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Since Kyle Busch's Talladega win in April, he and Carl Edwards have been sitting 1-2 in my point standings, with Kyle keeping a pretty healthy margin over Carl. After Richmond, Carl was 48 points behind Kyle, but since Kyle (and the rest of Joe Gibbs Racing) has fallen completely off the page for the last three weeks - there's finally something worth posting as Carl has nearly caught Kyle for the points lead.
SPRINT CUP (DRIVERS)
Rank Points LW
1 Kyle Busch 308 1
2 Carl Edwards 304 2
3 Jimmie Johnson 274 3
4 Greg Biffle 196 4
5 Denny Hamlin 178 5
6 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 174 6
7 Tony Stewart 166 7
8 Jeff Gordon 164 8
9 Matt Kenseth 163 8
10 Kevin Harvick 143 10
11 Jeff Burton 140 11
12 Kasey Kahne 121 12
13 Clint Bowyer 114 13
14 David Ragan 89 14
15 Mark Martin 80 15
16 Kurt Busch 77 16
17 Ryan Newman 72 17
Brian Vickers 72 17
19 Martin Truex Jr. 70 19
20 Elliott Sadler 52 20
Also - my version of the Chase (explanation here) is very tight as well, but with Carl leading Jimmie Johnson by two points. Greg Biffle would have a bit more work to do to get as close as NASCAR's Chase has him - so much for the value of bonus points, I guess.
2008 ST 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 TOTAL
Carl Edwards 25 18 18 21 82
Jimmie Johnson 20 21 14 25 80
Greg Biffle 0 25 25 18 68
Kyle Busch 40 0 0 0 40
Jeff Burton 5 15 5 8 33
Matt Kenseth 0 0 21 12 33
Kevin Harvick 0 4 11 10 25
Jeff Gordon 0 1 9 15 25
Dale Earnhardt Jr. 5 12 1 1 19
Clint Bowyer 5 2 7 2 16
Denny Hamlin 5 6 0 3 14
Tony Stewart 0 8 2 0 10
JJD's updated points standings after Kansas
Monday, September 29, 2008, 08:23 AM EST
[General]
Tags:
Championships and dumb luck
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 08:13 AM EST
[General]
Saturday night the Craftsman Truck Series was in Las Vegas for the Qwik Liner Las Vegas 350. Mike Skinner won his first race of the year, and Ron Hornaday finished fifth, taking advantage of Johnny Benson's crash on lap 64 to trim Benson's points-lead to a single point.
But really - what is the reason why Ron Hornaday is not the points leader today? I think you can point to our nation's economy. Yes, I'm being totally serious. In what is surely a situation affected by economics (and a Gateway-Loudon-Las Vegas in three weeks schedule that likely doesn't help) only 31 trucks were in Las Vegas Saturday - the smallest turnout for a Truck Series race since 2001 at Nashville. When Johnny Benson cut down a tire and hit the wall, he was the fifth truck to retire, leaving him in 27th place. Now, because of the way NASCAR's points-system works, Benson was awarded 87 points (including five bonus points for leading a lap). HOWEVER, if a full 36 truck-field had turned out for the race, and Benson had been the fifth truck out - he would have been 32nd - receiving 15 LESS points than for 27th. He would actually be 14 points BEHIND Hornaday if not for the short field Saturday. When you give points to everybody, regardless of the minimum performance, you create a situation where the differences in the worst performances - things dictated often by what drivers can't control like a bad tire or a blown engine or someone else's crash - are as important as the differences in the best ones. That's how dumb luck can be the difference - TOO big of a difference - in a championship. Tags:
Why research comes in handy
Saturday, September 13, 2008, 02:36 PM EST
[General]
ESPN.com is running a fantastic series call Ancient Chaseology, where they went through the seasons from 1975-2003 to see what impact the Chase format would have had on the championship. Unfortunately (IMO) they minimized the amount of time they spent looking at the actual seasons. (This makes sense because as NASCAR's broadcast partner it wouldn't exactly be smart business to show NASCAR in a poor light.) It did get me curious to see how their final "Chase-d up" standings looked with the actual ones.
