The middle race of the Round of 8 drops the green flag on Sunday at Texas. It’s the second time the Fort Worth track has held a Cup race this year with the last time being the last weekend in March. While it is a 1.5-mile track, it’s a not a cookie-cutter one with two different degrees of banking in the corners and it is a quad-oval instead of a tri-oval. Turns 1 & 2 are tilted at 20 degrees from the apron up to the wall and turns 3 & 4 are banked at 24 degrees giving the drivers a chance to really build speed throughout the lap until getting off the throttle just a touch on entrance of Turn 1. With the shape of the track and the banking on it, Texas is comparable to Kentucky and Charlotte in terms of similar races and tracks.

Texas hosted its first race in April 0f 1997 and since then has played host to 37 Cup races. As you’ll see in the table below, the winners have been pretty well spread out over that span with the Pole sitter only winning three times and none since...