Category: Featured Stories

The past two Sprint Cup Series seasons the driver entering the finale in Homestead-Miami as the championship point leader, as well as fan and driver favorite, left that Sunday night empty handed.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”246″][/media-credit]In 2009 Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin won at Homestead and said his team would be champions in the near future. His statement led pundits to declare that the No. 11 FedEx team were the favorites to dethrone Jimmie Johnson in 2010.

Hamlin backed it up by going out and winning eight races – with a bum knee to boot. With two races left in the season he led Johnson by what seemed to be a comfortable 33-point lead. But following Phoenix it had shrunk to 15 when a fuel mileage race didn’t go his way.

The following week in Homestead Johnson went on to do what he does best, winning championships, while Hamlin struggled to run in the top 10.

Said Hamlin at the end of last year, “There was a lot of circumstances in which we had an opportunity to win the championship. By the numbers, fuel mileage was one contributor, factor. But it’s a part of racing. Strategy is part of racing. It’s not just about the fastest car and best driver. There’s a whole lot that goes into this sport and that’s what makes it as good as it is. We’ll just keep fighting and get ’em next year.”

Next year though would belong to winner of that race, who is often overshadowed at the time by the crowning of the season champion. Carl Edwards won Homestead in the midst of Hamlin and Johnson’s championship fight.

The strong end to the season by No. 99 Aflac team put them in the position previously held by Hamlin: preseason favorite. Edwards and his Roush Fenway Racing team came into 2011 as the newest man tabbed to end Johnson’s reign. He didn’t win eight races like Hamlin, his lone victory came at Las Vegas in early March, but he did set the series ablaze with impressive statistics that put him in a good championship position.

And then came Homestead.

Just like Hamlin did a year before, Edwards entered with the point lead and what some saw as an edge against his competitor. Except just like Hamlin, he too left without the big trophy.

Both drivers put up their best efforts; both won the previous season’s race, both entered with the point lead. And both lost the championship.

In 2010 Johnson finished second and won his fifth title by 39 points over Hamlin who finished 14th. Ironically a year later Edwards would also finish second, but unfortunately did so to Tony Stewart who bested him in the race and the championship.

It couldn’t be more heartbreaking for either driver. Hamlin was perhaps the best driver in 2010’s Chase – not season but Chase when he rose to the occasion – only to be another driver to fall to Johnson. Johnson being a driver who never seemed to have the bad luck bug, was always in the right place at the right time and may have had some golden horseshoes according to the competition.

Instead the bug found Hamlin and followed him from Phoenix to bite him again at Homestead where he qualified 37th, spun early and damaged his front splitter, never led a lap and watched the title slip away.

Johnson qualified sixth, led one lap then never left the top five for the rest of the day. This time around it looked like Edwards was going to do the same thing, as he too was the Chase – and seasons – best driver (Edwards had a 4.9 average in the Chase). He qualified on the pole and led the most laps, 119 of 267 as Stewart looked like he was about to take the role of 2010 Hamlin but in the end pulled a Johnson by coming from behind.

Qualifying 15th, Stewart encountered problems early when it’s suspected that Kurt Busch’s transmission was responsible for putting a hole in his front grille. To the back of the field he went after repairs. But he wasn’t about to follow in Hamlin’s footsteps of getting close enough to touch the title but not hold it.

Twice Stewart went to the back of the field and twice he drove his way to the front. He won the race and his third championship. The only driver who does and will possess a Winston Cup, Nextel Cup and Sprint Cup Series championship.

The script for the past two seasons couldn’t have been written any better. The season finale crowned a champion who didn’t come in as the favorite or with a known edge. They didn’t even have the point lead. It provided dramatic racing for those involved and high anxiety levels for those watching.

Of course both seasons also had fantastic trash talking. Before the 2010 finale Johnson did his best to get in Hamlin’s head. Talking about the pressure Hamlin was under as the point leader, that he (Johnson) had more experience handling adversity, that Hamlin should be concerned about his small advantage. Along with anything else Johnson could throw his way.

It appeared to have worked, Hamlin seemed visibly nervous. Something Johnson and Kevin Harvick called him out on. Then during the race Hamlin reminded himself and his team to take deep breaths. Meanwhile Johnson was in full on champion mode.

Flash forward to Edwards and Stewart. Edwards maintained a strict business as usual policy and tried not to make any visible reaction to Stewart who went about jabbing at him every chance he got.

