A championship contender – possibly the early favorite — will be absent from next week’s test at Homestead-Miami Speedway, whose Nov. 20 season finale will decide the Sprint Cup title.
Furniture Row Racing won’t bring Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 78 Toyota to the Oct. 18-19 session at the 1.5-mile oval. A team spokesman said the test was removed from the team’s schedule last week and didn’t know the reason.
Homestead-Miami Speedway will play host to the last of several “organizational tests” scheduled by NASCAR during the season. In an organizational test, which isn’t mandatory, only one car per organization is permitted to participate.
As a single-car team, Furniture Row Racing wouldn’t have been in the predicament of having to choose who would test among multiple contenders, which is the case with Joe Gibbs Racing and its four Chase-eligible drivers.
Every other remaining championship contender will be represented at Homestead-Miami Speedway next week: Team Penske (Brad Keselowski), Hendrick Motorsports (Chase Elliott), Stewart-Haas Racing (Kurt Busch), Joe Gibbs Racing (Carl Edwards), Richard Childress Racing (Austin Dillon).
Truex won two of the first three races in the 2016 playoffs at Chicagoland Speedway and Dover International Speedway. He reached the championship round last season, finishing fourth among the Chase contenders (12th overall).
Here’s the list of drivers and teams that are testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway next week (current championship contenders in bold):
A 90-minute episode of NASCAR America
begins at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN and recaps the first elimination race of
the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Mike Massaro hosts with Dale Jarrett and Parker Kligerman in Stamford, Connecticut. Jeff Burton joins them from Burton’s Garage. In today’s show: • The Round of 16 is complete as four drivers have been eliminated from the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Gone are Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray, Chris Buescher and Tony Stewart. The second round is set and the 12 drivers in it are led by Martin Truex Jr.,
after winning two of the first three Chase races. Jarrett,
Kligerman and Burton weigh in on the advances and the surprises,
comparing how they their Chase Grids compared to the actual after
results of the opening round. • NASCAR America takes a look back at Tony Stewart’s storied career.
He has been eliminated from the playoffs after finishing 13th at Dover.
Our analysts reveal how they will remember Tony Stewart’s final season. • We’ll also feature Sunday morning’s Xfinity Series race where Daniel Suarez joined Elliott Sadler in the second round of the Xfinity Chase. We’ll also get reaction from top-seeded Erik Jones, who now faces elimination this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. If you can’t catch the show on TV, you also can watch it via the online stream at http://nascarstream.nbcsports.com If you plan to stream the show on your laptop or portable device, be
sure to have your username and password from your cable/satellite/telco
provider handy so your subscription can be verified. Once you plug-in that information, you’ll have access to the stream. Click here at 6 pm ET to watch live via the stream.
DOVER, Del. — His championship hopes over, Tony Stewart walked away into the crowd.
And disappeared.
Gone also were his title hopes. Although a
13th-place finish was his best result in the last seven races, it
wasn’t good enough to keep his title hopes alive. Stewart was one of
four drivers eliminated from Chase contention Sunday at Dover
International Speedway. Also failing to advance were Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray and Chris Buescher.
Still, when Stewart is enshrined into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Hall of Fame it will be as a three-time champion.
But hope remained when the day began of a fourth title.
“We will give 110 percent this whole day
and take whatever it gives us,’’ Stewart told his team on the radio
before the start of the Citizen Soldier 400. “I’ll tell you one thing,
this one race, whatever happens, is not going to define the season this
team has. Win, lose or draw, we keep our heads up.’’
That wasn’t enough. He was a driver in a
car that lacked the speed and handling to run with the leaders. Cautions
helped him stay on the lead lap past halfway but couldn’t stop the
inevitable. He eventually was put a lap down on Lap 267 of the 400-lap race.
“I’m pretty excited about our day,’’
Stewart said as he walked away from his car. “We were much better than
we were yesterday. Really proud of our team. We kept making it better
all day. That is good as we had.”
