\nDate: Saturday, April 18, 2009
\nTime: 8:46 PM EST (scheduled Green Flag)
\nTV: 8:00 PM EST on FOX<\/strong><\/p>\n
Preview<\/strong>:\u00a0 There are a lot of unknowns going into this weekend’s race, the first Saturday night race in the 2009 Sprint Cup<\/strong><\/a> season.The lack of testing is affecting some teams adversely.\u00a0 Phoenix is a uniquely shaped one-mile oval with two very different ends.\u00a0 Drivers often give up speed at one end to achieve it in the other and it’s difficult to find a set-up that lets the car handle well at both ends of the track.\u00a0 The race will start in daylight and end in darkness, but the early going will have drivers heading down the frontstretch looking directly into the bright Arizona sun. 1. Jimmie Johnson (+330):<\/strong>\u00a0 Johnson is the odds-on favorite here and why not?\u00a0 He’s won the last three Sprint Cup races at PIR and Hendrick has won the last four, with teammate Jeff Gordon in VL just before Johnson.\u00a0 Jimmie’s stats are amazing – a series-leading average finish of 5.5 in 11 starts, with three wins and nine top-10 finishes.\u00a0 His worst-ever finish in Phoenix was 15th back in 2005.<\/p>\n 2. Jeff Gordon (+540):\u00a0<\/strong> Fresh off his Texas win, Gordon’s No. 24 team is clearly in the groove, leading the Sprint Cup series points and posting top-5s in five of the last six races.\u00a0 Gordon won this race in 2007 and finished 13th here last year.<\/p>\n 1. Jeff Burton (+2400):<\/strong>\u00a0 This is typically a GM track and over the course of the last five Phoenix races (both spring and fall) Burton ranks fourth in total points accumulated.\u00a0 He knows how to get around PIR, having won here twice, and is riding a wave of three straight top 10s on the desert oval.<\/p>\n
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Safe Bets:<\/h3>\n
Dark Horse:<\/h3>\n