5 Points to Ponder: The Chase Field May Be Set a Week Early

1. Will the Cup Chase Field Be Decided a Week Before Daytona?

There are just two races before the NASCAR Cup Series Chase begins, and the cut-off race to get in seems very middling this year.

Seven drivers have already clinched their spot in The Chase. Six more drivers have at least 101 points worth of cushion from 17th-place Ryan Preece, and they would need a lot to happen to fall that low.

Bubba Wallace is ahead of Preece by 70 points and needs to avoid trouble this week to clinch a spot.

Austin Cindric is ahead of Preece by 57 points, and Shane van Gisbergen has a 50-point cushion. It seems much more likely that these final three drivers will all clinch their spots than for Preece or Ross Chastain (-63) to catch up by the end of the cut-off race at Daytona International Speedway.

Let’s pretend the point gaps stay the same through the coming penultimate regular season race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It’s hard to imagine any driver will sweep the stages at Daytona International Speedway and take the fastest lap there too, but for argument’s sake, let’s say Preece does.

As the points stand, van Gisbergen would only need to have 26 points on the day to stay ahead of Preece. This would be accomplished by default with a top-11 finish, with the line going down the more stage points van Gisbergen can grab on the day.

2. Math Dictates It Won’t Be Easy For the Lower Seeds to Win The Chase, Anyway

To be clear, however, it’s also not likely that anybody near the cut-off line has a viable shot at the championship.

With how the seeding works, these guys are going to be at least 80 points down on the first seed at the reset. That’s a lot of points to make up in a 10-race stretch. It’d require a near-perfect Chase run and not just the first seed, but the top 10 seeds all having trouble at some point.

The first iteration of The Chase from 2004 to 2006 would have the seeds receive five-point increments based on where they finished in points after race 26. This seems similar to our current system but with a few key differences.

Back then, NASCAR was still using a version of the famous Bob Latford point system that awarded up to 190 points for a win and leading the most laps. Five points was 2.6% of a max points day. Starting a race alone would net at least 34 points from finishing 43rd. Theoretically, the 10th seed could finish 28th in the first race of the Chase and be tied for the points lead if the top nine finished in the bottom nine positions of the race.

Now, NASCAR uses a system where drivers can receive anywhere from 76 points to one point on the day. Five points is now 6.6% of a max points day. It’s now impossible for the 11th seed on back to pass the first seed in points in the first race of the Chase.

You can say the Chase field is bloated, and it kind of is. But there are not 16 drivers with a legitimate chance at the championship. Preece is not going to gain 51 points, swipe the 16th seed from van Gisbergen, then win the championship.

During the off weekend before Iowa Speedway a couple of weeks ago, I did a mock Chase. I took the top 16 in points after the 12th race of the season (Watkins Glen International), seeded them with the Chase format points (i.e., Tyler Reddick had 2100 points as the first seed), then applied the points those 16 drivers accumulated over the 10 races after that.

The results are fascinating. Reddick has had a terrible summer, scoring just the 14th-most amount of points from races 13-22. Yet here, he finishes fifth in points because of that boost he had from being the first seed.

Denny Hamlin was seeded second in this mock Chase, yet not only would he have been champion, he would have clinched it a race early. This was something considered near impossible in the original Chase format, but here, there is a very distinct possibility of it.

3. Can Stewart Friesen or Jake Garcia Steal the Final Spot in the Truck Series Chase?

Even if the cut-off race doesn’t end on Sunday for Cup, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will decide its Chase field this Saturday (Aug. 22) at Loudon.

There are 11 drivers racing for four Chase positions. Grant Enfinger and Ben Rhodes have enough of a cushion to where they should make it in as long as they avoid trouble. That leaves nine drivers for two spots.

It says a lot about how good Brenden Queen is that he’s been able to drag his underperforming RAM to within 47 points of a Chase spot in the cut-off. He’s not going to get in barring absolute chaos, but he has a much better shot than his teammate Justin Haley, who you’d think would have been the lead driver for RAM this year, but that hasn’t been the case.

The danger zone is 10th through 12th in the standings. Tyler Ankrum is ahead of Stewart Friesen by 20 points for the final Chase spot, with Jake Garcia only a point off of Friesen. Friesen’s wreck late in the running at Richmond was a big blow to the Canadian’s Chase hopes, but he’s still well in the running if he can swipe some big stage points this week.

4. Joey Logano Has Further Cemented His Place in History

Joey Logano now has 39 wins in his Cup career, tied with Matt Kenseth and already just one win away from Mark Martin.

It’s remarkable that Logano is still only 36 years old and could still have another 10 years as a competitive driver if he plays his cards right.

It would be surprising if Logano got to over 60 wins. With the spec car, it’s harder and harder to just keep building up wins over the years.

Seven championships? That’s still a possibility, somehow.

As ridiculous as Logano’s 2024 championship was, he ultimately won the championship by the rules afforded to him and the 30-some other drivers who competed for a championship that year.

It was in a system that was clearly designed to create chaos and excitement over attempting to award a deserving champion. Ultimately, however, no system is perfect. There’s always going to be a debate as to who was the “deserving” champion.

The champion in a given season is the driver who was the best to exploit the system NASCAR used in said given season. Dale Earnhardt Sr. only raced in one point system in his entire career, and that’s why he doesn’t have more than 76 race wins. Because the system didn’t reward winning enough to justify trying to “run up the score.”

The greats always adapt. It’s why Logano has suddenly emerged as a serious potential championship spoiler, yet again.

5. Maybe No Track Should Have Two Dates?

A successful weekend at Richmond begs the question: why even allow tracks to have second dates on the calendar?

Richmond was a dead track walking with two dates just a couple of years ago. It’s now becoming a hot spot on the schedule. I was at the Truck race on Friday night before the postponement, and that was a great crowd.

It’s sacrilegious to think that perhaps a track like Martinsville Speedway should go to just one date on the calendar. But if NASCAR can find another non-SMI owned short track viable for Cup racing within a few hours of the track, why not experiment with that? It’s not like they’re selling out the spring date at that track anyway.

It may seem like the end of the world when a track loses one of its two dates, but it doesn’t tend to be. Michigan International Speedway just had its first sellout in 21 years in June. Pocono Raceway is selling out consistently now that it only has the one race.

Maybe Martinsville is a bad track to namedrop here. But Kansas Speedway? Las Vegas Motor Speedway? There’s no real reason for both of these tracks to have two dates now.