Now, for the purposes of this comparison it's important to note that the point of the Chase was to put drama in the last race of the season. Therefore, really a 100-point difference isn't a whole lot different than a 400-pont difference, because there is very little chance a driver is going to make up a 100-point difference in the final race (it's mever happened). For example, in 1975 Richard Petty won the Winston Cup by 722 points, while using the scoring reset from the Chase he won by over 200 points, anyway. That's not really doing what NASCAR wanted with the Chase when the last race of the season is irrelevant, is it? That gets a "same". ACTUAL CHASE 1975 -722 -219 SAME 1976 -195 -125 SAME 1977 -386 -179 SAME 1978 -474 -55 BETTER NASCAR gets their first "better" here. Cale Yarborough had a 173-point reduced to ten points over Darrell Waltrip at the start of the Chase. Cale won five races to take the championship, while DW won only one but had nine top-fives in ten races to finish second. Bobby Allison won three Chase races to finish third by 81 points, he finished second in reality, almost 500 points behind Yarborough. 1979 -11 -13 SAME 1980 -19 -14 SAME 1981 -53 -153 WORSE 1982 -72 -202 WORSE 1983 -47 -24 SAME 1984 -65 -25 SAME People, this is SIX years in a row of finishes that came down to the last race. No Chase necessary here, right? Not only that, two of these years were made MUCH worse by the Chase, with DW winning five Chase races in 1981 (including four in a row) and 1982. 1985 -101 -62 BETTER 1986 -288 -129 SAME 1987 -489 -41 BETTER I struggled to give NASCAR a "better" in 1985, but at least at 60 points there is more hope that at 101 points. Dale Earnhardt's 1987 gets a lot closer when Bill Elliott wins three of the last four races, only to come up short in the Chase a la Jimmie Johnson in 2004. 1988 -24 -65 SAME 1989 -12 -97 WORSE 1990 -26 -114 WORSE 1991 -195 -162 SAME 1992 -10 -79 WORSE 1993 -80 -234 WORSE Five times in six years NASCAR's championship is separated by 80 points, including four by 26 or less. Note that in all those seasons the Chase would have made the gap to second WIDER. 1994 -444 -156 SAME 1995 -34 -106 WORSE 1996 -37 -69 SAME 1997 -14 -104 WORSE 1998 -364 -329 SAME 1999 -201 -119 SAME I'm starting to question how far back NASCAR went with these numbers... 2000 -265 -79 BETTER 2001 -349 -12 BETTER 2002 -38 -64 SAME 2003 -90 -48 BETTER Oh. All-in-all, I came up with three "better"-s before 2000. THREE! Did anyone - you know - LOOK at this stuff before creating the Chase? I know the last four championships have been pretty close, but every year from 1979 to 1984 had a close championship finish, and the same thing happened eight times from 1988 to 1997. I think the biggest indictment of the obvious lack of thought NASCAR put into the Chase is this stat. FINISHES SEPARATED BY 100 POINTS OR MORE (1975-1999) No Chase: 11 With Chase: 14 Um - HELLO?! That's MORE wide finishes, not less! I mean, how long would it have taken to figure THAT out? I got six better Chase seasons than actual seasons out of 29. And NINE worse ones. So, I think we can safely dispel any myth that NASCAR created a method more likely to get a close championship than they had in place already. (What I would give to see Kyle Busch win the championship by 329 points THIS year.) I give NASCAR due credit where they've earned it on the Chase. Richmond and the races leading up to it seem a LOT more important than they used to be. People are more in tune with the top-15 or so drivers duirng the season than they used to, IMO. Those are GOOD things. However, NASCAR hasn't had a driver lose the championship in the last race since 1992. Before that it had only happened ONCE before - in 1979. The common denominator through all those seasons has been the general points system used from race-to-race. Maybe NASCAR should have considered THAT before they decided the Chase was the way to try to guarantee close championship finishes? Tags:
A note from your friends at AT&T
Thursday, August 14, 2008, 08:00 AM EST
[General]
Although I am an AT&T customer, I'm posting this e-mail I received for a couple of different reasons.
1. I was curious to see if anyone else got it - though I suspect I'm in the minority since my e-mail is in my "about me" sidebar. 2. Although it is possible every e-mail she sends starts out that way, I was very impressed that she at least acknowledged that this would look kind of weird on my blog. Very nice, I thought - much better that your typical spam. (This is unedited.) Hi Jay Jay- Might be too consumer focused for your blog - but could be a nice bit of info for your readers. NASCAR fans can now be part of the action without being at the track, thanks to AT&T. Race fans can now watch live video coverage of the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the Sprint Cup Series on their mobile phones using ESPN's Mobile TV. Upcoming races include (all times Eastern on ESPN Mobile TV): Tags:
JJD's updated points standings after Watkins Glen
Monday, August 11, 2008, 06:51 PM EST
[General]
Dear ESPN commentator guys,
