Johnny Benson

Saturday night's Nextel Cup 300-miler at Richmond International Raceway will be the fourth event for NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow, and the best bets to get to Victory Lane are Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, and Tony Stewart.

After posting victories at Phoenix and Talladega, Gordon will be bidding for his third straight win. The last time he won three or more consecutive races was 1998, a year in which he had a career-high 13 victories en route to capturing his third Cup championship.

Working in their favor
It's extremely hard for any Cup driver to win three straight races, but Gordon has a history of running well at Richmond although his last four races there have been disappointing in part due to a wreck and an engine failure.

Gordon's Richmond resume shows two wins, four poles, 10 top-fives and 16 top-10s in 28 career starts. The four-time Cup champion is on top in points and he says he enjoys racing at Richmond because it gives him the chance to race side-by-side lap after lap through the corners.

Richmond is a track that fits Gordon's driving style and with the roll he and the No. 24 team of Hendrick Motorsports are on he's tough to pick against. Plus, Gordon has fared well in the Car of Tomorrow, posting finishes of third at Bristol, second at Martinsville, and first at Phoenix.

Harvick, who is ninth in points, loves this .75-mile oval, and he gets around it extremely well. He won last year’s fall race at Richmond and over his past four races at this track he has extremely impressive numbers. Harvick’s average running position of 3.551 is the best of any driver on any track in the Cup series

Additionally he has the best driver rating (127.8), and his 224 fastest laps run are more than any other driver. Harvick also has the benefit of having tested at Richmond in early April.

In 12 Cup starts at Richmond Harvick has one win, four top-fives, and six top-10s with a 19.8 starting average, a 12.9 finishing average, and 541 laps led.

The Richard Childress Racing driver will be in a chassis used at Bristol when he came from a 40th-place start to finish fourth and at Phoenix when crossed the checkers 10th. He also drove the same car at Martinsville, but a fuel line problem resulted in a 41st-place finish.

Look out for Stewart on Saturday night. This is the two-time Cup champion's 17th start at Richmond, where he has three wins, five top-fives, and 10 top-10s. Stewart's last Richmond victory came in May of 2002, and he placed sixth in this race last year.

Stewart says Richmond is his favorite track and his success there has not been limited to the Cup series. He has two Craftsman Truck Series wins at this short track where he has also raced in the Busch Series.

The chassis Stewart will be in tested at Richmond last month, and he ran it on April 21 at Phoenix, where it qualified ninth and led three times for a race-high 132 laps before finishing second.

Other drivers to watch
One of Harvick's RCR teammates, Jeff Burton, gets around Richmond very well. Burton, who is second in points, has made 25 Cup starts at Richmond posting one win, one pole, seven top-fives, and 12 top-10s. He'll be in the same chassis he drove to a 13th-place finish at Phoenix after starting 31st.

Last year's Rookie of the Year Denny Hamlin is showing no signs of a sophomore slump as he is fifth in points and has three top-five finishes in nine races this season. Hamlin's hometown is Chesterfield, Va. so he has deep racing roots in the Richmond area that go back almost twenty years. No question this event is special to him.

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Hamlin has made eight starts at Richmond, three of them in Cup races. Last fall at Richmond Hamlin started from the pole, but a plug wire problem had him running on only seven cylinders and he came home 15th.

In the spring race, Hamlin impressed with a late-race battle for the win with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior got to Victory Lane and Hamlin settled for second.

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Junior won this event last year. His consistent success at Richmond includes two other wins in May of 2000 and May of 2004. To go with his three wins, he also has seven top-fives, and nine top-10s in 15 starts. Junior should run in the top 10, but I don't know that he'll be a threat for the win.

Two years ago Kasey Kahne dominated this event leading for 242 laps, and in his three Richmond starts after that he has two top-10s. But Kahne has struggled for much of this season so he's not looking like a top contender this time around.