Martin Truex Jr. further established himself as championship favorite by dominating the Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover International Speedway. Already locked into the Round of 12 following a victory in the Chase
opener at Chicagoland Speedway, Truex picked up his second win of in the
first round after leading 187 of 400 laps Sunday afternoon. The victory
is the second at Dover for Truex, a New Jersey native, who earned his
first career win at his home track in June of 2007. It is also his seventh career win and fourth of the season. Truex
finished first, seventh, and first in the Chase’s first three races
while leading a total of 360 laps. “We’re not messing around, I guess,” Truex told NBC Sports of his
first round performance. “I don’t know. What else can you say? We are
here to get it done and golly, the best bunch of guys you could ever ask
for and just amazing to drive their racecars and do what we’re able to
do. I’m just ecstatic.” MORE: Results and statistics from the Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover MORE: Martin Truex Jr. takes point lead after Dover win Truex took control of the race after Jimmie Johnson,
who led 90 laps, was penalized for having too many crew members over
the wall during a round of green flag pit stops on Lap 280. Johnson had
been leading at the time but would finish seventh, the first car one lap
down. The No. 78 of Truex then took the lead for the final time on Lap 374
after the race’s final round of pit stops. His margin of victory was
seven seconds over Toyota teammate, Kyle Busch. The top five were Truex, Busch, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, and Matt Kenseth. The first four drivers eliminated from the Chase were Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray, and Chris Buescher. HOW TRUEX WON: Truex cycled to the race lead by seven seconds with 26 laps to go following the final round of pit stops. WHO ELSE HAD A GOOD RACE: Chase Elliott earned his
second top-five finish in the Chase with a third-place run … Team Penske
put both cars in the top-10 with pole-sitter Brad Keselowski finishing
fourth and Joey Logano finishing sixth … Jimmie Johnson recovered from a pit road penalty to finish seventh … Jeff Gordon earned his first top-10 finish in the No. 88 car with a 10th-place effort. WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Kyle Larson finished 25th, six
laps down after losing power in his Chevrolet, being issued a pit road
penalty, and hitting the wall … Kevin Harvick broke a track bar mount and finished 37th … Ryan Blaney blew a tire and finished 38th … Jamie McMurray blew an engine and finished last, 40th. NOTABLE: With his fourth win at Dover, Truex is now
tied with Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch for the most in the series.
Dover is also the first track where Truex has scored multiple race wins.
Truex has also now led more laps in the last six races (588) than each
of his prior seasons entering 2016. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It feels good. Now it’s time to
knock some more of these guys out because we’ve got this opportunity and
I’m going to say we’re going to be the underdog in this next round, so
let’s go do it.” — Austin Dillon on advancing to the Round of 12 in the Chase. WHAT’S NEXT: The Round of 12 begins at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the Bank of America 500 on Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. ET on NBC.
Carl Edwards added to his series-leading pole total with his sixth of the year, winning the pole for Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Edwards claimed the top spot with a speed of 135.453 mph around the “Magic Mile.”
It is Edwards’ third pole in four races at New Hampshire.
“This is what we needed,” Edwards told NBCSN. “We didn’t run well at Chicago, that was really frustrating. Come here, start on the pole, get a great pit stall. Hopefully we can turn this into a good race. The car is built for speed.”
This will be Edwards’ 10th top-five start in the last 13 races.
Newman’s third-place start is his best of the season. His previous best was fourth (Atlanta, Fontana).
The biggest name not advancing to the final round is Kevin Harvick, who managed to put up the 19th best lap in the second round. It will be Harvick’s worst start at New Hampshire since he began the fall 2013 race in 18th.
Tony Stewart will start his final New Hampshire race in 22nd.
One race is down in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with two races left in the first round.
Martin Truex Jr. locked himself into the second round with his win at Chicagoland Speedway.
Here is a look at the Chase grid ahead of expected points penalties for Truex and Jimmie Johnson failing post-race laser inspection on Sunday.
The first four drivers currently out of the top 12 would be Austin Dillon, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher.
Tony Stewart is in the 12th position, one point above the cutoff. Johnson is currently 10th on the grid, but a possible 10-point penalty would drop him to a three-way tie with Harvick and Dillon.
Kevin Harvick starts the Chase with a 34 percent probability of being the 2016 champion.
Just like last year, with the help of Andrew Maness from the racing analytics firm Pit Rho, we ran the numbers to show every driver’s shot of moving through each round of the Chase. As usual, the mathematical model was designed by both Maness and myself, taking into account past driver performance to predict future results. By running 100,000 simulations of how the rest of the season might play out, we can see what the most likely outcomes are.
Technically speaking, every one of the 16 drivers has a chance of winning the title. Even that 0.0 for Chris Buescher is actually 0.016 percent. That means if he ran his 10 best races, while everybody else ran less than their 10 best, he could pull off the upset.
2016-chase-probs
At the top of the list, you see the usual culprits, like Harvick, Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin. Remember that the Chase sets up weird incentives: You need to win or at least run consistently to move through the rounds. And making it through the rounds isn’t the same as winning the title.
