2015 NASCAR Thread - And then there was 1

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jahgee
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GTPorsche
System designed to make wins mean more has the 3 drivers with the most wins not in championship contention. :lol:
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Keselowski recently remarked that fairness has nothing to do with the NASCAR chase. It all about what makes the fans happy and packs them into the seats, he said. It really is more show business than a true sporting competition. And that's okay, as long as everybody understands it must be this way in order to survive at the commercial level it has attained.
 
Blood Eagle
I'm not a fan of stats because they mean little especially when you consider getting caught up in accidents, mechanical problems, unforeseen circumstances, experience etc but here are the Homestead stats for the final 4.

Jeff Gordon - Average finish 10.56 in 16 starts

Kevin Harvick - Average finish 7.57 in 14 starts

Kyle Busch - Average finish 23.1 in 10 starts

Martin Truex Jr. - Average finish 10.0 in 10 starts

Not looking good for Kyle stats wise but I've seen the 18 do some amazing things in a race car and that's why I am a fan. I've been impressed by his maturity level as of late. Hope he can pull it off. More so as a general FU to the current chase format. People who don't think he deserves it, do you think Harvick does after his little stunt in Talladega? People change. I bet you'd see a different Kyle if he went all the way.
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Cheap plug but I've been breaking down statistics for Beyond the Flag during the Chase this year and I've found that only using stats from Gen Six (start of 2013) onward is a pretty good indicator as to who is fast on race day. I'll post the Homestead article in here when it's published.
 
GTFan24
All 4 hendrick cars to have yellow numbers in honor of gordon at homestead
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2015-Yellow-Numbers_Four-Number-Version02.png


Link: http://www.hendrickmotorsports.com/...-tribute-at-homestead-with-jeff-gordon-yellow
 
Christian_C
To be fair a team that start and parks is not a team which is in race winning contention to begin with.

What kyle did would not have been possible if he was driving for bkracing or the like. It was really sheer fortune that he happened to get back in the car just as jgr were coming on song.

But I stand by what I said in that the majority of those which didn't make it were the causes of their own demise.

Keslowski - martinsville contact because of the team games he was playing and pinching kenseth too hard.

Logano - kansas and the aftermath.

Junior - just being junior really. Smoking the tyres at dega being the final blow.

Hamlin - dega roof hatch. Team failing.

Newman - just not good enough.

Kenseth - a tough one but depending on which side of the face you stand the kansas situation may not have been totally one sided (although luck had somewhat not gone his way)

Johnson - Team failing at Dover, a race he could have won.

Kurt busch - Even with the martinsville contact which wasn't his fault he nailed the coffin shut by failing at the start on sunday, he had a race winning car and didn't need to try and get by right away at T1.

The others were simply just not fast enough.

Gordon was handed his place when the others faltered but both busch and truex just did solid jobs and what they needed to get through. Harvick well, he did well this round but dega raises question marks.
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You didn't fully follow the scenario though, if the team has enough to do what it needs to like Phoenix racing or FR racing and that driver wins one or two races, they could easily save needed funs by starting and parking there after. While still being in the run for the chase, and then set up to run those 10 races or however long they last before being knocked out. The point is that the system has no been proven that (unless specified at some point) no matter the scenario as long as there is a slot and you have a win, you're in the playoffs...

Something seems fundamentally wrong with that, and that's beyond the fact that we're dealing with a system that is chase oriented to begin with.
 
Classic points after 35/36 races.

1) #4- Kevin Harvick(C1), 1278
2) #22- Joey Logano(EC), 1258, -20
3) #88- Dale Earnhardt Jr. (EC), 1194, -84
4) #2- Brad Keselowski(EC), 1174, -104
5) #78- Martin Truex Jr.(C4), 1132, -146
6) #48- Jimmie Johnson(EC), 1120, -158
7) #11- Denny Hamlin(EC), 1083, -195
8) #19- Carl Edwards(EC), 1074, -204
9) #41- Kurt Busch(EC), 1072, -206
10) #24- Jeff Gordon(C2), 1071, -207
20) #18- Kyle Busch(C3), 820, -458

Danica is 24th, Stenhouse Jr. is 25th, Hornish Jr is 26th, Stewart is 28th.
 
