Top Row Seat - Michigan Preview
Dateline: 08/16/99Last weekend the Winston Cup drivers finished up with the final road course race of the season, now it's time to get back to the business of winning a championship. Michigan Speedway is the next stop on the Winston Cup schedule and many are looking forward to returning to the familiar ground of left-hand turns.
| Race: | Pepsi 400 |
| Place: | Michigan Speedway |
| Distance: | 200 Laps - 400 Miles |
| Time: | August 22, 12:30pm Eastern |
| TV: | ESPN |
In the spring Dale Jarrett thoroughly dominated the race leading three-quarters of the race enroute to an easy victory in the clean-and-green event. Roger Penske's facility is wide and raceable but that sometime leads to very few caution flags which in turn can spread the field out and cause race fans everywhere to doze off.
Jarrett returns to Michigan needing not to run away and hide but rather to post a solid finish and move on. Although DJ would like nothing more than to dominate the race again he needs to focus on the larger picture and worry about staying out of trouble more than he needs to worry about battling his way to the front.
Prediction Time
Watch for an increasingly desperate Mark Martin to make a strong run for the win and for Jeff Gordon to again try to prove that he has not lost any of the magic from the past few seasons. But this weekend's winner is Bobby Labonte. He has won races there in the past and the Joe Gibbs team is ripe for a return to victory lane.
Who do you think will win the race this weekend? Tell the world on the bulletin board. Or you can talk about all things NASCAR in the chat room Wednesday night from 8-9pm EST.
