The Controversy
As of last night, I had this about 80% written in my head, then Nascar dropped the bombshell on us this morning. Let's look back to Saturday night. With 7 laps to go Ryan Newman is cruising toward his 2nd win of the season and securing the 2nd wild card spot when all of a sudden Clint Bowyer, teammate to Martin Truex Jr. who is also battling for that wild card spot, spins out on his own bringing out the caution. This brings all of the leaders down pit road and Newman loses the lead and falls to 5th place, giving Truex new life. At this point Truex is now ahead of Newman in points, however, Jeff Gordon has now passed Logano for 10th in points and Logano now holds the final wild card spot. After the restart, Ty Norris, spotter for Brian Vickers, another Truex teammate, calls Vickers to pit road saying "We need the point". Clint Bowyer also pits several times in the final laps and this allows Joey Logano to pass them both and retake 10th in points, knocking Gordon out of the Chase and giving Truex the final Chase spot over Newman.
Now it's speculated that Bowyer spun himself out on purpose setting up the events that led to his teammate making the Chase, but there is no proof of that. There is proof, however, of the 55 team of Vickers telling him to pit to help Truex get that final spot in the Chase. Nascar reviewed all the evidence and penalized each MWR team and driver 50 points, causing Truex to fall out of the Chase and putting Newman back into the Chase. Nascar has now set the standard for how to handle team orders that affect the outcome of races and points battles. It will be interesting to see how this comes into play in the future with Nascar's history of inconsistent penalties. But this is all a mess because as much as these events hurt Ryan Newman and benefited Martin Truex, it hurt Jeff Gordon and benefited Joey Logano. As of 7 laps to go in the race, it was Newman and Gordon in, and Truex and Logano out, but nobody seems to be talking about that, so I'll let it go.
Heartbreaks
This turned out to be a really rough break for Martin Truex Jr. Here's a guy who was out of the Chase, then told he's in, celebrates all weekend, starts preparing for a championship, then is told he is out of the Chase for something his teammates did and is penalized 50 points dropping him from 12th to 17th in points. I'm ok with them penalizing him to put Newman in the Chase, but 50 points for Truex is a bit drastic for him only being the beneficiary. I would rather have them penalized him only 5 points. It still would have put Newman in the Chase and Truex wouldn't have as much of an uphill battle for the 13th spot with Gordon and Keselowski.
And again I want to touch on Jeff Gordon because this affected him as well. I'm surprised we haven't heard anything from Rick Hendrick yet regarding the issue. Dale Earnhardt Jr. immediately said Bowyer's spin was way out of the ordinary, but other than that we've heard nothing.
For the 2nd time since the inception of the Chase the defending champion has failed to make the Chase. The first time was in 2006 when Tony Stewart missed the Chase by just 16 points after struggling at Richmond and Kasey Kahne took the 10th spot from him. But that was a different point system and Tony really only lost it by 6 spots. Keselowski missed the Chase by 42 points this year. I honestly do not know what happened with that team this year. They had been so dominate the past year and a half and the only change this year was changing manufacturers. You can't even really look at that as being a valid excuse though with how well his teammate has run this year. So I'm at a loss.
Feel Good Stories
The best feel good story of this year's Chase has to be Kurt Busch and Furniture Row Racing. Here's a team that came into the sport in 2005 on a part time basis with Kenny Wallace as their driver. They took a lot of heat for being a single car team with it's shop in Denver, Colorado, when every other team in the sport is based out of Charlotte. They brought in Joe Nemechek to share driving duties with Wallace in 2007 and attempted to go full time with Nemechek in 2008. In 2009 they went back to part time with new driver Regan Smith and were back to full time racing in 2010. The team was slowly building a reputation, but it wasn't until May 7, 2011 in the Southern 500 at Darlington that they really turned heads when Regan Smith took them to victory lane for the first time. That was also Smith's first career victory. The team then became a dark horse to make the Chase, but they would remain just a dark horse. At the end of the 2012 season FRR made a controversial decision in hopes to take his team to the next level. They hired Kurt Busch, the former Cup champion trying to rebuild his image after some off track altercations that led to his dismissal at Penske Racing. It was an odd coupling, but mutually beneficial. It didn't take long for this team to prove that they were a legitimate contender and even though they have not yet seen victory lane together, a solid summer topped off with a season's best runner up finish at Richmond has locked this team into the Chase, becoming the first single car organization to ever make the Chase. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the pressure over the next 10 races.
