Happy Hour: March Madness, NASCAR style
It’s time for Happy Hour. As always, tweet us your thoughts or shoot us an email at [email protected] if you want to participate.
We wanted to start an NCAA-type tournament this week for the Sprint Cup Series but the Easter off weekend next weekend puts a crimp in those plans. So we’re retroactively starting it. We used a bracket generator here and seeded the top 32 drivers in the points standings before Phoenix.
So Sunday’s race became our round of 32 and now the California race becomes our round of 16. The Elite Eight will happen at Martinsville and our winner-take-all final four will happen at Texas. Because if we drag this out any further through April it’s no longer in the March Madness spirit.
Here are the matchups, which we’ll track in this space every week.
Kyle Busch vs. Jamie McMurray
Denny Hamlin vs. Martin Truex Jr.
Joey Logano vs. Kyle Larson
Kurt Busch vs. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Jimmie Johnson vs. Aric Almirola
Carl Edwards vs. Austin Dillon
Kevin Harvick vs. Ryan Blaney
Brian Scott vs. Matt Kenseth
Let’s get to the questions this week.
is there any way we could get more tv coverage of what goes on in the pits? there are a lot of us that really like to see what makes these cars tick. the cutaway car was great and just seeing how things work is good. there is to much trivial [stuff] from the boys in the booth. a little bs and more down to earth time with the cars. thanks – Dennis
This is the balance that television networks try to find. NASCAR is what it is because of compelling personalities, but there are also a lot of people who tune in because of the technology aspect and want to know what teams are doing to the cars.
In our eyes there’s no issue with being too technical, assuming you’re not throwing out terms that no one can understand. And we also think that Fox relies way too much on kitsch and folksiness (for lack of better terms) when it could be explaining things to the viewer. Some Fox personalities have a tendency to believe that fans are turning in to see them be caricatures rather than to simply watch the race.
We think Dave forgot the word “driver” here, but we get what he means. We set the over/under earlier in the season on Twitter at 8.5, and we’re going to stick with it.
Kyle Busch has won three of the first four Xfinity Series races this season and Chase Elliott won the first. There’s no reason to think a Cup driver won’t win on Saturday at California.
The next five races are at Texas, Bristol, Richmond, Talladega and Dover. Can you see a non-Cup driver winning at any of those tracks? Talladega at race nine seems like the best bet. Though if an Xfinity Series driver is going to win anytime soon, you have to think it’ll be either Erik Jones or Daniel Suarez. The Joe Gibbs Racing cars are unbeatable right now.
In case you hadn’t seen, Jimmie Johnson is running a Superman paint scheme at California. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is running a Batman car. The cars look good and so does some of the merchandise they’re selling from it. It’s never a bad thing when you can possibly hook some kids into NASCAR because of a superhero connection.
We’re also not sure Johnson will have any kryptonite on Sunday. He’s been fast at both Atlanta and Vegas so far. That should continue.
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Hello, Are you there?? – Angie
Yes, we think.
If we’re ranking teams, it’d go like this:
1. Joe Gibbs Racing
2. Team Penske
3. Hendrick Motorsports
4. Stewart-Haas Racing
5. Richard Childress Racing
6. Chip Ganassi Racing7. Richard Petty Motorsports
8. Roush Fenway Racing
RPM is the mid-major of the group, right? We’re lumping Furniture Row in with JGR and the same can be done with JTG-Daugherty and Germain Racing with RCR. Oh, the Wood Brothers count with Team Penske.
NASCAR is so top-heavy that there really aren’t any teams on the rise.
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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! Follow @NickBromberg