Notice the difference between Kyle Busch and Jamie McMurray. They have very similar chances of advancing to the second round (Busch at 81 percent and McMurray at 78 percent). But Busch has a real solid shot at winning the title (6.8 percent) while McMurray’s is much closer to zero.
That’s because we know Busch can win races, but he also could blow up at any time. We can’t trust Busch to guarantee a second round spot, but if he does make it, then all of a sudden he could get hot and win it all. Busch only has the ninth-best chance of making it past round one, yet he has the fifth-best chance of winning the title. That’s the uncertainty I’m talking about.
Martin Truex Jr. is the opposite. He has a 90 percent chance of making it past the first round, but only a five percent title chance. He’s a consistent driver in the top 10 but has trouble sealing the deal on winning races. Notice his 90 percent chance to make the second round is almost the same as Denny Hamlin’s chance, but they have significant differences in their title shots.
This year’s loss of Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. from the Chase has opened the door for fresher names to make it in, like Chip Ganassi’s Kyle Larson.
“If you had asked me in April, there’s no way that I would have predicted that both Ganassi cars would be running so well at this point in the season,” said Dr. Josh Browne, a former NASCAR race engineer and now co-founder at Pit Rho. “It’s a remarkable turnaround in such a short period of time. The model seems to capture this, and we give both cars a good chance of making it to the next round.”
Of course, you have to remember that these numbers are good for this week and this week only. As soon as the next race is completed, new performance results will change the data. As we know, 15 drivers are eventually going to see their title hopes dwindle away to zero by November.
Eric Chemi runs data journalism for our sister network CNBC, including a heavy dose of sports analytics. Prior to that, his NASCAR forecasts have been on Sprint Cup television broadcasts, and he has consulted for Sprint Cup teams on strategy, statistics, data, and analytics. He graduated with an engineering degree from MIT.
Mission accomplished for Chris Buescher and Front Row Motorsports.
Buescher locked up a spot in the Chase Saturday night at Richmond with a 24th-place finish in the Federated Auto Parts 400. It was enough to keep him inside the top 30 in points, making him eligible for the playoffs after winning a rain-shortened Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway last month.
It is Buescher’s first Chase appearance in his rookie season in the Sprint Cup Series. It is also the first time Front Row has been represented in the Chase.
“It’s obviously a big night for Front Row Motorsports and (owner) Bob Jenkins,” Buescher told NBCSN. “For a small team like we are to be able to pull it off and get that win at Pocono and find ourselves in the Chase right now, it’s pretty special.”
The 2015 Xfinity Series champion entered Richmond with an 11-point lead on David Ragan for 30th in points. Looking to stay out trouble, Buescher was having an incident-free night until he had to make an unscheduled pit stop on Lap 308 for a flat tire.
After going two laps down, the No. 34 team worked their way back onto the lead lap and then suffered minor damage during a multi-car wreck with 40 laps to go. Buescher was able to finish the race and locked in his Chase spot by moving to 29th in the point standings with a 21-point gap on 31st place.
Virginia native Denny Hamlin surged to the Coors Light Pole Award in Friday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series qualifying, snagging the top starting spot for Saturday night's regular-season finale at Richmond International Raceway.
Hamlin powered the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota to a best lap of 122.344 mph in the last of three qualifying rounds on the .75-mile track. It's his first pole position of the season, third at Richmond and 24th of his Sprint Cup career.
Saturday night's Federated Auto Parts 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) is the final race before the 16-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup post-season field is decided. Hamlin will start alongside Kyle Larson, who notched the second-fastest lap at 122.288 mph in the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 Chevrolet.
Defending race winner Matt Kenseth (No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota), Jamie McMurray (No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet) and Kurt Busch (No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet) completed the top five.
Ryan Newman, the highest-ranked driver outside the provisional Chase grid, will start in the 15th position in the Richard Childress Racing No. 31 Chevrolet. McMurray will aim to keep his grasp on the final provisional playoff berth as he makes his 500th Sprint Cup start.
Pocono winner Chris Buescher, hopes to maintain his position among the top 30 in points to clinch a Chase berth and will start 31st in the Front Row Motorsports No. 34 Ford. David Ragan, his closest pursuer in the Sprint Cup standings, will start 21st.
