Same faces challenge for wins weekly

Based off the performance of the teams of Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin during the season - and some of them from last year - we had some insight into how they would perform during the Chase for the Sprint Cup. I'm a little more surprised that we don't have one or two more doing better than they are right now. Most notably, as good as defending champion Tony Stewart was the first part of the season, it seemed he once again would be right in the middle of this and giving everybody a fit and that's not been the case. That's really been kind of a surprise for me. As to that top trio in the standings, I have been surprised that Brad's been able to get two wins in three races. Especially the win at Dover. That race surprised me. But they were good all through the race and I've always contended if you could run in the top five, then it's a short step to Victory Lane. And that's what they did - they finally got that car dialed in after that first stop, and then he hung in there really tough in and around the top-five area the rest of the day and what happened was, when the strategy worked out the way it did, they were the heroes of the day. You've got to put yourself in that position. Two other teams had done that, those of Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin. Obviously, Brad and Paul Wolfe had done their homework just a little bit better, they were just a little bit quicker and at the right place at the right time to take advantage of the strategy.