With NASCAR‘s 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup starting up at the next race, there’s some question as to whether the 12 contenders for the Cup need their own points system or not? Jenna Fryer brought this up as a statement that Tony Stewart made after the Richmond race, and either last year, or the year before, Daryl Waltrip had been a strong proponent of this idea.
Yet in a word, mathematically speaking, it doesn’t matter what kind of points system is used with the Chase for the Cup contenders. The champion will remain the same. Here’s why I say that:
Regardless of whether the drives share the point system with the rest of the drivers or they have their own point system, the driver with the best average performance for the last 10 races of the season will win the Championship, barring the premise of the bonus points the drivers accrued via their regular season wins gives anyone enough of a boost to alter the results of the 10-race performance.
Whether the best performing Cup Chaser gets 185 or 12 points, they get more points than the other 11 drivers.
I took the 2009 results from the last 10 races of the year and tallied up the points from their finishing positions. These are the accrued points, using the std points (plus race bonus pts) from the system:
| DRIVER | PTS/BNS |
| Jimmie Johnson | 1622 |
| Mark Martin | 1471 |
| Jeff Gordon | 1463 |
| Kurt Busch | 1436 |
| Denny Hamlin | 1315 |
| Greg Biffle | 1292 |
| Tony Stewart | 1279 |
| Juan Montoya | 1252 |
| Ryan Newman | 1175 |
| Carl Edwards | 1118 |
| Kasey Kahne | 1108 |
| Brian Vickers | 919 |
=
If I were to take the drivers in the Chase, and assign them points in relation to each other, 12 points for the highest finishing Chaser, 1 for being 12th of the Chasers, this is what I get (But no bonus points for leading laps)(This 12 point system was a suggested points scheme by Jenna Fryer in a quick Twitter conversation we had after the Richmond race.):
| DRIVER | PTS |
| Jimmie Johnson | 95 |
| Mark Martin | 82 |
| Jeff Gordon | 80 |
| Kurt Busch | 75 |
| Juan Montoya | 71 |
| Denny Hamlin | 69 |
| Greg Biffle | 62 |
| Tony Stewart | 60 |
| Kasey Kahne | 55 |
| Ryan Newman | 49 |
| Carl Edwards | 43 |
| Brian Vickers | 39 |
As you can see, no change in the first 4 spots, Juan Montoya moved up 3 spots to 5th, Kasey Kahne moved up 2. I believe that’s the affect of no bonus points in this quick example.
=
If I use bonus points with the 12-point awards system, I had to not use 5 points for leading a race and 10 for the most laps bonus points, but rather, I arbitrarily used 1 point for leading a lap, 2 points for leading the most laps. This being that the point spread was so small to begin with, this is what I get:
| DRIVER | PTS/BNS |
| Jimmie Johnson | 107 |
| Mark Martin | 88 |
| Jeff Gordon | 85 |
| Kurt Busch | 84 |
| Denny Hamlin | 79 |
| Juan Montoya | 77 |
| Greg Biffle | 65 |
| Tony Stewart | 65 |
| Kasey Kahne | 57 |
| Ryan Newman | 54 |
| Carl Edwards | 46 |
| Brian Vickers | 39 |
In this example, here again, the top 5 spots, compared to the original set of points, did not change for the Chase drivers.
=
If 2009 was a bad year to use, then my example goes boom! But what I saw were that Montoya and Kahne received elevated boosts from bonuses in the shorter points schemes, but not by much. Not enough to affect the outcome of who becomes the NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, because he performed consistently across the last 10 races.
Barring wild bonus point boosts, the driver with the best average finish across the last 10 races will win the Championship, no matter how you apply points to their finishing spots. It might help a bit if Denny has a great run in the beginning of the Chase this year or if he gets pummeled by stupid circumstances, then the meager 60 point bonus advantage goes away fast.
In the end, it all depends on performance, and a little luck on one’s side to skate around the on-track tragedies.
- You can follow NASCAR Bits & Pieces on Twitter
-
