{"id":8951,"date":"2009-04-13T11:56:01","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T18:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/?p=8951"},"modified":"2009-04-13T11:56:01","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T18:56:01","slug":"automobile-nascar-front-runners-expect-to-be-challengers-at-desert-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/?p=8951","title":{"rendered":"Automobile NASCAR &#8211; Front-runners expect to be challengers at Desert Mile"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Sprint Cup Series return to the track this weekend at Phoenix:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Top 5: Where the elite meet<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A classic battle is shaping up at the top of the Cup Series standings. It&#8217;s a &#8220;battle royal&#8221; if there ever was one: Four of the top five drivers are former series<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Four-time champion Jeff Gordon leading the pack and coming off his first win since November 2007.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Three-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson is second in points, after finishing second to Gordon in Texas.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Kurt Busch is third in the standings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 And two-time champion Tony Stewart &#8212; in his first year as an owner-driver &#8212; is fifth in points&#8230;\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nascar.com\/2009\/news\/headlines\/cup\/04\/13\/pir.storylines\/index.html?eref=\/rss\/news\/headlines\/cup\" target=\"_blank\">Details<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sprint Cup Series return to the track this weekend at Phoenix: The Top 5: Where the elite meet A classic battle is shaping up at the top of the Cup Series standings. It&#8217;s a &#8220;battle royal&#8221; if there ever was one: Four of the top five drivers are former series \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Four-time champion Jeff [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automobile","category-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8953,"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions\/8953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stokednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}