The first race of the 2011 Chase For the Sprint Cup will be held just outside Chicago, IL at the Chicagoland Speedway. The announcement could be a sign that NASCAR is looking to tap into the massive Chicago market by awarding the city one of the 10 Sprint Cup races. Chicagoland Speedway played host to the LifeLock.com 400 last month that saw underdog favorite win his second Sprint Cup Series race. The 1.5 mile track has also hosted the Dollar General 300 on the Nationwide Series since 2001. Kyle Busch claimed the $81,570 prize last year finishing in 1st place. Located in Joliet, IL, the Chicagoland Speedway has been in operation for nine years. The $130 million stadium seats 75,000 spectators on race day. The Chase For the Sprint Cup opening race in Joliet will be followed by a race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Filed under: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Chase for the Sprint Cup, NASCAR
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Is the Chase not good enough for the Nationwide and Truck Series, or are the Nationwide and Truck Series not good enough for the Chase?
As NASCAR tries to fix what probably doesn’t need to be fixed, I’ve got wonder how long it’s going to take them to start applying the points changes (that is the six year old changes) to their two other series.
I know, for many of you, the Chase is a sore subject – and you would just as soon see them get rid of it than see it expanded. No matter your feelings though, doesn’t having two different systems to determine champions throughout the sport undermine the legitimacy of the most contested points system?
I won’t get into NASCAR making changes to the Chase (for the record I think it’s a bad idea – and feel free to discuss it), but I do believe there needs to be uniformity across the series in how a champion is crowned.
In one breath NASCAR is saying the Chase is a great way to determine a champion (though apparently not great enough), and then in the other (though not directly) acknowledging the strength of the old system by allowing it to continue in two of its three national series. Hence the undermining.
I get we’re supposed to have three distinct and unique series. Despite those differences though, and the individual strengths of each of the series, I firmly believe NASCAR needs to administer all three as similarly as possible. If one has a Chase, they should all have a Chase.
On top of that, I think it serves its purpose well enough. We get better fights at the end of the season – and more often than not the best driver does win. So why can’t this work in the Truck and Nationwide Series?
I know it’s not a big thing, but I want a sport that functions like a cohesive unit – not like three stand alone bodies. It may, or may not bother you that NASCAR doesn’t use a uniform system across all three of its series, but it kind of bothers me.
What do you think? Is uniformity in the points necessary across all three series? Would you like to see the Chase be the points system across the sport?
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Look around and you’ll see a common headline: ‘Jimmie Johnson is back.’ For weeks many questioned whether the #48 team had lost its Midas touch. After all Johnson went (gasp!) 10 races in between wins. In that time he had two DNFs, and three finishes worse than 30th. Jimmie had hit rock bottom. Or had he?
I wrote here a little more than a month ago that the team was struggling, not because of the spoiler as many had suggested, but because of bad luck and mistakes. The truth is the team has run quite well despite a few hiccups here and there.
Since the implementation of the spoiler – and before his latest two wins – Johnson had six top-10s, three top-fives, one pole, and he led a total of 422 laps (in spite of those two DNFs, and three bad finishes). Since Charlotte, where Johnson finished 37th after a series of maladies, he has finished 5th, 6th, 1st, and 1st.
As we move forward through the season there are certainly still questions about Johnson and team #48. Can they shake the bad luck and mistakes for the remainder of the season? Will the new addition to the Johnson family make any difference? And could Jimmie be peaking too early?
Still this season is shaping up a lot like Johnson’s 2007 championship season. Some bad luck, and DNF’s through the mid-point of the season gave way to ten wins, and one of Johnson’s best seasons to date. Six of Johnson’s wins came after Daytona, and four of those wins came during the Chase (four in a row to be exact).
My point with all this is to say Jimmie may have had some bad luck, and certainly made a few mistakes during the first half of this season, but he has never faded from competitiveness. Perhaps an argument could be made that the field is catching up to Johnson – he’s not necessarily having the dominating performances he has had in past years. Competition is strong from a number of teams. Johnson and Denny Hamlin, for instance, will, at this moment, enter the Chase tied for first with their win totals. Certainly, I think this year he’ll face some stiffer competition going into and through the Chase, but don’t count out team #48.
Is Jimmie back? As far as I can tell he never left.
…and consistency too – consistency is always good.
If you ask some around the sport, the spoiler has had a big impact. The Gibbs cars are surging, RCR has finally gotten their competitive edge back and the Hendrick cars aren’t, well…winning. As great as this story line is and as simple as this is to explain why HMS hasn’t been great (and by ‘hasn’t been great’ I mean why they haven’t won a race) since NASCAR implemented the change, it doesn’t really tell the whole story.
Take Jimmie Johnson, everyone’s favorite target. What makes/made the #48 team so strong is their consistency and their ability to put together absolutely flawless performances (hence the four championships). In the last two seasons Johnson and team 48 only had two DNFs. That is remarkable. In the first 12 races of this season though, Jimmie has had three.
Even still the team’s performance has been pretty good. Since the spoiler was implemented he’s led 386 laps and finished in the top-10 in four of seven races. Of the other three races, Johnson was wrecked in two of them, and finished 16th on Sunday after a speeding penalty late in the race likely cost him the win.
Even without a trophy this past weekend, Johnson still has three wins to his credit and will be set up very nicely when the Chase rolls around. Still, what I see is a team not affected by the spoiler, but a team that has been affected by unfortunate incidents and flawed performances.
To my larger point, the #48 team has been a victim of bad luck and mistakes. What were the odds that AJ Allmendinger would go shooting up the track at Darlington, and of 42 other guys, it was Jimmie Johnson who happened to be perfectly positioned to have his car destroyed? And since when does Jimmie Johnson get caught speeding on pit road? It’s these little things, some within their control and some not, that are costing this team wins (not the spoiler).
Johnson isn’t alone this season either. We’ve seen small mistakes and bad luck cost Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton wins. Even Kyle Busch has lost out this season.
The moral of this story is, sometimes luck is not on your side. And bad luck coupled with mistakes can make you and your team look really bad. This is exactly where Jimmie Johnson is right now. From here on out their championship hopes and the hopes of their fellow competitors will rest on just how flawlessly they can run.
Having luck, and having consistency are keys to success in this sport, perhaps more than any other. Seldom though is the team and the driver that can put these things together. But when everything clicks, magic happens, and winners are born and championships made.
As they say, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
…nothing other than they’re all in my weekend notes (lame I know).
Saturday was a good day to be 19. Well a good day to be 19 if you happened to drive in the Nationwide Series.
In his first career NASCAR appearance on Saturday, 19-year-old Parker Kligerman scored his first career pole. Then 19-year-old Joey Logano went on to win the race, battling his teammate Kyle Busch down to the wire.
Back to Kligerman though. The kid looked impressive. Starting next to veteran Kyle Busch, Kligerman was able to keep the lead for seven laps and even bested Busch on the start. The team battled some handling issues throughout the race, but Kligerman was able to finish a respectable 16th.
While I know Kligerman wasn’t happy with the finish, a pole and 16th place finish in his first ever major NASCAR event is not anything to sneeze at. Look for Kligerman back in the car at Homestead.
Oh and don’t forget Kligerman’s locked in a championship battle in the ARCA series with Justin Lofton. That wraps up this weekend at Rockingham.
Tony Stewart Back In Victory Lane
There were some that thought Jimmie Johnson would take his momentum from last week and begin his championship charge at Kansas. I thought there was a good chance.
In the interest of a compelling championship race though it was good to see Tony Stewart pull out the win.
There is now just more than 100 points separating first from seventh.
The Hendrick cars definitely look good as they have in years past but don’t count out the Penske, EGR or Gibbs cars. They’ve all been running very consistently and one win from any of them could change the tide.
I know a lot of you are critics of the Chase, but it makes the racing more exciting and the mistakes more devastating.
I’m looking very much forward to the coming weeks.
