Benny Parsons

Matt Kenseth, who has been coming on since the start of June, is hoping for a big summer, and I think he's the driver to beat in this Sunday's Nextel Cup race at New Hampshire International Speedway.

Working in Kenseth's favor
The 2003 Cup champion has something to prove as he sits 16th in the championship standings, 178 points shy of qualifying for the Chase for the Championship.

Kenseth and his team have kicked it in gear the last month and a half. Throw out a 32nd-place finish at Pocono, and in the five other races since the beginning of last month, Kenseth has an average finish of 6.6.

That stretch has enabled Kenseth to climb seven spots in the championship standings, and last week he had a dominant car at Chicagoland, leading 176 laps of the race before finishing second.

At New Hampshire last year Kenseth won the Busch Series event and in the Cup races he was fourth in the summer and second in the fall.

In his ten Cup starts at New Hampshire, Kenseth has finished in the top-five four times, and in the top-ten six times. He also has won one pole at the one-mile oval.

Kenseth and crew chief Robbie Reiser are very pleased with the consistency the No. 17 team has shown of late, and they will be bidding for their sixth straight top-ten finish at New Hampshire.

It all seems to be coming together for Kenseth and that may result in his first win of the season come this Sunday.

Other drivers to watch
Kurt Busch swept the summer and fall Cup races at New Hampshire last year, but the way he's been struggling this season, I think the defending Cup champion has to be concerned more with finding consistency than with winning races.

Busch led 110 laps in this race a year ago, and 155 laps last fall at New Hampshire.

He has four top-10 finishes in eight races at New Hampshire.

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I expect that Tony Stewart will make a serious bid for a win in New Hampshire.

Stewart has a month's worth of momentum, with a second-place finish at Michigan, back-to-back wins at Sonoma and Daytona, and a fifth-place finish last week at Chicagoland.

Stewart, who has risen to third in the championship standings, has three top-threes, six top-fives, and seven top-10s in his 12 career Cup starts at New Hampshire.

Jeff Gordon, a four-time Cup champion who has struggled this season may be able to get things going in the right direction at New Hampshire, where he has three career wins -- the last of which came in 1998.

A year ago at this track, Gordon posted two top 10s, placing second in this race and seventh in the fall event.

Michael Waltrip had a pair of top 10s a year ago at New Hampshire, sixth in this race and ninth in the late September event.

The first Cup win of Ryan Newman's career came at New Hampshire in September of 2002. In that race Newman had the pole, but to get the win he had to hold off Kurt Busch in the rain-shortened event.

In Newman's six starts at New Hampshire, he has one win, four top-fives and five top-10s.

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Jimmie Johnson's two races at New Hampshire last year both saw him start second and come home 11th. 

Johnson sits atop the championship standings, and his comeback from a lap down to finish third last week at Chicagoland was unbelievable.

Two years ago he swept the Cup races at New Hampshire, and he recently tested at the one-mile oval in an attempt he said to "find the next trick to find some more speed for our cars -– especially on the flat tracks."

Greg Biffle, who is second in the championship standings, will bring to New Hampshire a chassis he raced with earlier this season at Martinsville. The chassis has been completely re-bodied and the change has produced quite a few good runs this season.

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