My two cents | David Poole on points and 'magic numbers' for the Chase
David Poole's two cents' worth as we head for the next one, at California Speedway ...
There’s a very real possibility that the Chase for the Nextel Cup could be set when Sunday night’s race at California is over.
Barring some major missteps by Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. or Kurt Busch, it won’t matter what Dale Earnhardt Jr. does there and at Richmond the following week.
If Earnhardt Jr. wins both of those races and leads the most laps, he’ll have 3,111 points after 26 races. That, for now, is the magic number for Chase contenders. Busch, who’s 12th, needs just 233 points in two races to lock himself in. That’s two top-15 finishes.
You could argue, I guess, that 12 is the right number for the Chase this year. Earnhardt Jr. and his team, certainly, don’t appear to be of championship caliber right now. Busch, on the other hand, is riding a wave of momentum and could be a factor.
But the whole point of the Chase is to create drama and competition for the right to move into the championship showdown, isn’t it? It doesn’t look like there’s going to be much of that this year.
But what if NASCAR had left well enough alone, as it should have, and only 10 drivers qualified for the Chase this year?
How good would these final two races be with Kevin Harvick in 10th, one point ahead of Truex Jr. and nine points up on Busch? Bowyer, who’s just 56 points ahead of Kevin Harvick, would be sweating, too.
I have always said, from the time it was first instituted, that the way you can tell if the Chase is working is if good teams get left out. At 10 this year, good teams would be left out. At 12? Not so much.
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