For several weeks, many in the NASCAR community have been anxiously waiting the start of the 500-mile lottery at the Talladega Superspeedway, fearing that any of the remaining 12 Chasers could be ultimately knocked out at the most unpredictable track in the sport. Yet, it was Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway that may have already ended the dreams of some championship hopefuls before the Sprint Cup Series ever hits the Alabama track.
Shortly after the green flag dropped on the fourth race of The Chase, a slew of championship favorites found themselves in a heap of trouble.
The first bit of trouble hit Jeff Gordon on lap 84 when he was clipped by non-Chaser Jamie McMurray off turn 4 while battling for the 3rd spot. The slight contact sent both cars up the track and caused Gordon to brush the wall. The contact and slide caused both cars to lose their momentum and fall into the clutches of the incoming field.
Half a lap later Jimmie Johnson was clipped by Greg Biffle off turn 2 as the field was still scattering around Gordon and McMurray. The contact sent both cars spinning to the infield where Johnson suffered the worst end of the deal by pounding the right side of his car into the inside wall. The damage forced Johnson to the garage where he would lose more than 80 laps and finish in 40th place, the worst amongst the 12 remaining Chasers.
“A really big hit in the championship points,” Johnson said. “So we’ll try to get the car back on the track, run some laps and get a few points if we can. This just puts a premium on next week and going forward.”
The hits kept coming shortly after Johnson’s troubles when teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr. blew a right front tire off turn 4 on lap 123 while he was leading the race. The hard hit forced Earnhardt to the garage where he would lose more than 50 laps and wound up in 39th place.
“I’ve got to hand it to the guys, that was a great racecar,” Earnhardt, Jr. said. “We hadn’t been running very good the last several weeks, and we came in here with a great attitude and a great fast car. This is the car we won Pocono with both times. It’s a good car. Hopefully we didn’t hurt it too bad. We’ll just go to the next one. This is going to hurt us in the points, obviously. We’ve got a lot of racing left, a lot of races to win, and we’re running good.”
Hendrick Motorsports wasn’t the only team that would suffer a setback as the year’s ‘winningest’ driver, Brad Keselowski, blew a right front tire in turn 2 on lap 161 while running in 5th place. The hard crash also forced him to the garage where he would lose more than 40 laps and finish in 36th place.
“Russian roulette, and it was our turn,” Keselowski said.
Oh, but the Chase dominos would not stop falling.
In a 13-lap span, three Chase drivers pitted early with apparent tire issues. Pole sitter Kevin Harvick pitted from 3rd with 53 laps to go after thinking he had a right front going down, it was not the case. Matt Kenseth pitted with less than 50 laps go to from 10th place after fearing the same thing. And Kasey Kahne pitted from 4th spot with 40 laps to after feeling a vibration. All three of these drivers were trapped a lap down after Greg Biffle cut a tire and hit the wall with 39 laps to go.
While all three drivers did take the “wave-around” to get back on the lead lap, they all lost valuable track position which was nearly impossible to make up under Sunday’s conditions.
At the front of the field, Joey Logano was the only Chase driver that could breathe a side of relief after Sunday’s race. Logano led over 120 laps, dominated the second half of the event and held off a determined rookie in Kyle Larson to pick up his fifth victory of the season. With the win, Logano automatically advances to the next round, no matter what happens in the next two weeks.
”It makes Talladega a lot easier, that is for sure,” Logano said. “To know we are onto the next round we can focus on a few more races coming up and we will keep trying to capitalize like we are doing.”
As for Chasers like Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin, they didn’t have the best cars in the race. However, they avoided calamity and brought home solid top 10 finishes to start the second round of The Chase.
And while Gordon and Harvick didn’t get the 1-2 finish they got back in May, they were able to rebound from different levels of adversity to survive the day. Harvick wound up 12th and Gordon came back to salvage a 14th place finish, with Kenseth in between them in 13th.
“A lot of people had trouble today, so today was a real survival day. We did that,” Gordon said post race. “I just felt like we could have finished a lot better. We had a good race car… we actually had a great race car.”
After the race concluded, the bottom four drivers became Kahne, Keselowski, Earnhardt, Jr. and Johnson as the series now heads to the Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Bank of America 500 this Saturday night. Kahne is the closest one to the cut-off line as he sits eight points back from Gordon and Kenseth who are tied for seventh in points.
When NASCAR designed this new Chase format, many people including the sanctioning body envisioned incredible levels of excitement and anticipation as everyone jostled to advance in every round. With this new level of excitement, everyone still expected the best teams to advance per round as performance and execution would rise to the front.
This, however, may not be the case. Sunday’s race showed that the best teams may not even make it to NASCAR’s “Eliminator Round”. Look at the teams of Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon. It’s fair to say that each driver had a car capable of finishing in the top 5. However, circumstance beyond their control affected their days to the point that the best finisher was Harvick in 12th.
And yet you look at Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin who barely had top 15 racecars, but managed to finish in 5th and 7th, respectively.
In this round, fate will be more of a factor in determining who will advance rather than sheer performance. Motorsports is not like any other sport. A team and driver can do everything in their power to execute the best race and control their destiny and all it takes is a cut tire (not of their making) to take them out of a race and the title hunt.
In this round, success will not be determined by pure speed and execution, but rather by luck. Speed will put drivers like Keselowski and Gordon in position to win the next two races, but it will be luck that will determine if they advance or falter.
And as Talladega looms in less than two weeks, the remaining 11 drivers must do all they can this Saturday night at Charlotte to put themselves in a position to survive and advance.
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