JGR's Carl Edwards, a winner in the series' most recent Richmond stop last April, just missed the cut-off line for the final round with a qualifying speed of 122.272 mph. His time was just .002 seconds slower than Joey Logano's (No. 22 Team Penske Ford) second-round lap.
Martin Truex Jr., last weekend's Bojangles' Southern 500 winner at Darlington Raceway, was sixth-fastest in the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota. Jeff Gordon qualified 11th as he preps for his sixth start of the season as a fill-in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet.
Rookie Chase Elliott was a surprising omission after the first elimination, his Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet residing outside the fastest 24 qualifiers in Round 1. He'll start 34th in Saturday night's 400-lapper.
Cole Whitt failed to qualify for the 40-car field.
Thanks to Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson the next two weeks will be a lot more interesting.
With Larson’s win at Michigan and Buescher’s upset in the fog-shortened race at Pocono last month, there are only three spots left to be filled on the grid for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
At the most, two spots could potentially be filled by first-time winners in the Southern 500 or next week at Richmond.
Then comes the wrench named Buescher.
The rookie driver is only on the grid because he’s narrowly in the top 30 in points. Buescher is ahead of David Ragan by just seven points, down from 13 entering Michigan.
If the Front Row Motorsports driver falters further in the next two races, he could allow for at least four more drivers to point their way into the Chase.
Here’s a look at how the Chase bubble looks with and without Buescher in the top 30 in points.
While Buescher has said Darlington is his favorite track on the NASCAR circuit, he has not made a start there in the Sprint Cup Series. But in four starts there in the Xfinity Series, Buescher has one top five (2015).
Chris Buescher is the latest driver to reveal his throwback paint scheme for Darlington's Bojangles' Southern 500 on Sept. 4 (6 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM).
The Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate's No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford matches the fuel canopies from sponsor Love's Travel Stops first travel stop in 1981. Check out the scheme in Buescher's tweet below.
My @LovesTravelStop scheme for @TooToughToTame! Matches the fuel canopies from Love’s first travel stop in 1981. pic.twitter.com/40D7cndQ4J
— Chris Buescher (@Chris_Buescher) August 24, 2016
"The Darlington throwback weekend has become a pretty big deal, and it's cool to have Love's Travel Stops bring some of their history into the race weekend with their old colors," Buescher said in a team release. "Darlington is my favorite track, and I can't wait to get there and turn some laps in this special Love's Ford Fusion."
This year's Darlington race will mark Buescher's first event there in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition. The 2015 XFINITY Series champion notched one top 10 in four career XFINITY Series starts at Darlington.
Buescher's teammate Landon Cassill unveiled his throwback on Tuesday, which you can see here.
When Chris Buescher hits the track at Darlington Raceway – his favorite track – for the Sept. 4 Southern 500, his No. 34 Ford will pay tribute to his sponsor’s origins.
Buescher’s Love’s Travel Stops car will have a paint scheme inspired by the very first Love’s location, which opened in Amarillo, Texas, in 1981.
The No. 34 color scheme will be patterned after the fuel canopies and building facade of the location.
“The Darlington throwback weekend has become a pretty big deal, and it’s cool to have Love’s Travel Stops bring some of their history into the race weekend with their old colors,” said Buescher in a press release. “Darlington is my favorite track, and I can’t wait to get there and turn some laps in this special Love’s Ford Fusion.”
Buescher’s car announcement comes the day after the one for his teammate, Landon Cassill.
The rest of the throwback paint schemes for the Southern 500 can be seen on Sept. 4 on NBC.
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Chris Buescher took another important step toward earning a berth in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, garnering a hard-fought fifth-place finish in Sunday's rain-delayed Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
It was the second top-five finish of the season for the 23-year old driver of the No. 34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports, and came just three weeks after his first career win in the series.
That win, which came at Pocono Raceway, opened the door for a Chase berth but only if the 2015 XFINITY Series champion could make his way into the top 30 in points.
The finish at Bristol did just that, vaulting him past David Ragan and into 30th place. Teammate Landon Cassill sits 29th, 27 points ahead.
RELATED: How the Chase bubble looks post-Bristol
"I don't know exactly where we're at quite yet, but I know we had to get there," Buescher said on pit road after his top-five finish. "That's Chase eligibility in one race out of the four we had to do it. Now we have to hold onto it."
Sunday's event, the continuation of a race that started Saturday night but was interrupted after just 48 laps due to rain, was also impacted by weather, starting more than three hours late. Kevin Harvick, the 2014 series champion, won, with Ricky Stenhouse (Roush Fenway Racing), Denny Hamlin (Joe Gibbs Racing), Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing) and Buescher completing the top five.
