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I would like each blogger that reads this to read the post written by edclinchsaint.
It is called "Have You Ever Heard of Antietam? ML King? Love? Sacrifice?"
To me it is the BLOG OF THE YEAR so far. Very nicely written, and worth commenting on.
I would post a link to it, but I'm at work and can't because of the restrictions on this PC.
Doesn't it feel like a post-season playoff push right now for Jimmie Johnson and the no. 48 team Lowe's Chevrolet? What he's done over the past month has resurrected his post-season career. One can only draw comparisons to the NFL appropriately. What Johnson had accomplished over the past two years in the Chase For The Nextel Cup likens to past playoff perfomances of the Indianapolis Colts: be great all year, lose your way when it matters at the end. This year however Johnson has shaken off his post-season slump to steal the lead away from slumping Matt Kenseth in the no. 17 team DeWalt Ford.
Strong at the beginning of the year, slumping during the middle, and "playing" your best at the end, does this sound familiar? Are we seeing a Pittsburgh Steelers - like push to a championship this year for Johnson and co.? Time will tell. And time is on Johnson's side at the moment. The Dickie's 500 at Texas last Sunday shook the standings leaving Johnson two races away from being crowned Champion.
Courtesy Yahoo! Images
Yes, the similarities are there, but will the outcomes be similar?
Heading into the race Sunday at Phoenix International Speedway (PIR)Johnson is clinging to a slim points lead over Matt Kenseth.
Although not all mathematically eliminated just yet and some being out of the chase for weeks now, drivers not named Johnson or Kenseth have a tough road ahead.
However with just two races to go, things can get real interesting starting at Phoenix. There are many things to consider before handing Johnson the hardware so soon. One quick fact I like to look at before each race is a drivers bio at that particular track. Johnson and Kenseth both historically are not very good at PIR.
average start wins top-fives top- tens ave. finish # starts Jimmie Johnson 12.8 0 1 4 8.7 6 Jeff Gordon 10.3 0 6 12 8.9 15 Mark Martin 11.4 1 8 13 9.4 20 Jeff Burton 23.5 2 5 7 11.6 14 Kasey Kahne 15.5 0 1 2 13.8 4 Kyle Busch 14.3 1 1 2 15.0 3 Kevin Harvick 16.1 1 2 2 16.4 7 Dale Ernhardt Jr. 15.12 4 4 17.3 8 Matt Kenseth 21.01 3 4 20.8 8 Denny Hamlin 3.5 0 0 0 23.5 2
Yet when looking at an average start versus an average finish Johnson seems as if he may reverse his prior shortcomings at the track. Of course there are only 3 drivers shown above with more than 10 starts at the track, and still only 4 others with more than 5 starts. So how did the Chasers shown above qualify for the Checker Auto Parts 500 at PIR for this Sundays race?
DRIVER STARTING POSITION JEFF GORDON 1ST ROW ONE INSIDE KEVIN HARVICK 2ND ROW ONE OUTSIDE DALE ERNHARDT JR. 4TH ROW TWO OUTSIDE KYLE BUSCH 9TH ROW FIVE INSIDE MATT KENSETH 10TH ROW FIVE OUTSIDE KASEY KAHNE 11TH ROW SIX INSIDE JEFF BURTON 18TH ROW NINE OUTSIDE MARK MARTIN 21ST ROW ELEVEN INSIDE DENNY HAMLIN 22ND ROW ELEVEN OUTSIDE JIMMIE JOHNSON 29TH ROW FIFTEEN INSIDE
Seeing the way Johnson is ripping the other chaser's hopes of carrying the hardware, his starting position doesn't seem to matter. However one must note that at PIR sometimes it can be very to pass on this one mile track. Getting up enough speed to pass in the turns can be tricky and could certainly mark the end of your day. So keep this in mind as you see Johnson trying to weave his way through the contenders for the Championship as well as those other drivers just wanting a win also. Could get interesting.