He talked about “been there, done that” in terms of winning championships. He told Edwards he could come visit his championship trophy when they arrived in Las Vegas for the banquet. He also made sure that everyone knew he would wreck his own mother, and theirs, for a championship.

Even when Stewart was running in the back of the field he never stopped talking. Edwards was going to feel really bad when the No. 14 Office Depot / Mobile 1 team beat them twice from the back, said Stewart. It left Edwards at a loss for words before and after the race, in disbelief that he came so far and lost it when it was in his grasp.

“I’m not going to rip the door off my motorhome or freak out or anything,” said Edwards. “I’m going to go hang out with my family and we’ll go to the beach tomorrow and go celebrate Ricky [Stenhouse Jr., Nationwide teammate] championship … My true feeling right now, my gut feeling in my heart, is that I’m obviously disappointed we didn’t win. That would have been a spectacular result. But I’m very proud, some of the best races I’ve run in my life, were this Chase … If I look back on this Chase, there’s not one thing that I say ‘man, I wish I’d done this or I wish I’d have done that.’ This whole season has gone very well. I’m truly proud of this season. But it’s over.”

As for what’s next, time will tell if Edwards follows Hamlin again. After his squandered championship opportunity Hamlin came out of the gate struggling in 2011 and was never able to right the ship. Only enjoying victory lane once this season as he finished ninth in points.

The team struggled with their equipment, Hamlin calling for engines to stop coming from JGR for those from Toyota Racing Development. He has even openly admitted that his confidence wasn’t what it once was.

Confidence wasn’t a problem for Edwards 2011 but says it will be important for he and his team to head to the off-season holding heads held high. They need to use it as fuel to work harder for another title run next year. They don’t want to become the second straight driver to suffer a post- championship attempt hangover. Edwards says though that 2011 won’t affect his 2012.

For as Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.”

The announcement of a change to the distribution of points across NASCAR national series sparked debate among even the most conservative NASCAR fans.  One of the explanations behind the change was to develop a more dramatic points battle to increase fan interest.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”241″][/media-credit]A debate arose over the fact that a quick calculation would show that very little, if anything, would change in the final championship standings. In fact, even among the more common point distributions across all major racing series, by the end of the season there did not appear to be much of a difference in the order of the final standings.

Over the course of the season it became evident that there was not a significant difference between the old points system and the new system, save for a stronger reliance on consistency over victories. Below are the final standings for using the three different points systems, as well as a comparison as to how a Chase would have unfolded

Classic System – http://phatstats.blogspot.com/2011/11/classic-points-system-2011-final.html

Classic System w/ Chase – http://phatstats.blogspot.com/2011/11/classic-points-system-2011-final_26.html

While the new points system lead to one of the most nail biting season finales in the history of the sport, had we been using the 2010 points system the Ford 400 would not have been as tense. Tony Stewart would have entered Homestead with a comfortable 40 point lead over Carl Edwards, begging the question how differently would have Stewart driven in the race knowing he was on the defense.

Except for Jeff Gordon leap frogging Dale Earnhardt Jr for seventh, the Chase drivers finished in the same order.  In fact the majority of the top thirty were in the same order, with only a few instances of drivers swapping in order.

F1 System – http://phatstats.blogspot.com/2011/11/f1-system-final-standings.html

F1 System w/ Chase – http://phatstats.blogspot.com/2011/11/f1-system-final-standings-chase-edition.html

No system rewards high finishes better than the Formula 1 points distribution and in this case the Championship outcome would have been far different. With Stewart ending the regular season in 11th in points, and with Dale Earnhardt Jr ending up 13th, Marcos Ambrose and David Ragan would make their first Chase. Ambrose’s hot finish in the season would culminate in his first top ten points finish. Carl Edwards would have to thank Brian Vickers for his first Cup championship, barely edging Matt Kenseth by ten points.

Naturally the standings are more jumbled compared to how things actually turned out. Some food for thought, had Stewart made this Chase he would have scored 450 points, easily out distancing Edwards by 52 points or two full races.

IndyCar – http://phatstats.blogspot.com/2011/11/indycar-system-2011-final-standings.html

Indycar w/ Chase –http://phatstats.blogspot.com/2011/11/indycar-system-2011-final-standings_26.html

The IndyCar system is more of an even split between the F1 and NASCAR system, and the final results reflect a mixture of the two. Again, Stewart and Earnhardt Jr would barely miss out on the Chase with Ambrose and Ragan earning berths. Here Kenseth would have a more comfortable margin of 38 points over Kenseth, with the rest of the Chase contenders almost mirroring their F1 finishing positions.