The overnight delay didn't seem to impact the performance of Buescher and his team. After running inside the top 20 for most of the race, Buescher finally cracked the top 10 with 125 laps of the 500-lap race remaining. From there, he steadily worked his way into the top five.
"I'm really proud of this team," he said. "... We knew Bristol would be a good one for us. It took us a day later to do it, but we got ourselves a top-five and had a blast out here. That was an awesome run."
Buescher has only a brief history at Bristol in Sprint Cup competition, finishing 25th here in last year's spring race and 21st earlier this season. In the XFINITY Series, he posted three top 10s in five starts.
"I love Bristol. I absolutely love this race track."
With five laps to go, Buescher had closed on Dillon when his team told him, "You've got room; try him if you can." Another position would mean another point earned. Buescher said the risk of losing spots should he make a run at the RCR driver wasn't a concern.
"I wasn't planning on messing up if I got next to him," he said. "It was one of those things where we could catch him and then mess up a corner and get a little bit of gap, and then we got back to him there.
"I think the 19 (of Carl Edwards) and someone else was behind us, and they were within a couple car-lengths, so I didn't want to go to the bottom and give those two cars a chance to pass us and lose two points that easily."
With a precarious points position and three races remaining to determine the full 16-team Chase field, Buescher says the team's plan of attack won't be altered by what could go wrong in those races, either. It's what should go right that matters.
"We came to Bristol knowing that we had speed, that we love this race track, and it was a good chance for us to go out and have an awesome run," he said, "and that's exactly what we were able to do.
"Points will fall however they will. You can't focus on them too much because you lose sight of what the main goal is, and that's to go out and win races."
BRISTOL, Tenn. -- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Chris Buescher has a victory but remains outside the top 30 in points, a situation that the Front Row Motorsports rookie driver hopes to remedy in the coming weeks as he seeks a berth in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
For the third consecutive season, NASCAR's Chase field will consist of drivers in the top 30 in points who have one or more wins, with any remaining positons in the 16-team field determined via points.
Buescher earned his first career Sprint Cup victory at Pocono Raceway, and trails 30th place David Ragan (BK Racing) by only three points heading into Saturday night's Bass Pro Shops NRA 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway (8 p.m. NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR). But it's not just Ragan and the seemingly slim deficit that Buescher said he and his Front Row Motorsports team have their sights set on.
"I think anyone will tell you that it's not necessarily just three points," said Buescher. "It's going to be constantly changing. There are four drivers in this window that can basically upset the balance or change it each and every weekend.
"For us right now, yeah, it's three points to David Ragan, but after Bristol it could be a completely different story. We could gain points on David, but get passed by the one behind us. It's a balance, but we've got to take it week by week. … We have to capitalize on our weekends as much as possible. That's what is going to be important for us -- to do the best we can and let everything else fall the way it's going to."
Regan Smith trails Buescher by 14 points; Brian Scott sits 11 behind Smith.
Ten drivers have clinched one of the 16 Chase berths based on wins and their current points positions, including defending series champion Kyle Busch and 2012 champ Brad Keselowski. Tony Stewart has a victory, but has yet to officially clinch a spot since the three-time series champ sits 26th in points and could fall out of the top 30.
Eleventh through 16th in points but winless this season are Ryan Newman, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Jamie McMurray, Kyle Larson and Trevor Bayne.
Should Stewart remain in the top 30 and Buescher advance, only four positons would be set based on points.
Just outside the top 16 are Kasey Kahne and Ryan Blaney.
"Right now, we've got to get all we can get and be aggressive with it to gain points and that's more fun racing," Buescher, one of four drivers competing for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors, said. "We can enjoy these weekends and not be too worried about giving it up, just knowing that we've got to do everything we can do to run as well as possible.
"That's not necessarily saying we've got to try and get ourselves in a fuel window and run out of gas and lose a bunch of spots. It's saying we've got to be aggressive on track, take passes whenever we can get them, and make sure that we can drive forward so that we're earning points versus losing them each of these next four weekends."
Buescher finished 21st at Bristol in the spring race, and said it's "probably one of our better race tracks this year for speed … and this should be a place where we can gain a lot of those points."
But, he added, "the guys that we're racing also run really well here, so it's going be a battle right up to the end of Richmond."
