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Was there anything wrong with the previous Bud Shootout qualifying format? Anything at all? It was so simple. Win a pole - you're in. Win the Bud Shootout - you stay in as long as you are a mostly full-time competitor. Simple. Easy. Made qualifying mean a tiny bit in a time when the top-35 cars are locked into the field.
In 2008 a few odd occurrences happened in qualifying...
- Ten, count 'em - TEN - qualifying rain outs meant only 15 drivers won poles, down from 18 the previous year.
- Thanks to the top-35 rule and GOGH cars showing up in qualifying trim while the locked-in cars did so in race trim, GOGHer Joe Nemechek won the pole at Talladega, edging out Tony Stewart at the end of qualifying.
- Patrick Carpentier won the pole at New Hampshire.
In August, NASCAR announced that instead of the Shootout line-up including pole winners - eliminating any incentive other than the small monetary award given for winning the pole - they would award the top-six cars from each manufacturer a spot in the field. What?
Now, at the time, Tony Stewart had already announced that he was buying into what is now Stewart-Haas Racing. Despite winning the Shootout three times, he was now OUT of the Shootout after taking over a GOGH car for 2009. So, I don't think you can call this the "Tony Stewart Rule", but consider that the following changes have happened to alter the field since they announced the new rules...
- The Chevrolets stay the same, with thre Hendrick cars and three from RCR.
- The Fords stay the same, with five (!) Roush cars and Yates Racing's #28.
- The Toyotas stay the same, with three Gibbs cars, the #83 Red Bull and the #00 (ex-#44) and #55 from MWR
However, the Dodges are an absolute MESS. Four Dodge teams were "in" when they announced the changes in August.
- Two Dodges from Gillett Evernham were in - Kasey Kahne's #9 and the #19 which went from Elliott Sadler to A.J. Allmendinger and back over a couple of weeks.
- Two Dodges from Penske were in - Kurt Busch's #2 and the #12 of new driver David Stremme, who will be racing while 2008 Daytiona 500 (and 2008 pole-winner AND 2002 Shootout winner) Ryan Newman will not.
- Although Petty merged with GEM, their #43 - now presumably driven by Reed Sorenson - is in the Shootout.
But here's where it gets interesting...
Chip Ganassi Racing and Dale Earnhardt Incorporated merged and announced they will be running Chevrolets. What did NASCAR do? They deemed that EGR, now a Chevrolet team, gets all of the cars from 2008 listed as Chevrolets, effectively knocking Juan Pablo Montoya out of the Shootout. Who is replacing him? Robby Gordon, who was the next highest-finishing Dodge. Do you know what make Robby Gordon is running in 2009? Hint: NOT A DODGE. A Toyota, in fact. So let's go over this again...
NASCAR removed a car that ran a Dodge in 2008 but is running a Chevrolet in 2009, in favor of a driver who had worse results (by the new qualifying criteria) in a Dodge but is running a Toyota in 2009.
What?!
And NOW, we get the announcement that NASCAR has changed the rules to let Tony Stewart into the filed as a "wild card". AYFK me? We're all USED to NASCAR bending the rules on a whim, right? (Even though I complain about it to no end and you probably do, too.) But changing them BEFORE THEY EVEN RUN ONE RACE UNDER THE NEW RULES? That's a new one even for NASCAR.
The sad thing is this all could have been avoided if they would have THOUGHT THIS THROUGH in August. Tony Stewart wasn't going to be in the field THEN. People were speculating about the economy and teams going under and merging and the car manufacturers having trouble in August - why change the rules to be MORE about the GD TEAMS and MANUFACTURERS to begin with? Why take the focus off the drivers - who AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE? Why make qualifying LESS important than it already was, which was hardly important at all?
What is NASCAR going to do NEXT year? What if a manufacturer pull out of the sport completely? What if a new one comes in - are you going to have a thirty or forty car Shootout? What if Richard Childress decided to switch to running Fords? (Yeah, that won't happen, but JGR went from Chevy to Toyota, right?) Why create a bunch of open-ended scenarios when the rules were already black-and-white?
On the plus side - just three weeks and WE'RE GOIN' RACIN'! Boogit-shutupDW.
2008 Craftsman Truck Series FINAL
Saturday, November 15, 2008, 09:30 AM EST
[General]
First off - congratulations to Johnny Benson for winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship last night. I feel like I need to put that in here so I don't sounds like a whining Ron Hornaday-fan, which I might, but I'm not. I just really don't like the fact that, well, let me just repost what I wrote two months ago...