Another feel good story is that of Joey Logano. Once dubbed the "best thing since sliced bread" by Mark Martin, Joey was turning heads all over the sport before he even sat in a Cup car. Joe Gibbs saw the potential in the young driver and signed him to a contract. After a half season and one win in the Nationwide series, Gibbs brought up the talented youth full time to the Cup series at the age of 19 to replace 2 time Cup champ Tony Stewart. Despite winning one race in his rookie season, a rain shortened race at New Hampshire, Logano had a lackluster season with just 7 top 10's, an average finish of 20th, and finished 20th in points. Over the next 3 seasons Joey would have just one more win, 34 top 10's, and would not finish better than 16th in points. At the end of last season JGR decided to let Logano go and replace him with former Cup champ Matt Kenseth. Logano was picked up by Penske Racing to replace suspended AJ Allmendinger and team up with Cup champ Brad Keselowski. Now 2 years ago I said how I couldn't believe how Brad Keselowski could go out there and continuously win Nationwide races by beating out Cup veterans like Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, etc., but do so miserably in the Cup series. He must've heard me say that because 2 weeks later he went on a tear to finish out the season and then won the Championship the following season. This season I asked myself the same question about Joey Logano, who has 20 career Nationwide wins and 11 wins in the past 2 seasons. Joey has finished in the top 10 in 6 of the last 7 races, has an average finish of 7.4 in that span, and is arguably the hottest driver entering the Chase. Does that mean he has a championship on the horizon for next year? Who knows, but Brad Keselowski certainly thinks he's the favorite this year (of course he is Logano's teammate, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything.)(Not So) Lame Ducks
Another interesting story line is that we have 3 drivers in the Chase who are in a "Lame Duck" scenario. Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch have already announced that they are going to Stewart Haas Racing next year and Ryan Newman just signed a contract with Richard Childress Racing for next season. How will these 3 drivers and teams fare in the Chase knowing that they will not be with those teams in the future. Will their teams protect (hide) information from their parting drivers' as to not have that information relayed to competing teams? It will certainly be intriguing to see. Teams in "Lame Duck" situations have not fared well in the past, but Kevin Harvick and the 29 team have been in that status for the entire season and have won 2 races and are currently 4th in points, which certainly out of the ordinary. Can they keep it up?The "Out" Crowd
There have been 90 Chase races in it's 9 year existence (easy math) and only 15 of those races have been won by drivers outside the Chase. That's an average of 1.67 per season. So we'd be safe to assume that 1 or 2 of the next 10 races will be won by drivers outside the Chase. But that's not always the case. Both last year and in 2008 all 10 Chase races were won by Chase drivers and in 2006 5 races were won by Non-Chasers (3 by Stewart, 1 by Vickers, and 1 by Biffle).
I'm thinking this season we can have as many as 6 races won by Non-Chasers. Jeff Gordon, Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin could easily win a race or two. Martin Truex, Brian Vickers, and David Ragan have already won races this year and could win again (If Talladega weren't on the upcoming schedule I would have left Ragan out). Anybody can win at Talladega, keep an eye out for Ragan's teammate David Gilliland. Juan Montoya has been really strong lately and has come within a couple of laps of winning TWICE this year. Jamie McMurray has won 2 of those 15 races and is coming off a strong run at Richmond. And Paul Menard and Aric Almirola were really strong at the start of the year and could sneak in there too.