It’s been 68 days since Dale Earnhardt Jr. made contact with Chris Buescher on Lap 63 of the Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway while exiting Turn 2 and pancaked the outside wall, a relatively harmless looking accident.
Since, Earnhardt competed in three more races before sitting out four due to a concussion Earnhardt and his doctors believe stemmed from the June 12 race at Michigan.
While Jeff Gordon will make his fourth start in substitution for Earnhardt this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, no timetable has been given on when the 13-time most popular NASCAR driver will return to the track. In his Sprint Cup career, Earnhardt has missed six total races due to concussions.
In the meantime, Earnhardt has been transparent about how he is dealing with the concussion, from speaking on his Dale Jr. Download podcast, to holding a press conference at Watkins Glen International.
Now, Earnhardt has given the curious an inside look at his rehab process through social media. On Thursday, Earnhardt posted multiple pictures and videos to Instagram detailing some of the activities and tests he is undergoing regularly in order to help him prepare for his return to racing.
The activities range from doing basketball drills, to eye chart exercises and walking through a dark room lit by only disco ball-like lighting.
In each post, Earnhardt gives a brief explanation about the related exercise.
While the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series enjoys its final in-season off-weekend, it seems everyone from drivers to crew chiefs to team owners and fans are breaking out their calculators.
They’re all trying to figure out who has the best chance of still making the upcoming 10 race Chase for the Sprint Cup – particularly those drivers who have yet to win a race thus far in 2016.
A total of 16 drivers will qualify for the Chase. As it stands now, 11 drivers are already qualified by virtue of winning at least one race already this season, plus they’re above 30th place, which is the cutoff for Chase eligibility.
A 12th winning driver, Chris Buescher, is not yet qualified for the Chase because he remains three points shy of the 30th place cutoff. If Buescher can leave Richmond in the top-30, he will make the Chase.
One of the most interesting stats is that of the four races remaining before the Chase, several drivers that remain winless this season have enjoyed past victories at those same tracks, particularly Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who both have won in the past at three of the next four tracks.
Can lightning strike again for them?
Here’s how it breaks down:
Bristol: Earnhardt, Kahne
Michigan: Greg Biffle, Earnhardt, Ryan Newman, Kahne
Darlington: Biffle, Regan Smith
Richmond: Earnhardt, Clint Bowyer, Kahne, Newman
For each of those past winners that might triumph again at those tracks, or for other first-time winners in 2016, it would further reduce the number of drivers who make the Chase solely on points.
It remains uncertain whether Earnhardt will be able to make the Chase after having missed the last several races due to a concussion – and remains sidelined.
Given that Earnhardt is ranked 21st in the standings, 51 points behind 16th ranked Trevor Bayne, it would appear the only way he would make the Chase is to win one of the last four – provided he’s cleared to even race at some point during that period.
Right now, drivers who have yet to win a race this year that appear the safest to make the Chase are Newman (50 points ahead of Bayne on the cutoff line), Chase Elliott (+49), Austin Dillon (+47) and Jamie McMurray (+38).
Kyle Larson is also above the cutoff line, but with only an eight-point edge over Bayne, is the driver in the riskiest position.
Larson is still simmering at how AJ Allmendinger wrecked him on the final lap of Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen. It cost Larson what appeared to be a likely top-five finish and left him with a disappointing 29th-place result – which greatly impacted his Chase chances and ranking.
“Pretty dumb move right there,” Larson said of Allmendinger. “I was the smarter one racing for points, lifted, could have wrecked him, but didn’t.”
Instead, it was Larson who was wrecked by Allmendinger.
“He has run me hard, but we always race pretty well, but today was flat out stupid,” Larson said.
The drivers outside the top 16 with the best chance of still sneaking into the Chase on points are Kahne (three points behind Bayne), Ryan Blaney (-8), Allmendinger (-26), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-37) and Earnhardt (-51).
With his win in the Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen International, Denny Hamlin became the sixth Sprint Cup driver to win multiple races in 2015. He jumped six spots on the latest Chase grid to fourth.
Losing spots were Jimmie Johnson and Austin Dillon, who each dropped two spots after being involved in a multi-car wreck Sunday that led to Johnson finishing last.
Luckily, Johnson is already locked into the Chase. Dillon is 14th on the grid and has yet to win this season.
Chris Buescher, who won last week at Pocono Raceway, is still not on the grid. After finishing 33rd due to being in a late wreck and being forced to go to the garage, Buescher is still three points out the top 30 in points. A driver must have a win and be in the top 30 to automatically qualify for the Chase.