Nelson Piquet Jr.? In the Truck Series?
He wouldn’t be our first F1 convert; but he would be the first with a cloud over his head.
Soon after being released from his Renault team earlier this year, it came to light Piquet wrecked himself at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix so his teammate Fernando Alonso could win.
The scandal, better known as ‘crash-gate,’ has brought a ban and a suspension for two Renault F1 officials. Piquet won’t face any sanctions, but likely won’t be able to live down the stigma associated with the scandal.
I suppose he figures NASCAR fans haven’t caught wind of the firestorm. He may or may not be right.
Whatever the case SPEED is reporting Piquet will test in a Red Horse Racing truck on October 12th with “an eye towards a future in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series with in two years.”
It’ll be interesting to see how he performs.
Hendrick’s (Almost) Failed Inspection
Talk about a bad deal. Hendrick got busted for not breaking the rules?
While they passed post race inspection, the bodies on both the #5 and #48 were so close to being outside the tolerance they were warned by the sanctioning body not to cut it so close.
With the black helicopters circling above and the scent of the Carl Long affair still hanging in the air (remember this was a body not the motor), many loyal conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork. Hendrick paid off NASCAR (I’m sure, I said sarcastically).
The fact is they didn’t break the rules, NASCAR sent it’s message and the crew chiefs were doing what they were supposed to. Working in those gray areas is what those guys get paid to do and if you’re not pushing it, you’re not doing your job.
Long before Juan Montoya was perfecting points racing, Jimmie Johnson was an expert at it. That expertise has won him the last three championships and if you surfed around the internet yesterday, you might assume he’d won his fourth.
I promise you though the Chase is far from over. While there is certainly a spread between first and twelfth (189 points if you’re counting), there are still eight, yes eight, races left. That’s a ton of time to screw up, or to win a whole bunch of races and take the points lead.
I know Jimmie Johnson and the #48 team have been solid come Chase time the last three years. They know better than anyone how to shine at the right time. And this year might not be any different.
For those of you who follow us on Twitter you saw our best and worst of the weekend tweet. Some responded the Joey Logano event, both good and bad, but several others responded Jimmie Johnson winning was the worst thing of the weekend. I don’t know if I personally agree with that, but I think there are a lot of other people out there who feel this way.
Is four in a row good for the sport? It’s certainly good for Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and Hendrick Motorsports. You tell me.
Getting back to the fact that we have eight races left though consider the teams and drivers that have emerged this season.
After struggling the last two seasons Juan Pablo Montoya and (Earnhardt) Ganassi Racing have shown some solid consistency. While Montoya hasn’t won a race, he has four top-fives, 14 top-tens, two poles and an average finish of 13.1. They are peaking and competing for wins at the right time. He’s third in the points, only 65 back. I think they’re going to have to win at least one to have a shot at the Championship, but with the way they’ve been running that’s not a far off goal.
Or how about Kurt Busch. After being left out of the Chase last season he’s won one, has eight top-fives, 16 top-10s and an average finish of 13.4. Six of the last eight weeks Busch has finished inside the top-10 and might have run better the other two races if he hadn’t gotten caught up in wrecks.
And don’t forget Mark Martin. He is showing this season that there is life in this sport after 50. This is a guy who looked to be at the end of his career not long ago. He’s now rejuvenated and stronger than ever. After finishing second in the points race four times throughout his career, I guarantee he doesn’t want to make it a solid five.
The above drivers aren’t alone. While Jimmie may very well be on his way, don’t count anybody out. There are a lot of races left and a lot of time for anyone to make a run at this thing.
So now it’s prediction time. Who’s going to win it? Who’s your black horse? Will Jimmie go four in a row? Or can Mark Martin finally quit being a bridesmaid?
Filed under: Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup
Johnson Serves Title Notice at Dover originally appeared on Motorsports FanHouse on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:02:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Filed under: Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Mark Martin, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup
Secret to Chase Title? Average a Top-5 originally appeared on Motorsports FanHouse on Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:13:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.