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Quick takeaways from Charlotte: Well, that race was certainly crazy
A straightforward first round of the 2016 Chase gave way to madness on Sunday at Charlotte.
As Jimmie Johnson won the race, five Chase drivers finished 30th or worse. Denny Hamlin was 30th after a blown engine, Austin Dillon was 32nd and Chase Elliott 33rd after the two were involved in a restart crash. Joey Logano was 36th after hitting the wall twice thanks to tire issues and Kevin Harvick was 38th after a problem with his car’s engine.
Charlotte is the first of three races in the second round. Following Kansas and Talladega, four cars will be eliminated. Since five cars were in the 30s on Sunday, Hamlin is currently three points ahead of Dillon for the final spot in the third round.
A lot can change over two races — the wackiness that can happen in one race was on full display Sunday — so it’s a bit early to talk about points. But given the small sample size that is this Chase format, we’re going to touch the topic.
The driver a spot ahead of Hamlin in the points standings, Martin Truex Jr., finished 13th on Sunday. Since he didn’t lead a lap, Truex has a 16-point lead on Hamlin for seventh place. For perspective, it’s a lead larger than Dillon had on Tony Stewart (11 points) after three races for the final spot in the second round of the Chase at the conclusion of last week’s race at Dover.
Truex also had a problem Sunday; he stalled on pit road late in the race. But it was relatively minor since he was able to refire his car and keep going.
But Truex’s result compared to the five drivers below him illustrates the importance of simply not screwing up in this four-round Chase format. It’s better to be mediocre than unlucky.
As Johnson can attest, the Chase rewards winning. But if Truex finishes 13th at both Kansas and Talladega in the next two weeks, it’s a virtual lock that he’s going to move on to the third round. He’s going to stay ahead of Elliott and Dillon even if the two drivers finish sixth and seventh in each of the next two races.
Is that fair? It certainly is in this Chase format. You can be really, really good two-thirds of the time, but one bad break can put you behind someone who was just good (or even worse) 100 percent of the time.
• Hamlin was once again forced to talk about his crappy Chase luck following his blown engine. Hamlin was running second to Johnson at the time of the engine failure with less than 30 laps to go in the 334-lap race.
“I’m so used to it by now,” Hamlin said of the bad luck. “I’ve been doing this 11 years and I can’t name anyone else who has had as bad of luck as I have in the Chase, but it’s just part of it and it’s part of racing. You have to have every piece of the puzzle just perfect to win these championships and this is just a hiccup and luckily some other guys had some bad days today and we’re not out of it.”
• Matt Kenseth will have a lot less stress heading into Kansas this year vs. 2015. Kenseth smacked the wall at Charlotte in 2015 and was facing a serious points deficit even before he was spun out by Joey Logano while the two raced for the lead at Kansas last year.
Sunday, Kenseth finished second. He doesn’t have to force the issue for another win. A top-five finish will have him in a good spot heading towards Talladega. Kenseth was able to get that second after he got a pit road penalty early in the race.
“Honestly, last two years in a row, pretty much Charlotte has kind of taken us out of the Chase – mostly my doing, different things happening the last couple years here – so had a lot of problems last year, this year we had a lot of problems again,” Kenseth said. “But we were able to kind of rebound from them and just kind of take our time. We knew it was a long day and they had good pit stops, good strategy and got us back where we needed to be there at the end.”
•Three non-Chase drivers finished in the top five as Kasey Kahne was third, Ryan Newman was fourth and Kyle Larson was fifth. The last time that happened wasn’t as long ago as you might think. At Martinsville in 2015 (the race Jeff Gordon won to advance to the final round at Homestead), Jamie McMurray finished second, Hamlin was third and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fourth. All three had been previously eliminated from the Chase.
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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!
