Chat with fellow NASCAR fans in the first week of the Chase
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See where the Twitter conversation is coming from
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16 drivers. 16 cities. ONE awesome map! As Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers spread out to visit fans across North America, see where the social conversations are taking place.
Join the conversation by using the hashtag #MyChaseNation and follow all of the action by selecting the dots below.
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Allmendinger plans to lay low for a Chase shock factor
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The unpredictable nature of any playoff system comes with pluses and minuses. For AJ Allmendinger and Aric Almirola — both first-time entrants into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason — the uncertainty in their role as pesky underdogs is something to embrace.
"Anything can happen," Allmendinger said. "In the famous words that Lloyd Christmas in ‘Dumb and Dumber’ said, ‘so you’re saying there’s a chance.’"
While Jim Carrey’s character in the 1994 comedy classic was given a million-to-one shot, Allmendinger and Almirola hope their chances at postseason glory rate much better when the 11th Chase opens with Sunday’s MyAFibStory.com 400 (2 p.m. ET, ESPN) at Chicagoland Speedway.
Both drivers took full advantage of the new Chase eligibility rules in place for 2014, converting regular-season wins into playoff berths. But the breakthrough was even more momentous, as both Allmendinger and Almirola sashayed into the Chase with their first career victories in NASCAR’s premier series.
For Allmendinger, his path to the Chase came through a thrilling duel with Marcos Ambrose a month ago at Watkins Glen International, marking the first victory and first postseason appearance for the JTG-Daugherty No. 47 team. Now that the Chase is here, Allmendinger insists the team is loose, with nothing to lose over the next 10 races.
"We’ll just go out there, and it’s no different than any other weekend," Allmendinger said. "There’s no pressure on us. You know, people talk about pressure to win a championship. No one expected us to be in the Chase, so we’re playing with house money. We’re just going to go out there and try to do our best, and maybe shock some people."
Almirola vaulted into the playoff picture with a rain-plagued victory in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway in July. Last weekend at Richmond, Almirola lauded his Richard Petty Motorsports crew for turning what he called a 20th-place car into a 10th-place result, setting the tone for what he hopes is a productive postseason.
"Hopefully, we can keep this consistency going and we’re going to just let it all rip when we get to the Chase," Almirola said. "We don’t have a lot of pressure on us. I don’t think anybody expected us to be in the Chase, and I feel like we’re pretty big underdogs so it’s going to be fun for us the next 10 weeks. We’re excited about the opportunity and are just going to try to make the most of it."
With both first-time winners bracing for their first Chase, the first order of business is the opening stage of eliminations, coming after the three races — Chicagoland, New Hampshire, Dover — that compose the Challenger Round. In looking ahead, Allmendinger expressed a penchant for Dover, even though his career statistics (average finish, 22.8) might seem to refute the fondness. Either way, Allmendinger said his soft spot for Dover won’t matter if he opens the Chase with a thud.
"Ultimately, we’ve got to unload good at Chicago and we’ve got to have a good weekend," said Allmendinger, who added that the JTG-Daugherty team has leaned on its alliance with Richard Childress Racing to help get its three best cars ready for the next three battles. "I feel like if we go to Chicago, have a strong weekend, run in the top 15, get a top-10 maybe, that’s just going to kick-start us for the next two races. Chicago right now is the only race on my schedule and the most important race. Then we’ll go from there."
For Almirola’s RPM No. 43 team, the approach is to be as methodical and error-free as possible to advance to the Contender Round.
"I think the big thing for us is we can’t go into the next three races throwing Hail Marys," Almirola said. "We’ve got to go in there and be consistent, run as competitively as we possibly can and execute flawlessly. We’ve got to try to get out of the next three races with the absolute best finish that we can, whether that’s a 12th, a fifth, a 10th … but we’ve got to run competitively, run up front, and we’ve got to be perfect to be able to advance from round to round."
While the top seeds and multiple winners have garnered their share of the headlines as the Chase looms, Allmendinger said he’s preferred to fly under the radar in hopes that a Cinderella surprise is around the corner.
"The way I look at it, the less people talk about me and mention me and the less I’m known, it’s way easier to go shock them when we do it," Allmendinger said. "They didn’t expect us to go to Watkins Glen and win the race; they didn’t expect us to be in the Chase, so to be an underdog is right where I want to be.
"I don’t care what other people say. It’s all about what we believe in, and we believe we can go there and do some good things in this Chase."
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Team Penske duo and Hendrick Motorsports trip occupy five of top six spots
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Excitement of new Chase format will be amplified during playoffs
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During the frigid temperatures of the offseason last winter, NASCAR officials took a two-tiered approach to refreshing the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs, revising the eligibility rules to get in it and the format to win it. The news heated up the hot-stove season, creating an all-new level of bench racing.
The element of the unknown set the garage’s best minds to work with early opinions on devising new strategies and approaches. Now, with 26 regular-season races behind them in the deep reaches of summer and 10 postseason showdowns looming, both sides of the season appear to be entwined by a common thread.
"Our mentality is to win. That’s what we come to do — nothing’s changed there," said Joey Logano, a three-time winner this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. "We’re going to do what we’ve got to do."
The newly charged emphasis on winning goes to another level Sunday with the opening round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup at Chicagoland Speedway. After 10 years of postseason stock-car racing with only slight changes to the format, this Chase goes into its 11th with major moves.
If the new-look Chase takes on a tournament-style feel with a survive-and-advance mindset, it’s no accident. The overhauled format, in which regular-season winners virtually punch their postseason ticket, was developed to discourage conservative "points racing" and make for more aggressive pushes toward the checkered flag. The change paid frequent dividends with teams taking pit-road gambles and drivers testing the limits on the track.
In an overwhelming show of parity, 13 drivers visited Victory Lane during the regular season to clinch Chase berths, meaning the new rules of the road will greet former champions, familiar faces and newcomers alike. The remaining three earned their way into the expanded 16-driver field based on their place in the Sprint Cup standings.
In previous years, drivers were removed from contention by mathematical means if they stumbled off to sluggish starts. Now, the eliminations after each of the three-race rounds (Challenger, Contender and Eliminator) are more clear-cut, whittling the title-eligible field from 16 to 12 to eight to a best-finisher-take-all championship race among the final four at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 16. After each round, the points reset to level the playing field, but winners in each round get the benefit of a free pass to the next.
Brad Keselowski is the top seed and has four regular-season wins, including last week’s regular-season finale at Richmond. He’s joined by a quartet of three-time victors atop the Challenger Round heap — former champs Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, and first-time championship hopefuls Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Logano.
While the rules for advancement remain the same at each of the three cuts, Steve Letarte — Earnhardt’s crew chief, who will trade his wrenches for a microphone on the NBC Sports broadcast team in 2015 — suggests that the pressure to perform will only increase as the Chase rolls on.
"I don’t think it’s anything like past years," Letarte said. "I think the first three (races), you’ve got to run top 15, the middle three you’ve probably got to run in the top 10 and the last three, you’re probably going to have to win one to end up at Homestead."
While the powerhouse teams will likely feel a ratcheted sense of pressure, in true tournament style the new format will also lend itself to potential upsets by plucky underdogs. Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne and Kurt and Kyle Busch all faced issues or dry spells during the season that would have placed them either firmly on the Chase bubble or completely out of contention in past years, but their ability to convert one regular-season win each gives them nearly equal footing at playoff time.
Likewise, A.J. Allmendinger and Aric Almirola — two drivers who notched their first career victories in 2014 — now have a Cinderella shot at championship glory. Almirola emerged as a surprise winner with a rainy victory at Daytona in July, and Allmendinger scored a long-awaited breakthrough at Watkins Glen a month later by flexing his road-course expertise.
For Allmendinger, the triumph was one of perseverance and redemption, but it also came with an opportunity to rise up come clutch time.
"When it comes to the Chase, with the new format, it doesn’t mean we can’t show up to Chicago and get hot early," Allmendinger said Aug. 10 after his maiden voyage to Victory Lane in NASCAR’s top series. "The way the format is laid out, you don’t have to be amazing for 10 races, you just have to be good enough each three sets of races. The next thing you know, you get to Homestead — anything can happen."
The format has not only provided extra incentive to win, but the system has also provided benefits for clinching early. Drivers with regular-season wins under their belts have rolled toward the Chase under far less pressure than in past years. The effect has been the same for teams and crew chiefs, who have been able to experiment with car setups for Chase races without great risk of damaging their postseason hopes along the way.
Regular-season strategies under the new system have shifted, but the question of whether playoff strategies will follow suit remains. While teams will continue to make customary adjustments for each of the 10 tracks in the Chase, Logano said he doesn’t anticipate his Team Penske bunch making wholesale changes to their overall approach.
"I think we’ve got to race the same way we’ve been," Logano said, noting that his team had amassed a modest five-race hot streak during the summer with an average finish of 3.6 over the span. "I would hate to change what we’re doing. It’s working pretty good."
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Four-win regular season sets Penske driver apart
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Last year at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Brad Keselowski‘s reign as 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion ended with a sixth-place finish, a shrug and a resolution to do better next time. It also occurred against the backdrop of Jimmie Johnson celebrating his coronation amid a confetti and champagne shower as a six-time champ.
Little did people know that the resolve to improve from Keselowski and Team Penske would be so strong. After being on the wrong side of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs last year, Keselowski and co. are steamrolling into the postseason as the No. 1 seed, clinching the top spot with a runaway of a victory Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway.
"I couldn’t ask for a better way to enter the Chase than to win and take the first seed," Keselowski said. "We’re ready. We want to run for another Cup. We really feel like this team has it."
Keselowski separated himself from a pack of three-win drivers in the regular-season finale, snaring victory No. 4 in dominating fashion. With the amount of sheer speed his No. 2 Ford has shown at the variety of tracks in the 10-race Chase, a second Sprint Cup title in a three-year span is a realistic possibility.
But the Roger Penske-owned operation has produced stellar race cars for both teams that reside at his Mooresville, North Carolina shop. Besides Keselowski’s four wins, teammate Joey Logano has claimed three for the group’s No. 22 Ford, tying him with the powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports trio of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Johnson — all with three regular-season triumphs.
While the stage may seemingly be set for a Hendrick vs. Penske showdown in the postseason, Keselowski isn’t discounting Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing and Roush Fenway Racing — all teams that also have multiple drivers in the title-eligible pool, ready to try to find running room and avoid the three eliminations in the new Chase format.
"It’s an interesting layout for the next 10 races," Keselowski said. "All the teams have different strengths and weaknesses. Over the summer stretch there were certainly some tracks in (the Hendrick) wheelhouse. I think we have a lot of tracks coming up that are in ours over the next few weeks. It’s really hard to say. It seems like everybody seems to find another level when it comes time for the Chase. There could be somebody out there sleeping. I think the Gibbs cars have been performing really well, at least at Atlanta and the weeks prior to that. They could certainly be an issue and a threat as well.
"Over the summer stretch, I thought we were a little bit behind, but boy, did we nail it right here tonight. That’s part of the fun."
The summer swoon etched in Keselowski’s mind was a seven-race period from late June to early August where the team finished outside the top 10 five times. The other two races, however, were convincing victories at Kentucky and New Hampshire, the latter of which is the second battle in this year’s Chase schedule.
Saturday night’s win, Keselowski’s third in 10 races, continued the season-long trend of speed before and during the race that has become the No. 2 crew’s trademark. Keselowski has started on the front row a sterling 11 times in 26 races this season, including four Coors Light Pole Awards. But count Penske, the Captain himself, among those not scheduling a fitting for championship rings just yet.
"Obviously being the top seed is a tremendous effort for the team and certainly puts us in a great place, but we’re not blind," said Penske, who tapped Keselowski for a full-time ride with his team starting in 2010. "We know there’s plenty of guys out there that beat us; they’re going to want to. What we have to do is stay on course."
The path — at least early on — is one that Keselowski has already paved with a degree of success in the past. The 30-year-old driver has won at each of the Chase’s first three tracks (Chicagoland, New Hampshire, Dover), but he isn’t taking advancing from the opening Challenger Round onward as a given.
"I don’t know. Nobody knows," Keselowski said. "I do know we have different strengths and weaknesses. As to which ones are the strengths you need to have and which ones are the weaknesses you can get away with or vice versa, time will tell."
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Change between No. 4, No. 14 teams effective immediately
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Stewart-Haas Racing officials announced major changes to the pit crew of the organization’s No. 4 Chevrolet with driver Kevin Harvick as the team prepares for this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
According to SHR officials, Harvick will be paired with the over-the-wall crew previously teamed with three-time champion and SHR co-owner Tony Stewart.
Stewart, who did not qualify for the Chase, will compete in the season’s final 10 races with what is now Harvick’s former crew.
"We made this change in the best interests of the entire organization," SHR Vice President of Competition Greg Zipadelli said. "Our primary goal is to win races and championships, and this pit crew swap provides championship experience to the No. 4 team and continued race-winning experience to the No. 14 team."
With the 10-race Chase kicking off this weekend as Chicagoland Speedway hosts the MyAFibStory.com 400 (ESPN, 2 p.m. ET), Harvick could be in the best position to capture his first Sprint Cup title. Mechanical issues that kept the 38-year-old outside the top 20 in points through the first eight races have been addressed and his team continues to bring one of the fastest cars to the track each weekend.
If there has been a soft spot in the system, it might be found on pit road. Harvick raced his way into the lead twice during the early stages of Saturday night’s race at Richmond, only to lose the position during subsequent pit stops.
"I can’t fix them, but it’s probably the biggest thing that we have to fix in order to contend for the championship," he said afterward. "I think our cars are as fast as they need to be. The guys do a great job of bringing fast cars every week. It’s just one mistake after another every week on pit road."