With that in mind, let's look at the Cup Chaser's starts and finishes in last years Checker Auto Parts 500 ran on 11/13/05:
start / finish
Kyle Busch 15 1 Jeff Gordon 10 3 Jimmie Johnson 2 7 Denny Hamlin 1 13 Mark Martin 29 14 Jeff Burton 25 15 Kevin Harvick 8 23 Kasey Kahne 22 27 Matt Kenseth 16 32 Dale Ernhardt Jr. 19 40
As you can see, in the Race for the Cup last year Busch, Gordon, and Johnson were the only drivers that posted top-ten finishes. NOTE: not all drivers in the Chase this year qualified for the Chase last year.
Keeping with this theme, how well did the ten drivers in the Chase fare in the Subway Fresh 500 on 4/22/06:
Subway Fresh 500
start / finish 4-22-06 Gordon 19 10
Harvick 15 1 Dale Jr. 11 23
Busch 1 36 Kenseth 4 3 Kahne 22 6 Burton 37 9
Martin 18 11 111 most laps lead by chasers Hamlin 6 34 Johnson 10 7
As noted from many of the know-it-alls, look for the RCR cars to be strong, i.e. Harvick, Burton. Also the Hendrick cars, Johnson, Gordon, Busch. Many don't believe the Fords will run well at PIR on Sunday. Kenseth has a strong start and finish from the spring race to discredit that.
Just a few stats for you to keep in mind as you settle in to watch what will turn out to be a great race. Will Johnson be able to come from behind? Well, in my opinion he has the best crew in the pits, so yes. Will Kenseth be able to pull off another win here, and will he be able to pull off a win in the Chase at all? This may be his chance to regain the lead heading into the final race at Miami Homestead.
So in closing I will post MY updated standings in the Chase for the Nextel Cup after the Dickie's 500: sorry guys, been to Denver all week on a business trip!
NOTE: DRIVER GETS .5 BONUS POINTS FOR LEADING A LAP/ 1 BONUS POINT FOR MOST LAPS LEAD.
Jeff Burton 59 DRIVER POINTS PREVIOUS Matt Kenseth 63 1. JIMMIE JOHNSON 67 TIE 2ND Jimmie Johnson 67 2. MATT KENSETH 63 TIE 2ND Denny Hamlin 59.5 3. DENNY HAMLIN 59.5 4TH Kevin Harvick 58.5 4. JEFF BURTON 59 1ST Dale Jr. 57 5. KEVIN HARVICK 58.5 TIE 4TH Jeff Gordon 56.5 6.DALE JR. 57 TIE 4TH Kasey Kahne 49.5 7. JEFF GORDON 56.5 TIE 4TH Mark Martin 43 8. KASEY KAHNE 49.5 5TH Kyle Bush 48 9. KYLE BUSCH 48 7TH
10. MARK MARTIN 43 6TH
THE SMOKE FACTOR: WITH ANOTHER WIN LAST SUNDAY, TONY STEWART WOULD CONTINUE TO DOMINATE SHOULD HE BE IN THE CHASE.
TONY STEWART 78.5 THE CLEAR LEADER IN A RUNAWAY
SO AS WE SEE, JIMMIE JOHNSON WOULD GRAB THE POINTS LEAD IN MY STANDINGS, WHILE JEFF BURTON FALLS ALL THE WAY TO 4TH AFTER THE BLOWN TIRE ISSUE.
Barring a complete collapse in the next two races by Johnson and Kenseth, one of the two should emerge the Champion. However drivers in 3rd place through 7th place still have a good chance to walk away with the Nextel Cup Championship should the top two falter.
Also note, that with 2 wins over the next two races and some bad luck from the top 5, Mark Martin could still win the Championship.
As recently as a few days ago, some of the avid NASCAR fans and bloggers on FoxSports Blogs have discussed and even argued at times the importance of winning in the 2006 version of the Chase for Cup. I have spilled my guts, as have most bloggers, on the importance that a win (or even two) goes a long way in helping drivers get to the sports ultimate prize. Personally I have also argued in favor of consistency much to the chagrin of most bloggers.
