - Picked by Skidmarks.  Locked in team Skid gains another spot back and moves to 4th.  Logano hung on to finish 9th and gave one of our top contenders another solid race!

Eh: 

11th Stewart - Picked by A-Game.  Another disappointing week for our 17th place team.  A-Game will most likely be a spectator for the Chase this year... unless he can drum up 3 WINS in the next 9 races.  Time to dust off your top drivers I would think...

21st Patrick - Picked by Piston.  Fresh off of last week's win, Piston drops a spot to 5th with 2 wins.   

DOOTW: 

37th McMurray - Picked by Beef and Rowdy.  McMurray was a victim of a rookie spin out and got collected in the carnage.  2 of our locked in Chase Teams get the Dutch Oven this week... no worries at all I can only imagine.

BSOTW:

40th Larson - Picked by Penguin, Asleep and Rasta.  Obviously, I thought my favorite Rookie was lock to get his 1st win here, but it was not meant to be.  Penguin drops 4 spots from 2nd to 6th and only 5 points away from being outside the top 7... with only 1 win.  Asleep is locked in the Chase with 3 wins, but drops out of 6th to 11th... if the Chase started tomorrow these would be valuable points lost to start the postseason.  Rasta drops one spot to 15th and is now 81 points away from 7th with 0 wins.  Our 2013 Champion Rasta will most likely be a spectator for the Chase this year... unless he can drum up 3 WINS in the next 9 races.  Time to dust off your top drivers I would think...

Other Ramblings:

Daytona this Saturday.

8 of 17 teams are now locked into the Chase!  4 of them occupy qualifying spots.  Of the other 4 (currently a tie for 7th)  currently occupied qualifying spots only Piston has 2 wins.  The other 3 teams each have 1 win.  Of the 5 teams outside the Top 7 who have not qualified for the postseason, 3 have 2 wins and 2 have 0 wins.

So here are the scenarios I have in my small brain right now for those of us not locked into the Chase:

• Graziano needs 9 solid points weeks or 2 more wins or both... can probably recover from a DOOTW or BSOTW.  CHASE HEALTH
• Piston needs 9 solid points weeks or only 1 more win. CHASE HEALTH
• Penguin needs to recover from this week's BSOTW with 9 solid points weeks or 2 more wins.  CHASE HEALTH
• Ideal has been solid the last several weeks but needs to continue this run over the next 9 races or grab 2 more wins. CHASE HEALTH
• Shepard has also been solid the last several weeks and would need to continue or grab 1 more win.  9 more solid weeks may also grab one of the qualifying spots.  CHASE HEALTH
• Rusty is only 40 points away from a qualifying spot, but only 1 win away from making the Chase. CHASE HEALTH
• Empty is 57 points out, but 1 more win and he can sleep easy.  CHASE HEALTH
• Rasta and A-Game will need to win 3 races of 9 to make the Chase.  CHASE HEALTH