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. It is also worth pointing out that not only did Hornaday have more wins that Benson, he actually beat Benson on the track, head-to-head, 13 times out of 25. They also had the same number of top-fives and top-tens, so essentially their seven NOT top-ten finishes were the championship-deciders. Whatever the case, Benson won the championship by seven points. It will be interesting to see where he ends up next year. Strangely, since Ron Hornaday won the extremely prestigious JJD version of the Truck Series championship, that makes SIX years in a row that my champion has been different from NASCAR's. 2008 - Ron Hornaday (NASCAR - Johnny Benson) 2007 - Mike Skinner (NASCAR - Ron Hornaday) 2006 - Johnny Benson (NASCAR - Todd Bodine) 2005 - Todd Bodine (NASCAR - Ted Musgrave) 2004 - Ted Musgrave (NASCAR - Bobby Hamilton Sr.) 2003 - Brendan Gaughan (NASCAR - Travis Kvapil) 2002 - Mike Bliss 2001 - Jack Sprague 2000 - Greg Biffle 1999 - Jack Sprague 1998 - Ron Hornaday 1997 - Jack Sprague 1996 - Mike Skinner (NASCAR - Ron Hornaday) 1995 - Mike Skinner Congratulations also to Todd Bodine for winning the Ford 200. The win gives Bodine 15 Truck Series wins in his career, and with his 15 Busch/NWS wins he is only the second driver to get to 15 wins in both series. (Greg Biffle has 18 Busch/NWS wins and 16 Truck Series wins.) He is also the 34th driver ever to get to 30 TOTAL wins, but only the third to do so without a Cup victory. (After Ron Hornaday's 43 wins and Jack Ingram's 31 wins.) Here are the final 2008 drivers standings, including every driver who scored a point. CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES Rank Points 1 Ron Hornaday 290 2 Johnny Benson 274 3 Todd Bodine 240 4 Kyle Busch 226 5 Erik Darnell 174 6 Matt Crafton 153 7 Mike Skinner 138 8 Rick Crawford 121 9 Dennis Setzer 103 10 Jack Sprague 101 11 Scott Speed 81 12 David Starr 80 13 Terry Cook 70 14 Chad McCumbee 69 Colin Braun 69 16 Travis Kvapil 57 17 Brian Scott 52 18 Brendan Gaughan 47 19 T.J. Bell 40 20 Kevin Harvick 36 21 Donny Lia 35 22 Ted Musgrave 31 23 Michael Annett 27 24 Landon Cassill 26 25 Stacy Compton 23 26 Ryan Newman 21 27 Shelby Howard 20 28 Denny Hamlin 15 29 John Andretti 14 30 Bobby East 12 Ken Schrader 12 32 Mike Wallace 10 33 Justin Marks 9 34 Jon Wood 8 Brad Keselowski 8 36 Marc Mitchell 6 Jeff Green 6 38 Shane Sieg 4 Sean Murphy 4 Phillip McGilton 4 David Stremme 4 Sam Hornish Jr. 4 43 Jason White 3 Timothy Peters 3 45 Andy Lally 2 46 Chad Chaffin 1 Ryan Lawler 1 Mario Gosselin 1 Jack Smith 1 Mike Bliss 1 Jimmie Johnson 1 This is also the first year that I have tracked the manufacturer's standings. NASCAR gives points based on the order of the makes - so in last night's race Chevrolet came in "second", even though their first truck finished THIRD behind two Toyotas. That doesn't make a whole lt of sense to me, so I scored them based on where the highest-finishing truck was. (So last night Toyota got first-place with the pole and the most laps led, Chevrolet got third while leading a lap, Dodge fifth, and Ford sixth.) Toyota 488 Chevrolet 433 Ford 287 Dodge 124 No big surprise there - Toyota won 13 races to Chevrolet's ten, with more poles (11 vs. 6) and more most-laps-led bonuses (13 vs. 9). Tags:
Breaking down the clinching scenarios
Thursday, November 13, 2008, 08:28 AM EST
[General]
Sometimes I think NASCAR thinks we are all stupid. (OK, that's a LOT of the time.) The minute the Phoenix race was over we were told the championship-clinching scenarios for Jimmie Johnson, right?
