Nov 1st, 2010 by T.C.
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?
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