Monday, August 9, 2010

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Championships!


If I’m correctly reading what the Indycar Series people are doing, they’re now going to award three championships per racing season based on the tracks they race on. There will be a road course champion, an oval track champion and (I’m speculating here, but it makes sense) there will be an overall champion.

Taking a page from the IZOD Indycar Series (stealing their idea!), I’ve cooked the books down to yield four different NASCAR Sprint Cup Championships. Here are the categories:

The Short Track Championship (tracks one mile or less in length)

The Road Course Championship (Infineon and Watkins Glen)

The Intermediate Track Championship (tracks between one and two miles in length)

And The Long Track Championship (tracks two miles in length or longer)

At this point in the season, with 22 races completed, we have just found our first champion of the season…


Our 2010 Road Course Champion is Juan Pablo Montoya driving the Earnhardt-Ganassi red number 42 Target Chevrolet!


Here are the top 20 Road Warriors of 2010:


---Road Course Championship Final Standings---


-------------------------Average-Total --Total

--Driver -----------------Finish -Points -Earnings
1 Juan Pablo Montoya -----5.50 --329 --$374,087
2 Marcos Ambrose --------4.50 --325 --$302,121
3 Kevin Harvick -----------7.00 --295 --$304,602
4 Jeff Gordon --------------7.50 --289 --$271,027
5 Tony Stewart ------------8.00 --289 --$246,371
6 A J Allmendinger --------8.50 ---284 -$268,852
7 Jimmie Johnson --------14.50 ---274 -$443,431
8 Jamie McMurray -------10.50 ---273 -$243,408
9 Kasey Kahne -----------10.50 ---272 -$284,805
10 Ryan Newman --------14.00 ---247 -$223,633
11 Greg Biffle ------------15.50 ---237 -$182,625
12 Kurt Busch -----------17.00 ---237 -$304,576
13 Mark Martin ---------16.50 ---232 -$185,475
14 Carl Edwards --------17.00 ---231 -$248,496
15 Robby Gordon -------19.00 ---225 -$291,646
16 Jeff Burton ----------18.00 ---220 -$226,055
17 Dale Earnhardt Jr. ---18.50 ---215 -$169,850
18 Paul Menard --------19.00 --212 -$164,900
19 Matt Kenseth -------21.50 --197 --$237,277
20 David Reutimann ---21.50 --197 --$209,637


Congratulations to Juan and Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing!

So how are the drivers doing with the other three championships?

With half (6) of the short track races in the books entering mid-August here are the top twenty:

--------Short Track Championship Standings--------
--------------------------Average -Total ---Total
--Driver ------------------Finish --Points --Earnings
1 Jimmie Johnson ----------6.67 ---952 --$1,057,758
2 Jeff Gordon --------------6.00 ---931 --$979,354
3 Kyle Busch ---------------8.67 ---907 --$1,116,909
4 Ryan Newman -----------8.00 ---891 --$865,922
5 Carl Edwards ------------9.83 ---828 --$775,211
6 Matt Kenseth ----------10.33 ----825 --$871,479
7 Jeff Burton -------------12.17 ----807 --$849,738
8 Kevin Harvick ----------12.33 ---788 --$823,579
9 Denny Hamlin ----------13.17 ---785 --$711,800
10 Joey Logano ----------12.33 ---778 --$766,263
11 Martin Truex Jr. ------12.50 ---774 --$523,825
12 Tony Stewart ---------14.17 ----771 --$834,636
13 Greg Biffle ------------13.33 ----758 --$589,050
14 Kurt Busch -----------16.83 ----722 --$818,411
15 Clint Bowyer ---------15.33 ----712 --$571,225
16 Brad Keselowski -----16.50 ----686 --$651,008
17 Dale Earnhardt Jr. ---17.33 ----673 --$537,400
18 A J Allmendinger ----18.50 ----651 --$715,354
19 Marcos Ambrose ----18.83 ----641 --$638,598
20 Mark Martin --------20.17 ----629 --$611,585

