Back in February, before the green flag flew in the Daytona 500, we challenged people on Twitter to guess this year’s Championship 4 — the four drivers who would compete for the title of NASCAR champ nine months later.
https://twitter.com/steveluvender/status/1096069271321526273
Now, with 35 of 36 races in the books, we’ve got our Championship 4: Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.
So, how’d Twitter do? Surely, the all-knowing users of Twitter were perfect, right?
Out of over 500 guesses, it appears two people — yeah, just two, but it’s two more than last year — correctly guessed this year’s exact Championship 4 back in February. Way to go, @tuckgraphics and @the11thdoctor25.
Kyle Busch
Kevin Harvick
Denny Hamlin
Martin Truex Jr– Tyler Tucker (@tuckgraphics) February 15, 2019
Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr, Kevin Harvick, and Denny Hamlin! https://t.co/FftPb75XbV
– Braelen Lee (@the11thdoctor25) February 14, 2019
Enjoy your grand prize of, uhh, bragging rights. We didn’t plan a prize because we didn’t expect anybody to win. Way to go.
There were plenty of folks on Twitter who got three of the four finalists correct, but it’s all-or-nothing to make our wall of fame (or shame).
(Well, we’ll make one exception to the three-out-of-four rule since it’s too good not to share.)
1) Martin Truex Jr
2) Kyle Busch
3) Kevin Harvick
4) Derrike Cope– Braden (@devbdaily) February 14, 2019
And, of course, as previously threatened, we’re shaming the seven of you who picked the entire Championship 4 incorrectly. Way to whiff!
48, 22, 1, 2
– Annie T (@snowtheup) February 14, 2019
Chase Elliot, Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer, Ryan Blaney
– Jesse Pierce (@Oliver_Jenson) February 14, 2019
Johnson, Larson, Keselowski, and Newman
– Jᴇʀᴇᴍʏ (@NaskarrKid) February 14, 2019
@joeylogano @keselowski @Blaney @KyleLarsonRacin
– Stephen (@racecrazy) February 14, 2019
Aric Almirola
Chase Elliott
Erik Jones
Ryan Blaney– Seth Eggert (@MotorsportRev) February 14, 2019
@KyleLarsonRacin @Blaney @WilliamByron @chaseelliott Wouldn’t that be awesome! You can make fun of me, I gave up fantasy because I am so bad at this. (I wanted to put @BubbaWallace bubbin there.)
– Bonnie Rahaim #NFB (@Bonwithab) February 14, 2019
(This last one probably isn’t serious, but we have to include it for the visual alone.)
Landon Cassill
Matt Dibenedetto
Corey Lajoie
Chris Buescherhate to spoil it so early but final lap at homestead is 4 wide and corey lajoie wins by a tongue coming out of his grill
– frank 🐝 (@dankfrank3) February 15, 2019
Sorry we have to shame you in such a public matter (not really sorry — you were warned), but it’s necessary. Do better next year!
Twitterer @tybaltus79 went to the effort of tabulating all the predictions – what a help! It looks like, in general, people underestimated Denny Hamlin, who rebounded from a winless 2018 to contend for a championship in 2019.
https://twitter.com/tybaltus79/status/1097253098299346944
What does this all prove? Well, not much. But maybe it gave a few people the opportunity to show how good (or bad) they are at predicting the future. Maybe we’ll have more than two winners in 2020.
Thanks to everybody who played the game, and congratulations once again to our winners, @tuckgraphics and @the11thdoctor25. Go brag!