Happy Hour: Is the Richmond Chase drama gone?

It’s time for Happy Hour. As always, tweet us your thoughts or shoot us an email at happyhourmailbag@yahoo.com if you want to participate.

Should we blame Ryan Newman and his team for sucking all the tension about setting the 16-driver field for the Chase during Saturday night’s race at Richmond?

That’s a strongly-worded and slightly-hyperbolic statement. But the underlying point still stands. Immediately after Sunday’s race at Darlington, Newman was trailing Jamie McMurray by seven points for the final spot in the 10-race Chase that begins next weekend at Chicago.

Seven points is just six positions when bonus points are taken away, so a gap of that nature was undoubtedly going to lead to some serious scoreboard watching throughout the course of the race.

But, as you know if you haven’t been living in a NASCAR-free hole this week, Newman and team were penalized 15 points for a post-race inspection failure. The seven-point gap is now 22, meaning that as long as McMurray and Newman are in the same scoring zip code during Saturday night’s race, there’s no drama.

Hell, we’d listen to arguments saying that the race for 30th in the points standings is more dramatic than any head-to-head battle between McMurray and Newman. Chris Buescher, who won earlier this season at Pocono, is currently 30th in the standings, 11 points ahead of David Ragan.

Buescher is in the Chase as long as he stays in the top 30 in points. If Ragan makes up 12 points on Buescher, the Pocono winner is out of the Chase.

And that benefits Newman. The Chase field is currently set with 13 winners and three drivers in on points. Without Buescher in the top 30, the ratio slips to 12 and four, opening up a spot for Newman (or Kasey Kahne if he makes up 23 points on Newman.

It’s why we like this suggestion from our friend and esteemed former colleague.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a logistical nightmare. For one, Ragan drives Toyotas for BK Racing and RCR fields Chevrolets. But it’s a scenario that also makes a ton of sense, at least when you skim the surface.

By putting Ragan in (theoretically) better equipment, he has a greater shot of making up the gap on Buescher. The only variable that derails the plan, outside of Kahne passing Newman in the standings, is if a driver currently outside the top 15 in the points standings gets a win.

We don’t think that will happen at all. Kahne hasn’t had winning speed at all this season, and neither has anyone else not in the top 15. The drivers in the top 15 have led a combined 6,691 laps while drivers outside the top 15 have led 257.

It’s like the cliché about lightning striking twice. Buescher was the proverbial lightning at Pocono. Is it really going to happen again at Richmond?

What does aggressiveness net a driver in a circumstance like Newman’s? It’s one thing to be aggressive while going for a spot or two (like Newman shoving Kyle Larson into the wall at Phoenix in 2014), it’s another to be aggressive when you also need a lot of other big things to go your way.

If it comes down to a spot or two late in the race, sure, a repeat of Phoenix is likely. But a 400-lap race full of banzai maneuvers is much more likely to get you wrecked out of stupidity or retaliation than make up a 22-point gap.

But if Newman is going to race absurdly aggressively with a driver, it needs to be Buescher. Some contact that sends Buescher into the wall won’t be ethical, but it sure as hell could be beneficial.

Should Greg Biffle be the comparison because he’s the lowest Roush Fenway driver in the points standings (21st, behind Trevor Bayne in 19th and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in 20th)? Or is Stenhouse the best comparison because both he and Buescher are Xfinity Series champions and were promoted to the Cup Series soon after?

Buescher’s move to Front Row Racing came with a Roush Fenway technical alliance, and there’s no reason to believe Roush wasn’t giving Buescher a comparable level of support that it is giving its own team because Buescher is technically a RFR driver.

And Buescher’s teammate Landon Cassill – driving Front Row equipment – is a spot ahead of Buescher in the standings. So we’ll go with “no.”

If you thought the Cup Series field was lopsided from the top 15 to the rest of the standings, it’s even worse in the Xfinity Series. Ryan Reed, in 10th, is one point fewer back in the standings (219) than Newman is in 14th in the Cup Series.

It’s even worse after Reed. Blake Koch is 271 back in 11th, Ryan Sieg 275 back in 12th, Dakoda Armstrong 293 back in 13th and Jeremy Clements is 301 points out in 14th. The Xfinity Series Chase begins on Sep. 24 at Kentucky Speedway.

But back to the question; if Chase drivers are nations, can Xfinity drivers get their own states? And maybe Truck Series drivers get their own counties? We can see it now. “I’m a citizen of Crafton County in Sieg State in Edwards Nation.”

Catchy, isn’t it?

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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