And, in yet another case of coulda-shoulda, had Tony Stewart made this Chasehe would have scored 1867 points, besting Carl Edwards by 56 at the seasons end.

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So after a year of tracking different types of point systems in NASCAR most prominent series, what have we discovered? Maybe not so surprisingly the system devised ultimately does not affect who the champion would be. In all systems without a Chase, Carl Edwards easily came home the victory. In the systems with a Chase, Edwards won the championship only three times, but only because Tony Stewart was left out due to the new Wild-Card format.

Even looking beyond the series champion, the order of the rest of the field remained relatively the same. The F1 system provided the most extremes in differences, yet as a whole it truly did not vary a great deal when compared to others.

Maybe all the energy debating what is truly the best system to crown a champion is irrelevant. Maybe time could better be spent attempting to explain why a particular driver did not win the championship rather than blaming it on the system. And maybe, just maybe, one of Brian France’s ideas wasn’t so bad at after all.

Just maybe…

Rarely can you point to a singular moment and declare that history had been made. Even more rare is when said point can be recognized as transcending merely making history.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”245″][/media-credit]After nearly twenty years, the 1992 Hooters 500 finally has a rival in the discussion of the greatest NASCAR race of all time. While the storylines of that particular race are numerous and complex, there is but one story to the 2011 season finale at Homestead; the birth of the legend of Tony Stewart.

Often we use grandiose adjectives to describe the premier athletes in a sport. A unbelievable diving catch, a logic defying shot and a spectacular save at 200 mph all illicit responses of amazement and, quite often, over excitement. It is why so often we are consumed with the hype of an event and then find ourselves disappointment when the reality does not live up to it.

Individually they may be historic events, but in reality they are little more than just that.

Tony Stewart ascended into the realm of legends not just for his actions on the track in Miami, but for the actions leading up to the race itself. Prior to the 2011 NASCAR Chase of the Championship, few would argue that Stewart is one of the best drivers to ever wheel a stock car. An additional argument could successfully be made that Stewart is one of the best drivers in all of motorsports considering his lengthy list of accomplishments across multiple disciplines.

Heading into the Ford 400 he was merely a remarkable driver with nearly unmatched skills. A driver that was a threat to win virtually every week at any track. A man who was not only a NASCAR champion, but champion at virtually every vehicle he touched.

Few drivers can lay claim to the title of legend, and most have difficulty remembering a driver before they attained it. Each, in their own right, acquired it through a jaw dropping moment, or moments, that made everyone from the simple fan to the seasoned driver recognize that they are in the presence of someone special.

Dale Earnhardt, despite how glorified he is today, was merely an extremely good driver for the first part of his career. Many today forget that he went five years between his first and second championships, only cracking the top five in points once. He was a very successful driver mired in a sea of other successful drivers.

That would change during the 1987 Winston Cup season, personified in one specific event in May of that year. At Charlotte Motor Speedway, Earnhardt had his transcending moment to NASCAR legend status with the misnomer “Pass In The Grass.”

That moment surmised everything that the term Intimidator stood for; an expression of sheer desire to win at all costs through driving ability which appears to exceeds the realm of mere mortals and the ability at any time to kick it into a fifth gear that most are unaware of. Earnhardt that day, and later in the season during the more aptly named “Pass in the Dirt” at Riverside, showed a confidence in his abilities that is as frightening to watch as it is astounding.

This is the line that Tony Stewart crossed at Homestead, only much like Earnhardt he did not cross it but more so obliterated it. In an era where it has been repeatedly shown that drivers have a clear advantage as the lead car, Stewart ignored that notion and did it his way over the final races of the year.

It seemingly did not matter if Stewart did not have the best car at Homestead or Texas or Phoenix, but his car had perhaps the best driver. Being able to not will a car to be the best is not simply enough, but being able to force it to be the best is the hallmark of a legendary driver.

The confidence Stewart showed over the final month of the season, while backing it up, is something every fan will be talking about years from now. It is akin to Babe Ruth calling his shot in the 1932 World Series, only if Ruth had to do so multiple times in the same game. It is something which is seen very rarely and as the months and years wear on we all will begin to appreciate how truly special it is.