Consistency is a staple in motorsports. It's like the milk and bread of claiming the Cup. See Tony Stewart and the No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet defending champoin of the NASCAR Nextel Cup. Consistency however has its shortcomings. If you are racing just to be consistent.
Matt Kenseth driving the No. 17 DeWalt Ford some will debate was the reason NASCAR implemented the Chase System back in 2004. Kenseth won the last points champoinship formerly known as the Winston Cup. The fact that he won the Cup is not as important ( to us, not to Matt himself) as was the fashion in which he won. In 2003 Kenseth had one win, the thrid race of the season, in the UAW DaimlerChrysler 400. He also recorded ten top 5 finishes, and 26 top 10 finishes. Some argue Kenseth was not deserving because he did not race to win. One would suppose a top 5 finish is ran to impress more than to win. And not just to impress, but to earn a few points along the way.
Longing to see Kenseth win another Cup, I have long since defended him, his crew chief Robby Reiser, and the entire team on their efforts to this point in 2006. Kenseth currently holds the lead in the NASCAR Nextel Cup championship points battle. Kenseth was granted the chance to hold on to the lead if you will when Jeff Burton driving the No. 31 Cingular Chevrolet had engine trouble at Martinsville. To any driver in the chase, that is where you want to be. Given the chance any driver in the Chase would have cherished the opportunity.
Kenseth has yet to post a top three finish and to win any race in the Cups seven races however. Winning four races this season Kenseth's critics lay in wait of him claiming a second Championship, hist first as the NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion. However, overcoming bad luck, bad decisions, and just being historically bad in the Cup races is Jimmie Johnson driving the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet. Johnson has finished in the top three the past three races, including a win at Martinsville Speedway in the Subway 500. The good fortune of finishing races and winning has Jimmie and his team just 26 points behind Kenseth.
But is Kenseth and crew chief Reiser going to race to win? In a recent article on ESPN.com by Mark Ashenfelter, Reiser is reported as making this comment concerning the race today at Texas Motorspeedway, "Hopefully the results will be the same or better. " In reference to Kenseth's fourth place finish in the Bass Pro Shops 500 in Atlanta. This comment didn't sit well with me. For the first time, I felt as if a team was going to think about coasting into the championship with so much racing to do, and with three races left to decide the Nextel Cup Champion. Granted that line of thinking with such a succinct comment may be out of line. Reiser went on to say, " I was happy with our performance as a team last Sunday, but we'll need to continue that over the next three races if we're going to have a shot at this thing." Reiser, are you going to race for just another top five? In yet another quote Reiser states, "...now we just have to go out there and get another top-five finish. That's what it's going to take"
I normally don't read much into quotes, but what struck me the most was the contrast in the mentalities of the two teams, team DeWalt and team Lowe's. In what many believe will be the second-coming of Jimmie Johnson, his bid to race to win may just land Johnson his first championship. The one that has alluded him the past 3 years of the Chase for the Nextel Cup.
Johnson was quoted in the same article as saying, "I'm certainly optomistic. I'm closer than I've ever been, number-wise, to lead in the Chase...I think all three of them are good for us. We'll just race hard and see what happens." in reference to Texas, Kansas, and Miami the sites of the last three races. Again, quoting 101 teaches to show humility, and to always say "see what happens". Yet you could read more into Johnson's quote than Reisers. One could almost feel the confidence the No. 48 team Lowe's is proudly dispalying these days. And why shouldn't they be confident? Johnson hasn't been this close since the inagural season of the Nextel Cup.
It seems as if we have two teams determined to take home the biggest hardware of all concluding the race at Miami. Yet it appears we have two teams taking diffrent thought processes into the last three races. Reiser wants to be methodical and let you do the math. In essence he's right. Top-five finishes will allow you to hold onto a lead. However with the pace at which Johnson is making up ground, Team Lowe's may just be leaving Robby Reiser and company scratching their heads come pay-off.
