Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Crew Chiefs, Sprint Cup, NASCAR
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And then there was one.
Heading into Homestead this weekend for the final race of the 2010 season, the championship race is still wide open. After Phoenix, Denny Hamlin now leads Jimmie Johnson by a scant 15 points, and Kevin Harvick by 46. The race to determine the champion could literally come down to the last lap.
At Phoenix, where it appeared that both the 11 and 29 teams had missteps that could have cost them big, both came out pretty well. Even with having to pit late for two tires and fuel Hamlin fought back to 12th, and Harvick was able to overcome a pit stop issue to finish sixth.
With Homestead looming, I wanted to take a second to point out each driver’s stats at the track. In his career, Harvick has an average finish of 8.4, with four top five and seven top 10 finishes. Johnson has an average finish of 12.7 with three top five and six top ten finishes. While Hamlin has an average finish of 10.6, with one win, three top five, and three top ten finishes. No driver appears to be dramatically better then the others, but it is interesting to point out that Hamlin has won their previously, and Johnson has the worst average finish.
As you digest the finish at Phoenix and look forward to the finale, we wanted to give you this opportunity to sound off about the championship. Which driver and team will rise to the top and win the title, and why do you think so? Talk amongst yourselves!
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Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Chase for the Sprint Cup, NASCAR
Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR
Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Crew Chiefs, Pit Crews, Sprint Cup, NASCAR
The Chase for the Sprint Cup saw a shake-up this last weekend with Denny Hamlin winning the 2010 NSCS at Texas. Hamlin now sits atop the the Sprint Cup standings with 33 points separating him from four-time champion Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin has won 8 races this season with Sunday being his second win of the year at Texas Motor Speedway. The 29-year-old Joe Gibbs race car driver has never won the Sprint Cup in his career, but did finish 3rd in 2006. I for one would love to see Hamlin win it all just to break Johnson’s stranglehold on the sport. Johnson’s dominance is incredibly impressive, but some change would give new life to NASCAR. Hamlin is having a career year and deserves to be the champ. The Chase will come down to the Kobalt Tools 500 in Phoenix and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in Miami later this month.
Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup, NASCAR
As the Cup Series enters its final three race stretch, NASCAR finally has the championship race the Chase promised (a familiar refrain I know). With just 38 points separating first from third, this is still a wide open fight. Look to the two lower series though and there is a very different story.
For all intents and purposes the championship races in the Nationwide and Truck Series have been over for a while. In the Nationwide Series, Brad Keselowski has run away from the pack (thanks in large part to Kyle Busch’s partial schedule). Going into the final three races he has a 485 point lead over second place Carl Edwards. It looks like the Captain will finally get a championship in NASCAR.
Then there’s Todd Bodine in the Truck Series. Though he fought early on in the season with young guys like Timothy Peters and Aric Almirola, he’s held a convincing lead for the last couple of months. As it stands right now, Bodine has a 216 point lead over Aric Almirola in second place.
The dichotomy of these two points systems is interesting in the continuing debate over the Chase. While we still have a race and a story in the Cup Series (on top of the actual race every week), we’re only watching the other two series – barring any unforeseen circumstances – to see the individual events .
This is of course what NASCAR has been trying to find since they implemented the Chase in 2004. This playoff like system has been hailed by the sport, but not very well received by many fans. I think that’s in large part due to the fact that it really hasn’t worked like planned. On top of that the same guy has won the championship the last four years (and is in the points lead right now).
I know I’ve written a ton of Chase related posts here before, but given the points situations, where we have a lock in two series and a wide open race in the other (thanks to the Chase system), which system do you prefer (if they’re working like they should)? Which system do you think is working?
Increasingly, I’m not sure which I prefer. I do know I’d like to see some uniformity throughout the sport, but that’s honestly neither here nor there.
So what do you think? Are you interested in the Chase this year? Do you like what you’re seeing? Do you prefer a system that allows us to have a runaway winner? Or do you like it’s traditional consistency? Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
After all the talk leading up to this weekend about Talladega being a wild card race (yes, I’m guilty too), it turned out to be quite the opposite. Instead of being a track where championship hopefuls have their chances dashed away with one wrong move and “the big one,” all we’ve come out the other side with is a Chase that is even tighter.
Following the race on Sunday, our top three Chasers are now only separated by 38 points. Jimmie Johnson leads Denny Hamlin by 14 points, and Kevin Harvick is another 24 back. Heading into the final three races of 2010, the championship is still completely up for grabs.
During the race, Johnson and Hamlin dropped to the back and were hoping to ride out the madness until the very end. The “riding around in the back all race” strategy worked for Johnson, but it nearly bit Hamlin. While attempting to avoid the front of the pack, Hamlin lost the lead draft and went a lap down. He was able to get a lucky dog late in the race, and came back to finish ninth.
Instead of running in the back like his fellow Chasers, Harvick chose to run in the pack all race long. His wreck with Marcos Ambrose late in the race though showed that no strategy is safe at Talladega. Good work by his crew, and a crazy finish saw Harvick finish a close second to teammate Clint Bowyer.
Looking at each driver’s career statistics at the three remaining tracks, it would appear that with the exception of Johnson at Phoenix, none of the three have a real discernible advantage. The #48 has been awesome at Phoenix, with no finishes outside the top four in their last eight starts (including four wins), but they have had their struggles at Texas and Homestead. And Harvick and Hamlin have both proven they are capable of winning at any of these three tracks.
Minimizing any mistakes is obviously going to be the key over the final three races. Two of our three contenders had some troubles on Sunday, but they were both able to overcome them. As the pressure mounts, who will blink first?