Because no longer is Tony Stewart merely a three time Cup series champion.

No longer is he the only champion across multiple top level national touring series.

No longer is he the brash, successful driver that is feared week in and week out.

Today Tony Stewart is a living, breathing motorsports legend.

And if he is even acutely aware of this fact, than may we all pray for his competitors once Speedweeks 2012 begins a mere three months from now…

Dependent upon the precise set of circumstances, sometimes freedom of speech isn’t necessarily free. Ask NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Kurt Busch who just recently found out that there’s a significant rise in the cost of middle fingers and “F bombs.” It now appears that the going rate for this form of self expression is $50,000 according to NASCAR officials.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”223″][/media-credit]The latest controversy, surrounding a Busch brother, began during the NASCAR Sprint Cup’s season finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Three laps into this race, the transmission of Busch’s Shell-Penzoil/Penske Racing Dodge completely disintegrated. Bear in mind this is a driver who subjects his crew chief and team members to brutal verbal abuse via in car radio comments over simple matters like a loose or tight handling condition. Imagine how angry this volatile driver was over taking his car behind the wall after only running three laps.

The first sign of abusive self expression came when Busch presented a one finger salute from his car window while motoring his way to the garage. Unfortunately, this gesture was noticed by an ESPN Network camera man who was, also unfortunately, shooting live on the air.

Part two of Busch exercising his freedom of speech came in the garage while waiting for a live ESPN interview with pit reporter Dr. Jerry Punch. Busch got a little antsy while waiting for the ESPN broadcast director to cue to live interview and the longer he waited he madder he became.

Turning his attention to someone outside of the camera shot, Busch startled everyone by yelling “can you get this mother f****r out of my face?” Busch next asked Jerry Punch, “why can’t we tape this s**t? ” Punch replied “I think they wanted to do this live,” at which point Busch responded with “I wanted to do it live too, ten f*****g minutes ago.” That’s when Jerry Punch wisely walked away after telling his director “never mind.”

However, the problems with Busch’s latest tirade wasn’t quite over yet. It seems that someone standing near the scene recorded everything the driver said. By the following Tuesday morning the age of modern technology, along with the phenomenom known as viral videos, entered this situation and Busch’s comments to Jerry Punch was on the “You Tube” highlight reel.

Enter the spin doctors. On the Tuesday following the race, Roger Penske Racing issued a statement that read; “Penske Racing extends its apologies to Dr. Jerry Punch, our media partners, our sponsors and fans for Kurt Busch’s inappropriate actions in Homestead on Sunday. These actions do not represent Penske Racing and are inconsistent with the company’s standards for behavior, respect for others and professionalism. The matter will be reviewed internally with no further comment.”

The Penske statement was followed by comments from their race driver who said: “unfortunately, our result in the season ending race at Homestead on Sunday was not what we had hoped for as a team. In my frustration with the loss of my transmission early in the race, I let my emotions get the better of me. I regret having done this and apologize to the sponsors of Penske Racing, to NASCAR, its fans, to the media and in particular Dr. Jerry Punch.”

At first it was believed that NASCAR would not be taking any official action against Busch. The morning following the Homestead race NASCAR official spokesman Kerry Tharp said “clearly, Kurt was frustrated with what happened with his car early in the race, however his choice of language at the time was disappointing.”

However by the following Friday afternoon NASCAR issued a prepared statement that said the driver was going to be fined for his behavior. That statement read: “NASCAR has fined Kurt Busch $50,000 for his actions during the November 20th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Homestead-Miami Speedway. NASCAR determined that Busch violated Section 12-1, (actions detrimental to stock car racing-inappropriate hand gesture; abusive language) of the 2011 NASCAR Rule Book.”

“In issuing the penalty, NASCAR cited Kurt Busch’s poor judgement in making an inappropriate hand gesture when he drove his car into the garage area early in the race after it experienced transmission problems. In addition, NASCAR said Kurt Busch showed disrespect towards a media member, an incident that followed similar inappropriate media confrontations earlier in the season.”

A tip of the racing hat goes to NASCAR officials for addressing this situation. This driver’s action were seriously inappropriate and the action taken by the sanctioning body was more than warranted.

Another tip of the racing hat goes to the ESPN Network, as well as Dr. Jerry Punch, for declining further comment on this incident while choosing to allow NASCAR to handle the situation.