Consistency versus winning, what a formidable argument. Let's watch the battle up front today. Kenseth has a long way to go, starting in 36th to reach the top-five. While Johnson starts the race in Team DeWalt's coveted position at no. 5. The fortunes of both teams may just rest upon this race. The Dickies 500 at Texas Motorspeedway today should be a battle for the lead. Will Kenseth and the DeWalt Ford sit on their hands should they run well today in the top-five? Or will the team roll the dice and race hard for the win?
The NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship has had its share of controversy recently. I am not here to give my opinion on what the big wigs of the motorsport should do concerning "debris gate". I am not here to take 185 points away from the driver that threw "something" out their window. I'm not even here to discuss whyJeff Burton should be or could be leading the Chase For The Nextel Cup version 3.0. Wait a second, yes I am!
So many bloggers, commentators (Darrell Waltrip, mainly), drivers (Michael Waltrip, mainly), sports writers (pick any of hundreds) have just wanted NASCAR to get it right! What is right? There are so many ideas floating around out there about just how NASCAR should tweak the points so that it is fair to the 10 drivers in the Chase. Some of these ideas include a 10 point system in which single points are given in decending order of finish. Some think this is great, some hate it, some want to include the entire driving field finish, some want to set aside just the 10 drivers in the chase for the new system. Just let those in the Chase have their own way of earning points and the rest of you crew chiefs, jack men, tire changers in the field just get out of the way and let the "best" ten do their thing.
Well, personally I despise the notion that NASCAR as a sport would even consider putting the Chasers on a pedastal. The drivers in the Chase have to race to the finish. They have to do the same things all other drivers and teams have to do in order to show up and give it their best effort. So why would we even consider two different point systems? By this standard, in a couple of years there will be two races on Saturday. The Busch Race will be early morning. Then there would be a night race for the also-rans, the cast-offs, those drivers that just didn't have what it took to race with the big fellas! But Sunday, oh how we couldn't wait till Sunday! To watch ten cars go round and round and round for 250 laps, or 500 laps. Hmmmm...now that I think about it...that might be fun to watch! Let's even wait till the end of the first 26 races to hand out the prize money! Just the drivers in the Chase gets it all, in decending order of course.
I am just kidding of course, but there are some crazy ideas out there. The latter wouldn't suprise me not one bit! So I got to thinking. What do I want to see change in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Chase for the Championship? What do I see as good in the sport? What do I not like about the sport? So of course like the 299 perspective ideas preceding me, I came up to the solution to all of NASCAR's "so called" problems!
Amazingly, I feel I have solved the biggest riddle to hit America since the Rubic's Cube! Alright so here goes. I will cave in and say let's let those drivers in the Chase have their own points system. A Race to the Chase is awesome. All drivers are involved so that's good! The Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup is also great; novel idea even. However I want to see all NASCAR's finest racing each other, week in and week out. I want the points system to somehow reflect the whole field though.
For me, consistency is the keys to winning. Not just in motorsports, but also in life. Think about it. You consistently make a lot of money, you become rich. You consistently put money in a retirement account, one day you will be content. You consistenly be nice to others, eventually you reap the big dividend of friendships. You have consistently gotten the idea by now. So to in NASCAR consistency has always mattered, always will. We cannot take consistency out of the points system equation.
The only other thing as I pondered was how do these drivers get such HOT women? Well that and the fact that drivers that win should get more points than they currently get. I don't know how NASCAR should do it during the Race to the Chase, but I do know how they should do it during the Chase. So keep these two things in mind as I present to you THE 300TH PERSPECTIVE! My personal points system for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Chase drivers.
And in doing the math, I was rather suprised by what I found. So just sit back and watch consistency and winning combine to make the Chase even better than it is right now. (For the record, I had not read anywhere a system like this, so if someone else has thought of this before and posted it or written a piece on it, please prove this to me and I will promptly remove this post for I do not want credit for this when NASCAR implements it next year!)