Jimmie Johnson



Looks like the usual suspects on this list. Four of the six remaining short track races are Chase races…

There have been 6 intermediate track races (out of 11) so far this year. Here’s how the leaderboard stands at this time:

-----Intermediate Track Championship Standing-----
--------------------------Average -Total -----Total
--Driver ------------------Finish --Points ---Earnings
1 Jeff Gordon --------------10.83 ---859 --$1,076,931
2 Kurt Busch --------------11.67 ----858 --$1,265,588
3 Denny Hamlin -----------11.33 ----847 --$1,229,475
4 Kasey Kahne -------------9.33 ----843 ---$919,615
5 Matt Kenseth -----------10.50 ----820 ---$937,381
6 Kyle Busch --------------11.67 ----814 --$1,071,986
7 Kevin Harvick -----------11.50 ---805 --$1,010,261
8 Mark Martin ------------13.00 ---767 ---$807,600
9 Jeff Burton --------------13.83 ---751 ---$812,390
10 Ryan Newman ---------14.33 ---729 ---$828,849
11 Jamie McMurray -------17.00 --725 --$1,081,599
12 Tony Stewart ----------16.50 ---707 ---$818,788
13 David Reutimann ------17.83 ---704 ---$968,721
14 Jimmie Johnson -------18.83 ---702 --$1,298,543
15 Dale Earnhardt Jr. ----17.00 ---685 ---$632,625
16 Clint Bowyer ----------18.33 ---684 --$660,025
17 Paul Menard ----------17.50 ---679 ---$614,225
18 Martin Truex Jr. ------18.17 ---658 ---$589,750
19 A J Allmendinger ------18.17 ---656 ---$784,681
20 Carl Edwards ---------19.50 ---645 ---$868,788

Jeff Gordon



Here again, four of the remaining five intermediate track races are part of the Chase. Notice the same names at the top of these standings…

Finally, here are the long track standings with 8 races in the books and 3 remaining (2 of which will be included in the Chase):

---------Long Track Championship Standings-----------
---------------------------Average --Total ----Total
--Driver -------------------Finish ---Points ---Earnings
1 Kevin Harvick -------------5.00 ---1,322 --$2,132,649
2 Denny Hamlin ------------12.00 ---1,127 --$1,355,820
3 Carl Edwards --------------9.13 ---1,117 --$1,401,325
4 Jeff Burton ---------------10.00 ---1,117 --$1,428,236
5 Greg Biffle ----------------11.38 ---1,106 --$1,787,545
6 Tony Stewart ------------10.88 ---1,098 --$1,498,525
7 Clint Bowyer -------------10.75 ---1,093 --$1,500,695
8 Kurt Busch --------------12.00 ---1,075 --$1,431,575
9 Mark Martin ------------14.00 ---1,013 --$1,182,770
10 Matt Kenseth ----------14.88 -----964 --$1,367,424
11 Jamie McMurray ------17.75 ------961 --$2,773,823
12 Kyle Busch ------------16.25 ------957 --$1,445,264
13 Jimmie Johnson -------17.63 ------954 --$1,581,934
14 Dale Earnhardt Jr. ----16.38 ------947 --$1,836,245
15 David Reutimann -----15.38 ------947 --$1,408,889
16 Jeff Gordon -----------17.00 -----946 --$1,390,824
17 Juan Pablo Montoya --18.25 ------916 --$1,342,739
18 Kasey Kahne ---------18.50 ------901 --$1,417,446
19 Joey Logano ----------18.38 ------883 --$1,273,297
20 Paul Menard ----------17.75 ------883 --$1,004,920

All Right! Kevin Harvick!



Based on these results, I really have to wonder what Jeff Gordon’s honest feelings are concerning NASCAR’s Chase format.


