well I have to say I told you so to the TRD deniers. so a couple notes from a trained eye as I like to say, go back and watch the last lap with harvick and kenseth. here is how it breaks down because there is quite a bit going on. harvick has a run on the high side and pulls the car low off the banking, this means his car suddenly picks up speed in relation to the outside car by virtue of the shorter distance around the track combine this with the run he already has from behind. next as he pulls along side kenseth he picks up a side draft on kenseth. which speeds his car and slows kenseth. that is what was supposed to happen but it didn't quite work out, instead of going to the bottom and picking kahne up from behind which might have won it, kenseth picks up a slight side draft back and crosses first, I am not sure if harvick stays low in the tri oval if it would have been enough, but I am sure the race would have been closer. The interesting thing to me was kenseth through most of the time had no drafting help from behind!!!! its like he simply stepped on the gas. Remember as the leading car you don't want to pull TOO much of a lead, so the leader is also trying to maintain the distance they want and in many cases may be letting off themselves at certain points, of course its always matted coming off turn 4 no matter what.
my strategy for winning the 500 would be if a gibbs car is leading it with 5 to go I would not wait till the last lap to try and make a pass. I think in order to pass them you are going to need a couple laps for another line to form up to have a chance. the gibbs cars just have too much power coming off 4 for a last lap pass to work single file will not get by them it will take a well established inside line to pull off anything on the last lap. The gibbs cars to me look like they are setup to lead the race, hamlin didn't look so good in traffic, maybe he wasn't really trying that hard at that point who knows.