OK. Simple chart fashion is better than writing. Depending where you finish a race will determine the number of points you tally. That sounds familiar yes, but heres the difference:
Bonus points: 0.5 point for leading a lap 1 point for leading the most laps (this is not between Chasers, but as Nascar would score them against the entire field.)
First of all, some of you are disagreeing, that's just not enough; that's stupid; that won't solve anything. But wait, it kind of gets interesting. First let me jot down a quick view of the Chase points system now.
1. Matt Kenseth 6008 2. Jimmie Johnson -26 3. Denny Hamlin -65 4. Dale Ernhardt Jr. -84 5. Jeff Burton -84 6. Kevin Harvick -121 7. Jeff Gordon -146 8. Mark Martin -201 9. Kasey Kahne -210 10. Kyle Busch -249
Now I am going to put a simple graph up that gives out the points through the firist seven races in just across the page format with the first number being the points the driver earned during the first race in the Chase, the second race, etc.
I have recently modified these point totals to reflect the .5 point for a lap lead, and 1 point for the most laps lead. The Bonus points have been added up and placed as one number. To the left are the standings before the bonus points were applied:
I am going to add just for fun how Tony Stewart, a.k.a SMOKE currently would be in the points standings had he qualified, and of course there were 11 teams: but a good point made by JayJay was that Tony wouldn't have taken as many chances, i.e. the win without power early in the chase.
Matt Kenseth 8 8 4 10 6 8 10 = 54 Bonus 2.5 1. Jeff Burton 55
Jimmie Johnson 2 6 6 4 10 15 10 = 53 Bonus 3.5 2. Matt Kenseth 54
So what pops out at you guys and gals? Yes, you see it also. A lot of these numbers are suprisingly close. What does this mean? A more interesting Chase right now by this system than we currently have. The current system shows Kevin Harvick nearly out of the race with 3 to go. With my system you could make a case for eight drivers still in the chase with 3 to go! Eureka!
So here's how my chasers stand now, and I will update these following the Dickies 500 at Texas Motorspeedway: Updated to reflect bonus point addition.
Tony Stewart 62.0 not in chase, but had he been? WOW
1. Jeff Burton 57.0 see the one win helped!
2. Matt Kenseth 56.5 consistent, consistent, consistent
2. Jimmie Johnson 56.5 a win, and consistency over the past 3 races
3. Denny Hamlin 51.5 consistency at beginning of chase, and last two races have paid off
4. Kevin Harvick 48.5 see what one win against a few bad races can do?
4. Dale Jr. 48.5 just four consistent races, yet still in the thick of it
4. Jeff Gordon 48.5 basically no chance at all under the current system
5. Kasey Kahne 47.0 still a fighting chance, again with one win, and just two top tens
6. Mark Martin 39 still basically no chance under my system, darn!
7. Kyle Bush 37.5 ditto, (minus the darn!)
The addition of the bonus points oddly enough did not affect the standings of the drivers. Must also note that the points differential between the top eight drivers before the addition of the bonus points was 10 points before and after.
Let me know what you guys think. I didn't proof read, but I'm pretty sure the numbers are right. This addresses once again what I feel the Chase for the Cup currently lacks: reward for consistency AND winning. Think of the five point difference between no. 1 and no. 2 as you view those drivers like Harvick, Jr., Gordon, and Kahne. Obviously one win in the next 2 races could make the race at Homestead MUST SEE TV!
Another WS is 3/7 over. Another college football season is 6/12 over. Another NFL season is 7/17 over. Another NASCAR season is 6/10 over. Another NHL season is just OVER.
Another basketball season for UK Wildcats is over before exhibition.
I usually write about things that bother me. Sometimes because I like stats, I will write a somewhat lightly technical blog. Anyway, Go Wildcats, Buckeyes, Raiders, Vikes, Rams, Lakers, and Mavs.