Jeff Gordon will make the Chase again this season and with 8 of the 10 Chase races on short and intermediate length tracks, Gordon might not be a bad bet to win it all, but will he in his last season being known as the Rainbow Warrior?

10 comments:

  1. Man, I'm going to have to take you to the dog track with me. Let's put your number crunching to some profitable use.

    I'll be back later when I have time to study these numbers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dwindy, other than my mind blowing a fuse, great read. Talladega will be the wild card in the Chase. (See 2008, when Harvick and Edwards ended up scuffling a few days after that race in Harvick's Nationwide garage.)

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  3. Hey guys! Is NASCAR missing the boat here?

    Would it add interest to the sport if they made a big deal out of "side" championships like this?

    I'm sure the drivers would stand on it if there was money involved...

    One thing that showed up on the top 20 road course racers, every driver on the list is a regular. There isn't a single "ringer". Maybe it's time for the owners to dance with who they brought instead of these mercenaries. It might be better all the way around as it seems there's a lot of bad blood between the regular drivers and some of these road race dudes...

    Thanks guys!

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  4. Gene, when you figure out how to use Dwindy at the dog track I wanna borrow him to bet some ponies.


    I could see a regular season champ at least. If the numbers equalized better (more than 2 road courses) I could see track type champs...how about West Coast champs? Vegas, PHX, LA, Sonoma etc vs. Midwest and East and South? LOL

    You always get us to put on our thinking caps Dwindy!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Kristen!

    Okay... How about the drivers from the west coast verses the southern boys, the eastern boys and the mid-west boys?

    Gene recently lamented about how few drivers there are anymore from the south... Might not be too fair. Kinda like bringing a knife to a gun fight considering we're talkin' the Busch boys, JJ, Jeff, Biffle, Harvick, et al! LOL

    BTW, did you happen to see the post I put up while you were off in San Diego? It's called Daytona Dreams! You might like it...

    Thanks alot!

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  6. It looks like Harvick deserves his spot at the top. He is near the top in all of these categories.

    Back in the 1990s The Charlotte Observer newspaper presented the Observer Cup each year to the driver that had the highest finishing average at the 8 races at the four Carolina tracks... CMS, Rockingham, N Wilkesboro, and Darlington. They updated the standings after each race, at one of the four tracks, throughout the year. A little added bonus.

    Daytona/NASCAR gave the Daytona Beach Kennel Club a prime piece of land, and built the racing facility, out by I-95. DIS then took ovder the old dog track and converted it into another parking lot, outside of turn 2. This was within the last couple of years.

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  7. Gene,

    I've been to one horse race (Hollywood Park around 1977). The first race of the day I had a winner! I had three combinations on the daily double in the first and second races. Those three horses came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th... I didn't have another winner all day. So much for horse racing! I was friends with two different owners if that counts for anything...

    Never been to a dog race...

    Anywho... I think you're right about Harvick.

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  8. I usually bet on the jockey myself. Nice number crunching Dwindy. I'd say Happy Harvick is a 2 to 1 favorite over Rainbow Warrior. Although, Rainbow Warrior is probably a better mudder if we get a wet track. I went to Hollywood Park back around 1975. Other that, I used to go to Paradise Downs in Phoenix. Now, as for the NASCAR drivers, and the Chase... I haven't a clue? lol

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  9. Hi CR!

    I'd like to get into horse racing. Having known a couple of owners I got some insight into that side. These guys (one in Cali and the other up in Washington) led a different life. Actually pretty similar to what the auto racers go through. During the racing season you didn't see 'em, they were out on the circuit. I'd see them in the winter. I really enjoyed being around their thoroughbred horses. Beautiful animals...

    Hmmmm, the Chase. Given that those that make it get a clean slate restart, I'm going to go out on a limb, based upon how his season has unfolded (not typical for the guy) I think I'd take the odds and bet Kyle Busch!

    Thanks CR!

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  10. CR... greyhounds don't have jockeys.

    ReplyDelete