Happy Hour: Under the old format, Joey Logano’s points lead is a lot
Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to [email protected] or @NickBromberg. We’ll post them here, have a good time and everyone’s happy.
A little late on this week’s Happy Hour, but it’s been a wild one, and a wild month overall. And it has nothing to do with Halloween. Happy Halloween to everyone, and please celebrate safely. And enjoy the last two days of Daylight Saving Time until darkness falls until March.
Here’s what the old Chase standings would look like after Martinsville. Yup, it’s a big, big advantage from first to second and then a cluster away from there. But you know what, sometimes blowouts happen. We’lll see if this turns into a close one as the season closes.
1. Joey Logano, 2,297
2. Jeff Gordon, 2,254
3. Kevin Harvick, 2,251
4. Ryan Newman, 2,249
5. Brad Keselowski, 2,238
6. Matt Kenseth, 2,235
7. Kyle Busch, 2,230
8. Denny Hamlin, 2,218
9. Carl Edwards, 2,214
10. AJ Allmendinger, 2,198
11. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 2,196
12. Jimmie Johnson, 2, 186
13. Greg Biffle, 2,178
14. Kasey Kahne, 2,173
15. Kurt Busch, 2,155
16. Aric Almirola, 2,124
Are we so sure about that? I don’t think Gordon sandbagged at all at Talladega. In fact, he barely made the next round of the Chase after he finished 26th. He said the following things after the race.
“We were in, we were out. We were in good position and bad position. Those last couple of laps were the most nerve-wracking laps of my life, so I’m glad they’re over.”
And then there was this:
“I’m just mentally drained right now.,” Gordon said. “It’s always tough racing here at Talladega trying to put yourself in position to win. But when you have that much on the line and you know that your championship hopes are right there in that final moment, it’s nerve racking. I’m proud of this team for the job they did. We had a great strategy. Unfortunately the caution hit us at the absolute worst time and put us behind there. We fought hard that last restart. The inside lane just didn’t go anywhere. I was just sitting there going backward and couldn’t do a thing. I’m just glad we made it.”
That doesn’t sound like the comments of someone who was simply trying to make the next round of the Chase by the skin of his teeth. He was simply a victim of circumstance at Talladega and was fortunate enough to survive in the current format.
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Nick, seriously. What does Ryan have to do to be interviewed? He came in third and is second in the points. Did anyone notice? Really? – Tony
Newman is being noticed right now. If you don’t think he is, I’m not sure what you’re paying attention to. In fact, with the way that Newman’s season is going, a title by the No. 31 team or by Matt Kenseth is the most intriguing storyline of the season. After all, what’s crazier in “winning is everything” season than a winless champion?
I think Texas is the litmus test for Newman and his team. If they’re competitive and run in the top 10 at Texas, they’re probably going to do it at Homestead too. And while there’s a lot of people who think a driver has to win at Homestead to win the title (a legitimate line of thought), we also can’t rule out a Kansas-type scenario where tires or failures happen left and right.
Oh, after Martinsville, this is a brainteaser. Before last week, if you read Happy Hour, you’d see that I would have gone with the four best drivers of the year in Logano, Gordon, Harvick and Keselowski. However, now that Keselowski and Harvick have had issues, should I stick with them? It seems a bit risky, but at the same time, if you had to take any two drivers to win a race this season, you’re picking one of them, right?
I’ll stick with the four. Because right now, NASCAR is a bit like the SEC West. Trying to figure out who’s getting out of there at the moment is tough. It’ll be easier after Ole Miss hosts Auburn this week, but so will picking the Chase after Texas.
Regarding Harvick and Kenseth, I completely think they did. But at the same time, I understand why they did. The No. 4 team saw the Chase flash before their eyes and it didn’t help that Kenseth’s car didn’t suffer much damage and he came back to get a good finish.
There shouldn’t be any payback here, but I understand not forgetting about the mistake.
Also, pay attention on Twitter and here over the weekend as we’ll be at both Circuit of the Americas and Texas Motor Speedway. It’s From the Marbles’ first time at a Formula 1 race and it should be a fanastic time to look at the differences between F1 and NASCAR races. Expect lots of pictures.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
