Happy Hour: How should the top 7 drivers attack Kansas?

Welcome to Happy Hour. You can tweet or email us your comments throughout the week for our weekly Thursday fun.

Sunday’s race at Kansas marks the halfway point in the Chase. Has it gone by ridiculously quickly for anyone else? And after three 1.5-mile tracks and two one-mile tracks in the first five Chase races, the second half gets a lot more diverse with Martinsville and Talladega sprinkled in.

We’ve talked at length this week about the craziness that happened at Charlotte. It’s doubtful we’ll see anything resembling that on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean there’s no intrigue for Sunday’s race. Five drivers having to be as aggressive as possible while seven drivers can play it safe promises to be good. Right?

Ben’s referencing what Brad Keselowski said about the conservatism the top seven can have at Kansas because of what happened at Charlotte.

While we understand how it can be beneficial for the top seven to attack at Kansas in an attempt to increase the points lead, we’re also not sure the risk is worth it. Again, because of that whole minimizing disaster and downside in the Chase thing.

The worst thing a driver can have happen at Kansas is to have a bad finish that destroys the entirety of the points lead that appeared last week. Sure, a bad finish can happen being conservative — just look at that restart wreck.

But running a less aggressive engine or camber setting lowers the risk of an engine failure or tire blowout. Not putting yourself three-wide immediately after a restart lessens the risk of the car snapping loose and crashing out. Those are the type of things we see as being sensible when you have a giant points lead.

——-

Was Kyle Busch’s win at Kansas [in May] a fluke or did he finally figure that place out? – Jim

Busch’s win in the spring was the product of Martin Truex Jr.’s pit road issues and a strategy to stay out and keep the lead. Oh, and a lack of all lug nuts being fastened on the final pit stop.

We don’t believe in a curse for Busch at Kansas, but the win removes a huge mental block for the 2015 champion. Instead of going to a track where he’s had terrible finishes and remembering about that, he has the success fresh in his brain. That’s important.

Would love to see them. It’s a tired debate, but they’d be a great way to shorten the season (on the calendar) and provide some national sports programming in the dead of summer.

Making the schedule more regionalized would help too. Who’s going to say no to a Sunday-Wednesday-Sunday grouping of Michigan, Kentucky and Indianapolis?

Maybe? The Royals were off in 2015 on race day and played the evening of it in 2014. The Chiefs kick off at 3:25 p.m. local time, meaning there’s probably about an hour of overlap in between the two.

The casual fan effect is overrated nationally, but we do wonder what the local effect is in cities that are hosting races. Local news coverage of racing spikes dramatically when the race is in the area.

Oh, and weather shouldn’t be an excuse either. There will be no rain-delayed Cup race this weekend.

– – – – – – –

Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

Follow @NickBromberg