- finish 36th without leading a lap, or - finish 38th while leading at least one lap, or - finish 39th while leading the most laps Well, NASCAR is kind of leaving out an important part of the equation here: where Carl Edwards finishes. I realize they are trying to get people to tune in and all that, but here is the REAL deal. While all of the above statements are TRUE, the thing NASCAR isn't telling you is this: If Carl Edwards does not finish in the top-three OR if he fails to lead a single lap Sunday, Jimmie Johnson is the NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. I haven't seen that ANYWHERE. Jimmie Johnson could break his wrist while flipping the switch to fire his engine, and if Carl finishes fourth - Jimmie is the champ. Again. (Again.) (Sounds a lot less possible now, doesn't it? I thought so.) In fact - here's what you need to know - the comprehensive list of what would happen given ALL of the possibilities Sunday. IF CARL EDWARDS FINISHES THIRD... - AND leads the MOST laps AND Jimmie finishes 43rd WITHOUT leading a single lap - CARL is the champion. (Sidenote of awesomeness: Technically, Carl and Jimmie would be tied but Carl would win the tiebreaker with eight wins vs. Jimmie's seven. That extra win? How about Las Vegas - where Carl's oil deck lid vanished and he was docked 100 points AND the bonus points for the "win". A tainted win decides the championship because NASCAR "won't take away wins"? The prospect makes me tingly.) IF CARL FINISHES SECOND, AND... - LEADS NO LAPS - Jimmie is the champ. - LEADS A LAP BUT NOT THE MOST LAPS - Jimmie would have to finish 43rd without leading a single lap for Carl to win the championship. (Same tiebreaker scenario.) - LEADS THE MOST LAPS, Jimmie wins the championship if he: - finishes 42nd while leading a lap OR - finishes 41st IF CARL WINS... - BUT DOESN'T LEAD THE MOST LAPS, Jimmie wins the championship if he: - finishes 42nd while leading the MOST laps, OR - finishes 40th while leading a lap OR - finishes 37th while leading the MOST laps. IF CARL WINS AND LEADS THE MOST LAPS, THEN the clinching scenario NASCAR is laying out, where Jimmie needs to: - finish 36th without leading a lap, or - finish 38th while leading at least one lap, or - finish 39th while leading the most laps ...is legit. I mean, it's ALREADY a foregone conclusion that Jimmie will win the championship, but I feel like NASCAR is leaving the door WAY more open than it actually is. And the one thing I hate about NASCAR is the way they constantly take advantage of the ignorance of their fans. (Don't freak out about the "ignorance" comment, btw. I am NOT calling NASCAR fans "ignorant" like some kind of insult. I'm just saying there is a lot of stuff out there NASCAR fans don't know - like a REALLY good understanding of the points, as an example - and NASCAR kind of uses that to create false drama where there is really none.) Also - I would be remiss if I didn't point out that if they did the Chase MY way, Jimmie would have to finish SECOND to clinch the championship if Carl won Sunday. Here are those standings right now. 2008 ST 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 TOTAL Jimmie Johnson 20 21 14 25 10 15 25 21 2 25 178 Carl Edwards 25 18 18 21 1 1 18 25 25 19 171 Greg Biffle 0 25 25 18 4 12 2 5 14 3 108 Kyle Busch 40 0 0 0 6 19 0 12 11 8 96 Jeff Burton 5 15 5 8 19 25 1 0 3 6 87 Jeff Gordon 0 1 9 15 0 9 15 7 21 0 77 Matt Kenseth 0 0 21 12 3 0 7 15 6 1 65 Kevin Harvick 0 4 11 10 5 3 9 2 9 10 63 Denny Hamlin 5 6 0 3 0 2 12 18 0 16 62 Clint Bowyer 5 2 7 2 16 4 5 0 17 2 60 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 5 12 1 1 2 0 21 3 0 13 58 Tony Stewart 0 8 2 0 25 5 0 1 1 0 42 That would make for a pretty fun race Sunday, wouldn't it? (Of course, what's going to likely happen is Jimmie cruises to a 15th or so finish while Carl wins - giving Jimmie the real title while Carl wins doing it this way. Oh well.) (ABOUT COMMENTS: I don't know WHAT the deal is, but I can NOT post a comment to save my life here. So, if you have a comment, I'm posting this on my Blogger - uh - blog. Here's the linkage. Please leave comments there (or here, too, if you can) and I will be happy to respond.) Tags:
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