NASCAR: Thus Far The Chase Has Worked Almost Perfectly

Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

The 2014 chase for the Sprint Cup championship is down to its final eight drivers. Six weeks ago the field stood at 16 and now only half of those remain with the hope of winning a championship this season. For months and months now the majority of NASCAR fans have griped about the new chase format. They have begged and pleaded for the chase to be done away with, they have argued that this format is worse than any other incarnation of the chase and they have vowed that the chase will never crown a true champion.

Well, if you ask me thus far the chase have worked to near perfection.

For starters let’s take a look at the remaining drivers in the chase. Those drivers are of course Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman. Listed below are the top-12 drivers in NASCAR based on their average finish in 2014.

Jeff Gordon (10.3)
Joey Logano (11.5)
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (12.8)
Brad Keselowski (12.9)
Ryan Newman (13.3)
Kevin Harvick (13.4)
Matt Kenseth (13.6)
Kyle Larson (14.0)
Carl Edwards (14.5)
Jimmie Johnson (14.7)
Denny Hamlin (15.1)
Greg Biffle (16.1)

Of the drivers listed above, six of the top-seven are still in the chase with Earnhardt Jr. (3rd best average finish in 2014) being the only one in the first seven that is no longer alive for a championship. The other two chase drivers (Edwards and Hamlin) are still ranked inside of the top-12. So, when it comes to the best average finishes for the season, eight of the top-11 drivers on that list are still alive for the championship.

Below is a list of the top-12 drivers based on their average finish since the chase has begun (so it’s over the span of the last six races).

Joey Logano (4.1)
Kyle Larson (6.0)
Kevin Harvick (7.1)
Ryan Newman (9.8)
Brad Keselowski (10.5)
Matt Kenseth (11.6)
Jeff Gordon (11.8)
Kyle Busch (12.1)
Martin Truex Jr. (13.0)
Carl Edwards (13.6)
Austin Dillon (14.1)
Denny Hamlin (14.8)

All eight of the drivers still alive in the chase are on the list above. Of the four drivers on the list who are not in the chase two of them would not have been in championship contention this season regardless (Dillon and Truex Jr.). The reason why the chase has not been flawless this season is because of the other two drivers (Larson and Busch). In the case of Larson it would have been nice to see him in the chase since he has run well in 2014 but he simply had too many bad finishes before the start of the chase. When it comes to Busch he has been the only true victim of the chase thus far. Busch ran the first five chase races in the top-10 (the last two before Talladega in the top-five) only to see his championship hopes come apart as a result of one poor finish at Talladega.

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Consistency aside, one of the other things that anti-chase fans argue is that contending for a championship should be about a drivers entire body of work. The argument here is that just winning one race should not be enough to give a driver the right to contend for a title. Well, the four driver who have won the most races in 2014; Keselowski (6), Logano (5), Gordon (4) and Harvick (3) are still in the chase. Granted, Earnhardt Jr. and Johnson who each won three races aren’t in the chase any longer, but that has a lot to do with their poor finishes over the last three races. Also, if you include Edwards in the mix, five of the seven drivers who have won multiple races in 2014 can still win the championship.

Lastly, here is a look at how the standings would be if there wasn’t a chase and the championship was decided based solely on points.

Jeff Gordon
Joey Logano (-38)
Brad Keselowski (-72)
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-92)
Kevin Harvick (-93)
Matt Kenseth (-122)
Ryan Newman (-125)
Jimmie Johnson (-148)
Kyle Larson (-148)
Carl Edwards (-154)

Without the chase the quest to win a championship in 2014 would essentially be a two-horse race between Gordon and Logano with Keselowski frantically trying to race back into contention over the final four races. All three of those drivers are still alive for the championship in the current format as well. Moreover, seven of the drivers that would have been in the top-10 in points without the chase still have a great shot to win a championship this season.

Obviously if you’re a fan of Johnson, Earnhardt Jr. or Busch you’re going to be upset that your driver is out of the chase. However, in a world without the chase your driver would have been pretty much done anyways. Obviously a slim chance is better than no chance but in the end the result is pretty much guaranteed to be the same.

When the Sprint Cup Series hits the track at Martinsville there will be eight drivers tied for the championship lead and still in contention to win a title this season. Without the chase there would have been three in contention and a lot of that would hinge on Gordon having a bad day because top-10 finishes over the final four races would almost seal the title up for him. When the series hits Homestead-Miami there are going to be four drivers tied for the championship lead (guaranteed).

In the last 20 years the closest the gap in the final standings has been between 1st and 4th place is 55 points and that happened after the chase was brought into existence. Prior to the chase the gap between 1st place and 4th place in most season was easily more than 200 points and in some cases it was over 500 points. In many of the seasons before the chase the final few races didn’t even matter because of how much of a lead

Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

the champion had. In fact, the same can be said of many of the seasons under the old chase formula as well (2011 being the glaring difference). With the new format the differential between the champion and 4th place will always be less than 50 points and depending on how things fall it could easily be less than five.

In the end the new chase format still benefits those who win a lot of races and it still benefits those who are consistent each and every week. Additionally, the chase awards every team who wins in a sport where wins are hard to come by, it makes the last 10 races of the season exciting, it guarantees that multiple drivers are always alive to win a title and it makes the last few races of the season (especially the final race) worth watching. If you’re a fan who has said something along the lines of “the chase is stupid because the finale is just going to be Gordon, Harvick, Keselowski and Logano.” Well if that’s the case doesn’t that mean that the chase is doing its job since you feel those are the four best drivers and those would be the drivers who have a chance to win a title.

Today we live in a world where attention spans are short and action and drama reign supreme. The bottom line is that there is nothing appealing about a driver having a 300 or 400 point lead in the standings with a handful of races to go. There is no drama or excitement in a driver building up such a lead come race 20 that the rest of the season is almost not worth watching because it’s a foregone conclusion what the outcome is going to be. The chase makes NASCAR more exciting and it gives more drivers a chance to win a championship, the chase isn’t perfect but it’s close if you ask me.

Christopher Olmstead is the Editor of BeyondTheFlag.com on the FanSided Network. Follow us on Twitter @Beyond_The_Flag and “Like” us on Facebook.

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