Considering he missed nearly 1/3rd of the races, yes. Of course, it helped that he went on a winning streak, but that's still a huge disadvantage to begin with.
 
Just goes to ahow you how good the top drivers are...

...and how bad some of the backmarkers are...

...and how bad the past few seasons have been for Smoke.

EDIT: so, without the Chase format, that qould be the current points for this year? Man, he may have missed 11 races, but that didn't slow Kyle's charge all that much. A pretty respectable spot for how far down he was.
 
I'm honestly ok with any of the final 4 winning.

Gordon - He was my first favorite driver, and I never got to see him win a championship. Would love for him to go out on a high note.
Truex - Who doesn't love an underdog story? Plus with all the emphasis on wins, it'd be hilarious to have a champion with at most 4 career wins.
Busch - It'd be one hell of a comeback story, and having a champion that missed 11 races would show how ridiculous the Chase is.
Harvick - The salt produced would meet world demand for the next century. And it'd be so much fun to watch.
 
GTPorsche
Regardless of who wins, NASCAR still comes across as pathetic with the way this chase has panned out.
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Absolutely the truth right there. The real loser in this format is the true fan of the sport. I mean, in the traditional season, Harvick would still be a contender for the championship, but all he did this year is act like a mega hypocrite by altering the chase with his antics at Talledega. I also don't think that either of the Logano/Kenseth incidents would have occurred either because points would have still been the most important thing. I used to absolutely loathe points racing, but I really appreciate and miss it now because there was far less stupidity then compared to the stupid antics that occurred this year alone.
 
GTPorsche
Classic points after 35/36 races.

1) #4- Kevin Harvick(C1), 1278
2) #22- Joey Logano(EC), 1258, -20
3) #88- Dale Earnhardt Jr. (EC), 1194, -84
4) #2- Brad Keselowski(EC), 1174, -104
5) #78- Martin Truex Jr.(C4), 1132, -146
6) #48- Jimmie Johnson(EC), 1120, -158
7) #11- Denny Hamlin(EC), 1083, -195
8) #19- Carl Edwards(EC), 1074, -204
9) #41- Kurt Busch(EC), 1072, -206
10) #24- Jeff Gordon(C2), 1071, -207
20) #18- Kyle Busch(C3), 820, -458

Danica is 24th, Stenhouse Jr. is 25th, Hornish Jr is 26th, Stewart is 28th.
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Kurt Busch missed the first two races, and still has more points than Gordon. That's impressive.
 
GTPorsche
He has one more point. Missing 1 or two races early in the season isn't detrimental to the overall picture.
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Considering the way he and Harvick were running early in the season, missing two starts could have cost him 60-85 points. He could be up around Truex in total points if not for the missed starts.
 
While his example is massively flawed, he is right.

NASCAR has steadily remained stagnant in pushing technology. It was only a few years ago that they moved on to fuel injection, which is something that's been around since the early 40s... before NASCAR even existed. They have this NASCAR Green initiative, but it only goes as far as track facilities and doesn't even begin to touch the action on the track.

Limiting fuel is not the way to do it. It doesn't work in F1. Tires need to be more efficient, for a start. Engines need to be more efficient. An energy recovery system would be useful. They're never going to get to Toyota Prius levels of efficiency, but they don't need to go that far. No racing series does. They need to stop being archaic.
 
NASCAR likes to keep costs down. Low level tech is what makes NASCAR semi affordable among major forms of motorsports. Fuel Injection was added to the cars when it came down in cost.

Start adding F1 style KERS and hybrid crap to the cars kiss the smaller teams goodbye.
 
If those smaller teams went away, there would be no noticeable difference in races. I don't even think there's a need for 43 car races. 30 would be the sweet spot.
 

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