AJ Allmendinger re-entered the top 20 after finishing fourth Sunday. He is now 34 points behind the cutoff spot of 16th. In 16th is Kyle Larson. Larson is teetering on the edge of the top 16, only eight points up on 17th, after Allmendinger wrecked him on the final lap of Sunday’s race, sending Larson to a 29th-place finish instead of a top five.
Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen continued a trend that has seen pit road speeding penalties increase 375 percent compared to the three races before NASCAR doubled the number of timing zones.
And next for the Sprint Cup Series is Bristol — where there were 17 speeding penalties on pit road in the spring race.
This recent increase is significant because an ill-timed speeding penalty could impact a driver’s chances of racing their way into the playoffs or winning and collecting additional bonus points for the first round of the Chase.
NASCAR has issued 19 penalties for speeding on pit road in the last three races — Indianapolis, Pocono and Watkins Glen. That corresponds to when NASCAR doubled the timing zones on pit road.
The change was made after competitors raised issues about NASCAR penalizing Martin Truex Jr. for passing leader Kevin Harvick on pit road July 9 at Kentucky Speedway. Truex accelerated after he crossed the last timing line before his pit stall and passed Harvick, who had yet to cross the final timing line before his stall, and could not increase his speed.
NASCAR responded by doubling the timing zones. The move was made at New Hampshire on an experimental basis but the extra zones were not used to determine speeding penalties that weekend. NASCAR officially went to the increased timing zones the following week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
At Pocono, there were 18 timing zones on pit road — twice as many as earlier this year there. The change equated to a timing zone about every 2.5 pit stalls.
Shortening each timing zone, though, makes it harder for drivers to correct their pit road speed if they must.
“With the timing lines being so far apart, you kind of had some leeway to where if you are supposed to be running one red light and you happen to flash two or three red lights (on the dashboard), which would be speeding, you had an opportunity to kind of slow back down,’’ Aric Almirola said recently. “Now, with the timing lines closer together, if you just get a little bit greedy, or you look up to see where your pit stall is at and you creep up your RPMs a little bit, you’re going to get a speeding penalty.’’
Among those caught for speeding since the change are Chase contenders Jimmie Johnson (at Indianapolis and Watkins Glen), Denny Hamlin (Indianapolis), Tony Stewart (Indianapolis), and Joey Logano (Watkins Glen). Chris Buescher, who is seeking to become Chase eligible after winning at Pocono, was called for speeding in that race.
Here’s a look at the number of speeding penalties in the three races before the change at Indy and the three races since:
2 — Daytona
1 — Kentucky
1 — New Hampshire
4 — Indianapolis
8 — Pocono
7 — Watkins Glen
The 19 speeding penalties since the timing zone change are six more than the total number of speeding penalties called in the six Sprint Cup races before the change was made.
Now looms Bristol on Aug. 20. In the last four races at the half-mile track, NASCAR has called an average of 11.3 speeding penalties. That number could increase dramatically if drivers and teams do not properly adjust to these new conditions on pit road.
TONY STEWART HOT AGAIN
Tony Stewart’s hot run continued Sunday with a fifth-place finish at Watkins Glen, his fifth top-five finish in the last seven races.
It’s easy to overlook what rookie crew chief Mike Bugrarewicz has done this season. He’s made what have turned out to be the right calls in races and helped put Stewart in position to score strong finishes.
In seven of the last eight races, Stewart has finished better than he was running at the halfway mark. The result is he’s scored seven top-10 finishes and had a win during that stretch — his best stretch of racing since the 2011 Chase when he won the title.
At Watkins Glen, he was 18th before pitting three consecutive laps for fuel just past halfway. That dropped him to 32nd on Lap 50, but he moved into the top 10 on a caution after the restart when most of the field pitted and he didn’t. Stewart needed additional cautions to stretch his fuel and got it for a top-five finish.
He was 16th at the midway point at Kentucky last month and stretched his fuel to finish fifth.
A pit call by Bugarewicz to pit ahead of most of the field helped Stewart go from 16th at the halfway mark to the lead at Sonoma. He went on to win that race.
Though the differing pit strategies and weather issues at Pocono, Stewart was 13th at halfway and finished fifth.
At New Hampshire, he was 17th at the midway point but finished second. He was helped by being in the outside line, the favorable line, on a couple of late restarts.
