I’m a fan of anything that can go fast, or can be raced. I’ve wasted an hour of my life at 2:00 A.M. on a Thursday watching swamp buggies try to navigate the ‘sippy hole’ in some god-forsaken swamp in the Deep South. I grew up a fan of open wheel racing and the major series I follow have endured many changes. Management, rules, regulations, and drivers have all changed, some for the good, some not. I have always kept an eye on NASCAR though, and I blame the 1979 Daytona 500. Watching Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison go bare-knuckle after each other on the last lap was 25% racing, 25% luck, and 50% promotional genius. Ever since that race I have been amazed at the way the NASCAR management structure drags its feet on driver and fan safety, always reacting instead of anticipating, how it now pays teams to ‘start & park’ to fill out fields, and how it has generally mismanaged its popularity into the current state of affairs.

On the eve of the final race of the 2014 season, sadly, I could care less who takes home the season championship, or the ‘Race for the Chase’ as it has been billed. Why am I less than interested, and so sad? I don’t like to be sad…

The new knockout system to decide the driver title has brought the season down to four drivers. Here is the breakdown of their season stats:

Driver	Races	Wins	Top 5’s	Top 10’s	Poles
Denny Hamlin	34	1	7	17	3
Joey Logano	35	5	16	22	1
Ryan Newman	35	0	4	15	0
Kevin Harvick	35	4	13	19	8

All stats courtesy of Racing Reference

And here is a breakdown of a few other worthy contestants for the title that didn’t make it into the final 4 – you might recognize a few of these names:

Driver	Races	Wins	Top 5’s	Top 10’s	Poles
Jeff Gordon	35	4	14	22	2
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.	35	4	12	20	0
Brad Keselowski	35	6	16	19	5
Jimmie Johnson	35	4	11	19	1

All stats courtesy of Racing Reference

I like numbers, and I thought NASCAR did as well. So why don’t we do a little crunching eh? Just for shits and giggles….

We will award a point values for the finishing spots summarized above. Wins are worth 4 points, Top 5’s, 3, Top 10’s, 2, and Poles are worth 1 point. We’ll do some spreadsheet magic and come up with the following sorted list of the eight drivers mentioned above.

So, here is where we end up – red = out of the chase, green = in:

Driver	Races	Wins	Top 5’s	Top 10’s	Poles	Total Points
Brad Keselowski	35	6	16	19	5	149
Joey Logano	35	5	16	22	1	148
Jeff Gordon	35	4	14	22	2	139
Kevin Harvick	35	4	13	19	8	136
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.	35	4	12	20	0	127
Jimmie Johnson	35	4	11	19	1	123
Denny Hamlin	34	1	7	17	3	97
Ryan Newman	35	0	4	15	0	77

Well now, looky there.

So, out of the eight drivers, two of the four are at the rock bottom of our quick stab at weighting their season long performance. And not by a small amount, but by a large amount. Lets take a few other drivers and throw them into this mix – these are four drivers out of the next group highest in point standings not listed above:

Driver	Races	Wins	Top 5’s	Top 10’s	Poles	Total Points
Matt Kenseth	35	0	13	21	2	83
Kyle Busch	35	1	9	15	4	65
Carl Edwards	35	2	7	14	2	59
Kasey Kahne	35	1	3	11	5	4

So from this list, we take Matt Kenseth and put him in the top eight above, and take out Ryan Newman completely.

I don’t like to be sad. I like to be happy. I may not have the Sprint Cup on the top of my list, but I also hate to see the season title be made a sham.

I hope like hell that Ryan Newman wins. It would help to rid the series of a really crappy way to settle the title…

But wait – this is NASCAR I’m talking about! Even if he does win, and they scrap this latest brainstorm, they’ll find a new way this down season to bollocks up the works for next year.

Cheers!

Riley C.