We probably should also tip the racing hat towards whomever it was who recorded the incident and made sure it landed on the Internet.

Hopefully this driver has seen this video by now and will recognize the fact that it’s time he found a way to control his anger. As abusive as he was to Dr. Jerry Punch and ESPN, it pales in comparison to the frequent verbal abuses aimed at his team over their radio system. There’s even been times when his radio comments were aimed at team owner Roger Penske.

This behavior is likely one of the reasons why Steve Addington, Busch’s crew chief for the past two seasons, has left the team. The driver was officially informed by the crew chief of his departure on the Monday afternoon following the Homestead race. It’s widely believed that an announcement is coming soon that says Addington will be joining Stewart-Haas Racing to become 2011 Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart’s new crew chief.

Kurt Busch is an extraordinarily talented driver who has the NASCAR stats to back that up. He’s was the NASCAR Sprint Cup champion in 2004 and now has 24 Cup wins with a career 16.9 average finish ratio.

At the still young age of 32, he has a lot of competitive years left in him. But, at the age of 32, it’s also time for him to complete the maturity process and find a way to control that anger that frequently gets the best of him before it causes him additional embarrassment.

If he hasn’t already done so, then here’s hoping Kurt Busch will take a hard look at the Homestead video, currently on the Internet, and learn from it.

After Tony Stewart tied Carl Edwards in points for the Sprint Cup championship, Stewart commented that he had thrown so much at Edwards and he was too nice of a guy to respond. Maybe there lies the reason why Tony will get the big bucks and the crown and Edwards will fall short another time. The old adage that nice guys finish last may apply here.

[media-credit name=”Barry Albert” align=”alignright” width=”241″][/media-credit]Not that Edwards didn’t perform. No one and I mean no one, had a better ten races in the Chase than Edwards. Maybe that was the problem. Edwards constantly finished in the top five race after race, with the notable exception of Martinsville where he struggled to finish tenth. It just wasn’t enough and the mind games Stewart put out were brutal. Stewart was the bully. Even during the race when his radio transmissions were pretty aggressive, he was confident and on plan. He was going to will this championship. One has to wonder why it didn’t happen in the first 26 races, and that becomes the problem. What makes a team flounder for 26 races and still win five of the last ten? It’s a mystery and mirrors the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that found itself 10 games behind in August, climb to the World Series championship. What causes this?

In the Cardinals case, it has a lot to do with desire and the competition. Good teams fins the weakness of the opposition. The Cardinals were able to find that weakness that each team had, exploit it, and find a way to win. The same could be said for Stewart. They knew Edwards would finish in the top five, so the only solution was to win, win, and win. And that’s exactly what they did.

I consider this the flaw of the Chase system. It places too much emphasis on the championship. I can remember years ago when David Pearson won two titles, and Cale Yarborough won three straight, and the fans only wondered how many races both had won. Richard Petty won seven titles, and likewise Dale Earnhardt, but the big question was how many races they won. Then came Pearson, running a partial schedule, and won race after race. Bill Elliott won 11 races and lost the championship to Darrell Waltrip. Who do you think was the most followed? Then someone in the offices at Daytona Beach (and I think you know who that is) decided we need to follow the stick and ball sports. We had to have a playoff and a champion.

My guess is the point system devised by Bob Latford so long ago (and I had the pleasure of discussing this with the late Mr. Latford) might have been the right method. A season with a playoff is pretty much an anomaly. It’s all about who gets hot at a certain point in time, but a season-long system that awards the team that had the best overall season should be the winner. But in NASCAR’s desire to be like the NFL, MLB, and NBA (the competition, you know), we had to have a playoff—a “game seven experience,” to justify our sport. Bunk.

But we will continue as we are as the media and everyone praises how the season came to an end with a tie and it was the closet championship in history, which it was with a little help from the sanctioning body.

Was Carl Edwards too nice a guy to win a championship? No, he was a victim of the system. A system that once rewarded a full season of excellence and changed to excellence over ten races. Jimmie Johnson rode this to five straight championships, and Tony Stewart rode it to the 2011 title. When you play within the rules, no one has a gripe.

Here’s to Lucky Dogs and Shotgun Starts. The old system worked for a long time. Congratulations to Tony Stewart, Rick Hendrick, and Chevrolet. You had a great year. Enjoy the championship you deserved, but beware of the contrived changes in the future