Ramblings of a Jackhole

Wow NASACR!  Sunday night brought some surprises.  Drivers that should have been able to lock themselves in failed to so do and those that one would have thought would be out of it, still have a shot.

Here are the current top twenty:

One driver, Denny Hamlin, was able to lock himself into the chase and join Tony Steward, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordan as the four locked into the Chase.  And on the downside, Bowyer and Ambrose are “locked out” following their finishes at Atlanta.  Probably the biggest surprise was David Reutimann who kept himself into the chase by earning 28 more points than Matt Kenseth, currently 12th in the standings.

That leaves a surprisingly large number of driver still able to “mathematically” get into the chase.  There are now still eleven drivers who are still vying for the eight remaining spots.  As a winner, who lead the most laps, will receive only 195 points , it is possible to calculate the points a driver must earn to guarantee him a spot in the Chase EVEN IF thirteenth place driver Brian Vickers accomplishes just that.

Those currently “in” the Chase would need to earn the following points (as well as the associated finishes, both without and with the five bonus points for leading a lap) to guarantee a spot in the Chase, regardless of the points Brian Vickers receives on Saturday.

Conversely, the bottom three stand like this:

Only Brian Vickers can guarantee himself a spot in the Chase by winning the race AND leading the most laps.  If he does this and EVEN IF Kenseth finishes second AND receives the five bonus points for leading a lap, they would tie and BOTH Kenseth and Vickers would get into the Chase.  However, for Kyle Busch, and even more so for Reutimann, earning a place in the Chase will take not only a good finish, but a poor finish from one or more of the drivers currently “in” the Chase.

Unfortunately for Reutimann, even if he receives the maximum 195 points this Saturday, he would need each of the three drivers in front of him to finish the following, or worse.  Kenseth – 34th,  Vickers – 27th and Kyle Busch – 21st.  So, it looks like Reutimann’s chances are slim to none.  That mean in reality, there are likely only ten drivers looking at the remaining eight spots.

Clearly 12th place driver Matt Kenseth is as much on the “bubble” as is Vickers and Kyle Busch.  However, none of the 5th-11th place drivers are “safe” and all will likely be having trouble sleeping this week.

Now, the Jackhole is a huge Ryan Newman fan, and while he isn’t locked in, the Jackhole is thinking that Ryan has a darn good chance.  Even IF Ryan has an AWFUL race and finishes 35th, he’d STILL be in the race if ANY TWO of the following drivers have the following finishes:

Now even if Ryan finishes mid-pack at 22nd, he would be guaranteed to tie with Kyle Busch (even if Kyle wins and leads the most laps) and only ONE of the following drivers would need to have the following finish (or worse):

So go Rocketman RYAN!  I hope you have a good race or, at least, at least two of the above “bubble” drivers have a bad race as well!  It’s hard to cheer against a driver but us Newman fans REALLY don’t want Vickers to get those 195 points as that’ll force Ryan to have to finish 16th or better to “lock” in to the Chase (and not need other teams to do poorly).

In short, if Vickers doesn’t win on Saturday, Ryan can finish 22nd without needing others to not win or have a certain finish.  If the winner isn’t Kyle Busch or Vickers, then Ryan needs to finish either 23rd or 24th+5 bonus points or better to “lock in”.

Again, WOW NASCAR!  The Chase format sure is keeping things exciting these last few weeks.  Hopefully the ten weeks after that will living up to this excitement!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under 2009 Season, NASCAR, Race to the Chase. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.