Well, it is finally here. The Chase for the Nascar Sprint Cup: 2015. And yet again, the kick-off race is held at Chicagoland Motor Speedway. For years, Chicagoland has hosted Nascar races, and it has produced more than a few exciting finishes. Last year Kyle Larson was racing Kevin Harvick for his first career win, when out of nowhere, Brad Keslowski stormed by them and won. A future classic.

Chicago is only raced at once a year, and we always seem to get a new group up front every time. However, there is one driver who usually is at or at least near the front. Tony Stewart. He has the record for the most wins here (3), and he would love nothing more than to add to that total.

However, there are sixteen other drivers who all are racing for a championship, and they will all be driving like crazy to try to win. Of the chase drivers, only two of them have notable success here. Brad Keslowski and Matt Kenseth. Keslowski has the stats, but Kenseth has the speed. Brad has won here twice, but his speed as of late has been below his normal average. Kenseth, on the other hand, has lots of speed. And he won the 2013 race.

However, don’t count out any of the other Chase drivers. All of them are now racing for a championship, and that can work wonders on a normally slow team. A couple to watch are Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Jamie McMurray. All three are running well, and would love to start the Chase making some noise.

One strange thing about Chicagoland, is that more often than is common,  this race is determined by fuel mileage. That complicates things for Chase drivers. After all, if you run out of fuel late in the race, you could lose tons of points for that. That makes things easier for non-chase drivers who have nothing to lose.

That said, who will hoist the trophy on Sunday? Well, if comes to an all out run for the finish race, Matt Kenseth is the driver who I would pick to win. However, should it come to fuel mileage, there are two drivers I would go for. Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards. Quite the pair, isn’t it? Stewart is a very good fuel saving driver, and Edwards’ crew chief, Darian Grubb, is the best guy to have on the pit box for a race like that. So those are my picks for Sunday.