You generally do a swell job. Honestly. I mean it. DJ is a HUGE improvement over Rusty Wallace - maybe the biggest upgrade in NASCAR since Kyle Busch replaced J.J. Yeley. Love all of the pit lane reporters. AB does a great job, especially since he's dealing with Mutt and Jeff in the studio spot. Having said all that - WHAT was with you guys Sunday? Specifically, why didn't ONE person on the ENTIRE broadcast, see fit to mention that, in reality, what happened to Dale Earnhardt Jr. WASN'T SO BAD? Do you realize that there was ONE place for Junior to finish that would have made his Sunday REALLY matter? (That would be FIRST-place, btw.) Junior is basically IN the Chase - it's time for him to go checkers-or-wreckers, baby! Is there NO ONE on TV who gets that? I mean, *I* get it. Junior and Tony Eury Jr. seemed to get it based on their strategy. They were going for the WIN. Period. You guys seemed to get that when Jimmie Johnson was in the Nationwide race Saturday. Where was that thinking Sunday? Does NASCAR muzzle you guys so you won't write-off the top few drivers? What's the deal? It's not like it's a BAD thing - you could have revisited the point when Kyle Busch was trying to hold off Tony Stewart - Tony needed the POINTS because he was ninth in the standings, but Kyle needed the WIN because that's all that matters for him until the Chase. Of course, since you didn't *visit* the point, I suppose *revisiting* it was impossible, then. Head-scratchingly yours, JJD SPRINT CUP (DRIVERS) Rank Points LW 1 Kyle Busch 263 1 2 Carl Edwards 204 2 3 Jimmie Johnson 174 3 4 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 147 4 5 Tony Stewart 135 7 6 Denny Hamlin 128 6 7 Jeff Gordon 126 5 8 Kasey Kahne 114 8 9 Greg Biffle 108 9 10 Matt Kenseth 107 10 11 Jeff Burton 106 10 12 Clint Bowyer 96 12 13 Kevin Harvick 87 13 14 Kurt Busch 66 16 15 David Ragan 65 14 16 Ryan Newman 64 15 17 Martin Truex Jr. 62 18 Brian Vickers 62 17 19 Mark Martin 50 19 20 Elliott Sadler 45 20 Last week, I casually mentioned that the Woo Brothers had finally led a lap in 2008, scoring their first JJD point of the season. Well, that must have made them hungry for more, because incredibly Marcos Ambrose finished third in the Wood Brothers Ford Sunday. It was a parity-filled finishing order, with nine teams in the top-eleven finishing spots. Only Joe Gibbs Racing, with their cars finishing 1-2-8, broke through with a good day across the board. Also, A.J. Allemndinger finished 11th to put his #84 Red Bull Toyota into the top-35 for the first time, an incredible accomplishment given how difficult it is to get out of GOGH-land. SPRINT CUP (TEAMS) For those of you keeping track, that puts Ambrose in company with Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, and Scott Wimmer as Nationwide-only drivers (though Ambrose does have those two pesky Cup starts) to win in 2008. And we need to change the series, why, exactly? Also, Kyle Busch got into a car that had never seen the track for a team making their series debut Saturday. Naturally, he finished second, extending his JJD points lead. NATIONWIDE SERIES Rank Points LW 1 Kyle Busch 249 1 2 Clint Bowyer 189 2 3 Carl Edwards 166 3 4 Brad Keselowski 156 4 5 Denny Hamlin 143 5 6 Tony Stewart 124 6 7 David Reutimann 114 7 8 Kevin Harvick 105 10 9 David Ragan 100 9 10 David Stremme 98 8 11 Scott Wimmer 91 11 12 Mike Bliss 80 12 13 Joey Logano 77 13 14 Marcos Ambrose 71 18 15 Jason Leffler 66 15 16 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 64 14 17 Greg Biffle 57 16 18 Jeff Burton 54 17 19 Brian Vickers 47 19 Matt Kenseth 47 23 Kudos to Carl Edwards, btw. If you had to take someone out of the race Saturday, Clint Bowyer was as good as anyone. Anything to tighten up the points-race. NATIONWIDE SERIES (TEAMS) Rank Points 1 Brad Keselowski 272 2 David Ragan 234 3 David Reutimann 231 4 Mike Bliss 190 5 David Stremme 176 6 Scott Wimmer 151 7 Jason Leffler 134 8 Marcos Ambrose 112 9 Joey Logano 104 10 Mike Wallace 98 11 Jason Keller 95 12 Steve Wallace 85 13 Kelly Bires 78 14 Dario Franchitti 73 15 Bobby Hamilton Jr. 66 There was a Craftsman Truck Series race Saturday at Nashville? Why would NASCAR put a Truck Series race the same day as a Nationwide race? How am I supposed to remember that? Johnny Benson won, making it three-in-a-row and extending his JJD points lead over Ron Hornaday, who finished fifth. CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES Rank Points LW 1 Johnny Benson 178 1 2 Ron Hornaday 165 2 3 Matt Crafton 125 3 4 Todd Bodine 116 5 5 Erik Darnell 113 6 6 Kyle Busch 109 4 7 Jack Sprague 84 8 8 Mike Skinner 83 7 9 David Starr 72 9 10 Rick Crawford 66 10 While Toyotas won two of the three races this weekend, Ford had a surprisingly good all-around weekend themselves, with Marcos Ambrose finishing first and third and Erik Darnell finishing second in the Truck race. In fact, it was a pretty parity-filled weekend (paritous?), as even Dodge put a finisher in the top-seven all weekend. MANUFACTURERS Rank Points LW 1 Toyota 1142 1 2 Chevrolet 1007 2 3 Ford 810 3 4 Dodge 452 4 Tags:
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