Predictions
Now it's time for everybody's favorite part, my predictions. Looking back at my previous installments, I correctly guessed 6 Chasers preseason, 9 in the first quarter review, and 8 in the halftime report. Hmmm.....it seems as though I slipped a little in that last one. Oh well. So who's the favorite? Jimmie Johnson who has completely dominated the whole season? Hmmm...his average finish of 36th over the past four races certainly killed his momentum. Carl Edwards, the guy that won the regular season points race? Wait? What? Carl Edwards had the most points after Richmond? With the exception of his 2 wins, I don't think I ever saw him on the track this year. Ok, it's gotta be Clint Bowyer, right? He finished 2nd to Keselowski last year and with Brad not in the Chase last year that leaves Clint, but he hasn't even won a race yet this year. How about Joey Logano? He does have the best average finish over the last 6 races, but he's a Chase rookie and no Chase rookie has ever won the Championship (Except for Kurt Busch, but everyone was a Chase rookie that year). Hmmm....this is gonna be tough. Here goes nothing.
12. Kurt Busch, -162.
I think this team may have reached their peak. If Kurt hadn't already announced he was leaving, I may have thought otherwise. They will have 1 top 10 and struggle the rest of the Chase. Best finish 9th. Worst Finish 39th.
11. Joey Logano, -119.
This team is going to gain a lot of experience, but it's their lack of experience that will hurt them. 1 top 5, 3 top 10's. Best finish 4th. Worst finish 38th.
10. Ryan Newman, -118.
The good news is justice was served and they made the Chase. The bad news is they may unintentionally get sidetracked preparing for the arrival of Kevin Harvick and take themselves out of contention early. 2 top 5's, 2 top 10's. Best finish 5th. Worst finish 31st.
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr., -96.
Jr. and crew have kind of fallen off lately and I'm not sure why. 1 top 5, 4 top 10's. Best finish 3rd. Worst finish 41st.
8. Greg Biffle, -78.
Biffle has been a consistent top 15 guy this year...that ain't gonna cut it. 1 top 5, 3 top 10's. Best finish 4th. Worst finish 23rd.
7. Kyle Busch, -44.
Kyle's problem has always been inconsistency and overdriving the car. I think he may be the most talented driver in the series, but he is also the stupidest. 1 win, 3 top 5's, 3 top 10's. Worst finish 36th.
6. Kasey Kahne, -42.
Kasey has had a lot of ups and downs this year. Eventually he will be a championship contender, but this year they have had too many problems. 4 top 5's, 5 top 10's. Best finish 2nd. Worst finish 33rd.
5. Matt Kenseth, -31.
If Kenseth can avoid a catastrophic event like an engine failure during the Chase he'll be a contender, but asking a JGR car to go 10 races without an engine failure is like asking a 5 year old to go 10 minutes without talking. 1 win, 3 top 5's, 6 top 10's. Worst finish 40th.
4. Kevin Harvick, -26.
Mr. Where Did He Come From will slowly sneak his way into the picture in the final few races. 2 top 5's, 6 top 10's. Best finish 4th. Worst finish 29th.
3. Carl Edwards, -19.
Oh! So that's how he did it! Carl only finished outside the top 20 four times this year. That strategy will get you far, but you also need top 5's and top 10's to win it all. 2 top 5's, 5 top 10's. Best finish 3rd. Worst finish 15th.
2. Clint Bowyer, -5.
Clint just very well may take the title of "Closest to winning the championship without winning a race" from Matt Kenseth. He'll need to win a race or 2 to win the title. 5 top 5's, 7 top 10's. Best finish 2nd. Worst finish 18th.
And the winner is......
1. Jimmie Johnson
If any team can shake off a bad month, it's this team. They have been so incredibly solid this year that I just can't imagine them not winning it all. 2 wins, 5 top 5's, 7 top 10's. Worst finish 36th.
Well that's all boys and girls! We'll see how much of this really pans out. Until then, Happy Racin'!
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