This article is part of our Weekly Preview series.
For the second consecutive week we stay out west and head from Nevada to Arizona. This week NASCAR's top racing series stops at one of the more unique tracks on the circuit, Phoenix Raceway. The track at Avondale, Ariz., is an irregular "D-shaped" oval with very low, progressive banking in the corners of eight to 11 degrees. The straights are nearly flat at a lowly three degrees, and very fast as they carry off into the sweeping corners.
This oval is vastly different than Daytona, Homestead and Las Vegas. Phoenix boasts the high speeds that borders on intermediate ovals with the close confines of short track racing as well. As we have witnessed in the last several years, it's often the driver who brings the fastest car to the Arizona desert that walks away with the trophy. This race is typically marked by dominant performances, and very rarely by late momentum swings that catapult drivers into victory lane. The driver who has led the most laps at this oval has won four of the last five Phoenix races. This is a trend that will likely continue this Sunday.
Since we are making our first stop of the season in the Arizona desert this week, we can only really look back on past statistics for Phoenix Raceway. This style of racing is a big departure from the standard ovals and Daytona that we've spent the first four weeks of the season competing on. At this point we're tracking trends, but the
