Traditional NASCAR fans should catch Chase fever
Minutes after the checkered flag was waved at Saturday night’s Rhino Linings 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, I sidled over to where a NASCAR truck series official was updating championship points.
He could have used his fingers instead of calculator. With 18 races run and five to go, Erik Jones led Matt Crafton by four points.
Cue the Jim Mora soundbite.
“Playoffs? Don’t talk about … playoffs? You kiddin’ me? Playoffs?”
They don’t have playoffs in the NASCAR Truck Series. Or a Chase for the Championship. Perhaps they don’t need one. They’ve got a taut two-way battle for the title, and a third truck, young Tyler Reddick’s, is only 16 points behind.
In the Xfinity Series, the next rung up the NASCAR ladder, Chris Buescher leads Chase Elliott by 24 points, Regan Smith by 36, Ty Dillon by 39. It pays 43 points to win in NASCAR, which seems like an arbitrary amount, but 43 was Richard Petty’s car number. So it’s still close in the Xfinity Series, too.
Of NASCAR’s three professional tours, the marquee Sprint Cup division is the only one that has a playoff. Right now, there’s a 12-way tie for first in Sprint Cup points, because that’s how they do it. It’s like “Whose Line Is it Anyway?” You do your bit, they give you arbitrary points.
A bunch of races are run, like around 26, and then 10 more races are run — this is the de facto playoff called the Chase. It’s sort of confusing when Kyle Petty tries to explain it on TV, especially after they keep changing the format.
I believe this is how the Fram Oil Filters guy would explain the current iteration:
Sixteen drivers qualify. Three races are run. Four drivers are eliminated. Points are reset.
Three more races are run. Four more drivers are eliminated. Points are reset again.
Three more races are run. Four more drivers are eliminated. Points are reset one more time. Leaving just four championship eligible drivers to run one more race, outside of Miami.
The driver with the highest finish in the last race wins the world championship of stock car racing. Although they don’t call it that, unlike in the other national sports.
Pay him now, or pay him later. Just don’t ask him to explain the tiebreakers.
Most traditional NASCAR fans don’t much care for the stock car racing playoffs, in they way that fans of the 2001 Seattle Mariners don’t much care for the baseball playoffs. The Mariners won 114 games that season, lost only 46. But Seattle was beaten by the Yankees in the playoffs and didn’t make it to the World Series, despite winning those 114 games.
Traditional NASCAR fans liked the old system better. They believe the driver who scores the most points over the entire season should be crowned champion. And they have a point.
But on Sunday, a $5 part put Jimmie Johnson out of the Chase. Johnson almost always wins the championship, and so perhaps now traditional NASCAR fans are seeing this Chase thing in a new light.
Johnson is from California and he doesn’t drop his G’s, so most traditional NASCAR fans don’t much care for him, either. And if he’s out, that means Dale Earnhardt Jr. still can win it, and that would make his daddy proud.
Woo-hoo!
So maybe the NASCAR playoffs are contrived, but no more contrived than the baseball playoffs, or playoffs in other sports, when you think about it. And if you watched NASCAR instead of pro football on Sunday — which was the idea behind stock car racing playoffs in the first place — you were thoroughly entertained.
This race, in Dover, Del., was the final one in the first round of three races after which four drivers were eliminated from the Chase. With 10 laps to go, there were battles all over the Monster Mile to determine who would move on to the next round.
Dale Jr. won his, edging past Jamie McMurray on the final restart. Or he would have been out.
Kyle Busch, originally of Las Vegas, now of this big lake outside of Charlotte, N.C., around which all the top stock car drivers reside, moved on by finishing second. He had started the day on the outside of the next round looking in.
Big brother Kurt Busch, also originally of Las Vegas, now also of a sprawling mansion on Lake Norman, advanced to the next round by finishing 17th. Kurt B. was on the inside looking further inside when the day began, so that’s why he didn’t have to jam gears so hard.
Kevin Harvick, who like Richard Petty and Ray Babbitt is an excellent driver, advanced to the next round by winning. He almost had to spray the Gatorade to get in, after he and Johnson had tangled in Chicago.
Some people who are not traditional NASCAR fans will tell you that is the beauty of the stock car racing playoffs, that you make one mistake and you could be out — just like the Mariners in 2001, after Alfonso Soriano hit that home run. And now Jimmie Johnson is out, and defending champion Kevin Harvick is in, but just barely, and Dale Jr. is in, but just barely.
Woo-hoo!
It made Sunday’s race at Dover, Del., a lot more compelling than it would have been otherwise, although most people probably still were watching pro football.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski
