Tim Horrigan's NASCAR Chase for the Championship Page

[February 5, 2008]: For now, I will just reuse my 2007 Chase page. The format for the late-season Chase is the same in 2008 as in 2007: however, the name has changed to the "Sprint for the Cup." That format is, basically: the top 12 drivers have a playoff over the last ten weeks of the season. Those 12 each go to Loudon (racing's most hallowed venue) with 5000 points plus ten bonus points per win. In 2007, the Chase actually changed the identity of the winner. Jeff Gordon would have won the "classic" points race, but his teammate Jimmie Johnson beat him in the Chase.

I initially wrote this shortly before the Fall 2005 Loudon race, which was the first stage of the Chase for the Championship.

It used to be part of my main Nascar page. Even though some think this is a silly format, Nascar is bringing the Chase back in 2007.

In 2006, the format backfired (though not too badly) in three ways. First, 2005 champion Tony Stewart just barely missed the 2006 Chase but then caught fire the last ten weeks of the season. He finished 11th when he would have finished 4th under the old non-Chase format. Second, a fan favorite, Kasey Kahne, won as many races as anyone else (5 wins) during the pre-Chase portion of the 2006 Season— and just barely squoke into the chase because he was 10th in the points standings. Third, under the old format, the race would have been even closer than it actually ended up: Jimmie Johnson would have beat Matt Kenseth by only 4 points instead of 56. This is the opposite of what was intended, since the Chase format was introduced to eliminate the common situation where the first-place driver runs away from the rest of the field and wins the championship by a couple hundred points.

The format will be different, however, in 2007. There will be 12 drivers (and teams) in the Chase, and the "400-point" rule, which was never used, has been eliminated. (This rule stated that all drivers within 400 points of the leader got into the chase, even if they were in 11^th place or lower.) The drivers and teams are still chosen according to drivers' points (or owners' points) but they are reseeded according to wins, not points-race standing. Everyone gets 5000 points, along with 10 points per win. Here is how this would have played out in 2006, in which case Tony Stewart would have been the runner-up to Jimmie Johnson:

• 2006 Pre-Chase Standings
  1. Matt Kenseth, 5,050
  2. Jimmie Johnson, 5,045
  3. Kevin Harvick, 5,040
  4. Kyle Busch, 5,035
  5. Denny Hamlin, 5,030
  6. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 5,025
  7. Mark Martin, 5,020
  8. Jeff Burton, 5,015
  9. Jeff Gordon, 5,010
  10. Kasey Kahne, 5,005
  x-Tony Stewart, -------
  x-Greg Biffle, -------

• 2006 Pre-Chase Standings Under New Format
  Rank, Driver, Reset Pts, Wins, Adjusted Pts*(spots advanced/lost)
  1. #9-Kasey Kahne, 5,000, 5, 5,050 (+9)
  2. #17-Matt Kenseth, 5,000, 4, 5,040 (-1)
  3. #48-Jimmie Johnson, 5,000, 4, 5,040 (-1)
  4. #29-Kevin Harvick, 5,000, 3, 5,030 (-1)
  5. #20-Tony Stewart, 5,000, 2, 5,020 (+6)
  6. #24-Jeff Gordon, 5,000, 2, 5,020 (+3)
  7. #11-Denny Hamlin, 5,000, 2, 5,020 (-7)
  8. #5-Kyle Busch, 5,000, 1, 5,010 (-4)
  9. #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr., 5,000, 1, 5,010 (-3)
  10. #16-Greg Biffle, 5,000, 1, 5,010 (+2)
  11. #6-Mark Martin, 5,000, 0, 5,000 (-4)
  12. #31-Jeff Burton, 5,000, 0, 5,000 (-4)
  * � Reflects 10-point bonus for each race win.

• And if the NEW system was used in 2006, how would the final results look?
  1. #48-Jimmie Johnson 6475 [finished 1st in 2006]
  2. #20-Tony Stewart 6459 [11th]
  3. #17-Matt Kenseth 6419 [2nd]
  4. #29-Kevin Harvick 6397 [4th]
  5. #11-Denny Hamlin 6397 [3d]
  6. #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr. 6313 [5th]
  7. #24-Jeff Gordon 6266 [6th]
  8. #9-Kasey Kahne 6233 [8th]
  9. #31-Jeff Burton 6218 [7th]
  10. #6-Mark Martin 6148 [9th]
  11. #16-Greg Biffle 6051 [13th]
  12. #5-Kyle Busch 6002 [10th]

See also:

• Jayski's 2007 Chase Page

• My Main Nascar Page

• My Nascar Qualifying Page

The Chase for the Championship [as of 2006... see above for 2007 changes]

The "Chase for the Championship" traditionally begins with the fall Loudon race. (This tradition dates back to 2004.) There are actually two chases: one for the drivers'-point championship and one for the owners'-points championship. Owners' points are almost exactly similar to drivers' points: the differences are that the team gets the owners' points and a team gets points just for qualifying even when it fails to make the race itself. (In the race itself, a 43^rd place team gets 34 points, plus bonus points for leading laps if applicable. Drivers who DNQ get zero points, but their teams get less than 34 points, according to their qualifying rank.)

Typically, it is rare for a top team to use more than one driver over the course of a season, so the two chases normally run in exact parallel. In 2005, after the fall Richmond race, the only multi-driver teams in the Top 35 were the 29^th-place #40 team (25 starts for Sterling Marlin, 1 for Scott Pruett), and the 35^th place #4 team (21 starts for Mike Wallace, 2 for P.J. Jones, 1 for John Andretti.) (However, during the Chase, defending champion Kurt Busch got himself fired just hours before the penultimate event in Phoenix. He ended up in 10^th place amongst the ten Chase Drivers. Roush Racing, on the other hand, got credited with an 8^th place owner's point ranking for the #97 team after Kenny Wallace stepped in for the last two weeks as Busch's replacement.)

The Chase is limited to the top 10 drivers/ teams, unless there are additional drivers/ teams who are within 400 points of the leader with 10 races to go. (That is not very likely, although we do hear a lot of commentary earlier in the season about which teams are within the 400-point margin. Indeed, teams that are more than 400 points back get hyped as being "on the bubble.") The top driver/ team gets his or her points total reset to 5050 points. (This would be about 1300 points more than the typical un-reset point total.) Each position below the leader gets 5 fewer points than the position above it: so the 2^nd place driver/ team gets 5040 points, 3^rd place gets 5035, on down to 10^th place getting 5010 points.

The main purpose of this is to turn the end of the season into something similar to the playoffs in "stick and ball" sports. The new system also creates a secondary contest for the 11^th place spot. (In 2005, the 11^th-place battle came down to two of most popular drivers, Jeff Gordon and Jamie McMurray.) And yes, the gap between 10^th and 11^th place truly is insurmountable. Even if the 10^th place driver skipped all 10 Chase races, and even if the 11^th place driver going into the Chase went on to win every Chase race while leading the most laps in every race, he or she would still be 200 points or so out of 10^th place at the end of the Chase.

 Here is a table of the traditional and Chase points at the end of the 2006 season. This season's Chase was actually dominated by the 11th-place driver, Tony Stewart, who would have finished 4th under the old format. Also, Matt Kenseth would have finished much closer to Jimmie Johnson, losing by just 4 points rather than 56.