The only time Stewart hasn’t gained spots from the halfway point to the finish was Indianapolis. He was pitting under green with 38 laps to go but the caution came out while on pit road. He was penalized for speeding on pit road as he exited to try to remain on the lead lap. Still, he finished 11th, placing only two spots worse than where he was running at the halfway point of that race.
HENDRICK WOES
Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen marked the fifth time in the last six races Hendrick Motorsports did not have a car finish in the top 10. Chase Elliott was Hendrick’s top car at Watkins Glen, finishing 13th.
Sunday also marked the 17th consecutive race Hendrick has failed to win, tying the organization’s longest winless drought since 2001-02.
This is how rough it has been for Hendrick’s drivers: Only once in the last six races has any Hendrick driver scored back-to-back top-15 finishes. That was Jimmie Johnson, who was 12th at New Hampshire and then third at Indianapolis.
Johnson’s last-place finish Sunday — the result of being collected in a crash when he could not avoid Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s spinning car — marked the seventh time in the last nine races that Hendrick Motorsports has had at least one car finish 30th or worse.
Sunday also marked the fourth time in the last nine races that Johnson has failed to finish because of an accident. He was in that position after multiple penalties on pit road, including his second speeding penalty in the last three weeks.
PIT STOPS
— Brad Keselowski’s third-place finish Sunday was his fourth top-three result at Watkins Glen in his last six starts there.
— Three drivers scored top-five finishes on both road courses this season: Denny Hamlin won at Watkins Glen and was second at Sonoma; Joey Logano was second at Watkins Glen and third at Sonoma; Tony Stewart was fifth at Watkins Glen and won at Sonoma.
— Denny Hamlin’s victory marked the eighth time in the last 10 races at Watkins Glen that the winner started sixth or better. Hamlin stated sixth.
— Kurt Busch extended his NASCAR record of running every lap to 22 consecutive races to start the season. He finished 11th Sunday, completing all 90 laps.
— Since his return, Jeff Gordon has finished 13th at Indianapolis, 27th at Pocono and 14th at Watkins Glen.
— Trevor Bayne’s ninth-place finish marked his career-high fifth top-10 of the season.
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Chris Buescher has seemingly embraced the spoiler role of his upset victory last weekend at Pocono Raceway, saying he's "throwing a wrench at a lot of people's brackets" in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs.
In the five remaining races that will determine the 16-driver postseason field, though, the 23-year-old rookie has work to do -- namely making up the six-point deficit to reach the required top-30 threshold in the series standings. Before Friday's on-track activity at Watkins Glen International, Buescher said he was confident that he and his Front Row Motorsports No. 34 Ford team could cross the points portion off the checklist.
"They are hustling and working extremely hard to make sure we make this Chase," Buescher said about his team's efforts to make the tight turn from weather-delayed Pocono to Watkins Glen ahead of Sunday's Cheez-It 355 at the Glen (2:30 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). "We are going to get there. I have a ton of confidence in these guys. I love where our program was heading previous to Pocono. We have been on the right path and we will make up those points."
Buescher, last year's XFINITY Series champion, said he hasn't had much chance to celebrate last Monday's surprise win in the Pennsylvania 400, saying that the short week between Pocono and Watkins Glen was consumed by road-racing practice in Utah on Tuesday and making the media rounds with a full schedule of phone interviews the last two days.
"It is a really good problem to have," Buescher said. "I killed my phone battery twice in one day, which is a new record for me. It has been wild how everything has played out and I haven't had time for it to settle in and feel like we won a race. It has been so crazy."
Though Buescher's performance has lagged behind fellow first-year drivers Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney this season, his Pocono breakthrough has given him a feather in his cap that his fellow rookies can't claim on their portfolios. His first victory came in his 27th Sprint Cup start, making him the first rookie winner since Joey Logano converted the feat in 2009.
Buescher's first full season in NASCAR's premier series coincides with the first year of a technical alliance between Roush Fenway Racing and the Bob Jenkins-owned Front Row organization, a partnership that he hopes pays dividends in the push to the playoffs. In the meantime, the momentum from a maiden trip to Victory Lane can't hurt.
"It is just a matter of getting the team jacked up and everybody on the same idea going forward that this is for real, a big moment," Buescher said. "This win with the Chase being the way it is and the point system different from last year in XFINITY, a win basically turns our whole season around. It changes everything. It is no longer one win and you move up a spot or two in points. It is one win and you potentially have a spot in the playoffs of our sport.
"We are not there yet because we have to get into that top 30, but with that win it gets everybody excited to get to that point."