Harvick is making his eighth Chase appearance and his fifth in a row. His best points finish has been third, which he accomplished in 2010, ’11 and ’13 while competing for Richard Childress Racing.
He enters this year’s Chase seeded sixth among the 16 drivers in the field.
He was the first to win multiple races this season in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, making him the first to all but officially lock himself into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
But Harvick’s No. 4 Chevrolet hasn’t been to Victory Lane since his victory at Darlington Raceway in April. Not that the team hasn’t been close. Harvick has finished second five times through this year’s first 26 races, the most of any driver. He also was the runner-up in the Sprint All-Star Race, a non-points event.
NASCAR measures how long teams spend on pit road during each race, and race winners typically are among the top five in the least amount of time. When he won at Phoenix, Harvick spent less time on pit road than any of the 43 drivers in the field. At Darlington, his total time was sixth best.
Sometimes a loss of track position on pit road, whether due to a driver or crew-induced penalty or simply a slow stop, can be overcome on the race track. Often, however, it creates a frustrating scenario in which a driver has to maneuver around other cars he or she had already worked around previously, or it puts the driver in greater danger of getting swept up in someone else’s troubles.
Such was the case for Harvick earlier this year at Sonoma Raceway. After leading twice for 23 laps, a slow stop in the second half of the race dropped him outside the top 10. A chain-reaction incident at Lap 82 collected the No. 4 entry, and Harvick was left to hobble home with a 20th-place finish.
He was dominant at Atlanta, leading 195 of 335 laps, but repeatedly lost the lead on pit road.
And although he rolls into this weekend’s race on the heels of a fifth-place finish at Richmond, he said at Richmond that the problems on pit road needed to be addressed before the Chase got under way.
"Hopefully they have a plan as to what they think they need to do in the shop with the two teams in the Chase, but that’s not my department," he said.
Now, it seems, that plan has been put into place.
The No. 4 team pit crew will now be:
Front Tire Changer: Ira Jo Hussey | Hometown: Manchester, New Hampshire
Front Tire Carrier: Todd Drakulich | Hometown: Tucson, Arizona
Jackman: Mike Casto | Hometown: Proctor, West Virginia
Rear Tire Changer: Daniel Smith | Hometown: Concord, North Carolina
Rear Tire Carrier: Mike Morneau | Hometown: Oxford, Maine
All were members Stewart’s pit crew when he captured the 2011 Sprint Cup championship.
Moving over to the No. 14 team:
Front Tire Changer: Bryan Jacobsen | Hometown: Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Front Tire Carrier: Brett Morrell | Hometown: Windham, Maine
Rear Tire Changer: Jonathan Sherman | Hometown: Monroe, Louisiana
Jackman: Getty Cavitt, Jr. | Hometown: Owensboro, Kentucky
Rear Tire Carrier: Josh Sobecki | Hometown: New Kensington, Pennsylvania
Harvick will be joined in the Chase by SHR teammate Kurt Busch, the 2004 Sprint Cup champion and a winner at Martinsville Speedway earlier this year. In addition to Stewart, SHR’s Danica Patrick also failed to qualify for the 16-driver postseason field.
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Seven will relay information to teams in the postseason
Photo credit: Tony Gibson’s Twitter account (@TonyOldman10)
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Seven NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers who are not a part of this year’s 16-team Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field are taking part in a Goodyear tire test today at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Per NASCAR, drivers that qualified for this year’s 10-race Chase are not allowed to take part in the one-day test.
As a result, the following drivers will take part in the test:
• Justin Allgaier (HScott Motorsports) is testing for Hendrick Motorsports. All four HMS drivers — Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne — qualified for this year’s postseason;
• Ryan Blaney, currently third in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series points standings with Brad Keselowski Racing, is testing for Team Penske drivers Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, who are both in the Chase;
• Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing) is on hand to test for RCR Chase participant Ryan Newman and the No. 31 team;
• Sam Hornish Jr., competing in a limited number of NASCAR Nationwide Series races this season for Joe Gibbs Racing, is representing JGR drivers Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin;
• Stewart-Haas Racing, which saw drivers Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch qualify for the Chase, is represented by Danica Patrick;
• Roush Fenway Racing‘s two Chase participants, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle, have teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr. handling testing duties for the RFR group and are expected to share information with the Ford team of Aric Almirola of Richard Petty Motorsports;
• Rounding out the drivers on hand is Martin Truex Jr., of Furniture Row Racing, representing the single-car operation of JTG Daugherty Racing and Chase driver AJ Allmendinger.
Homestead will host the fourth and final round of this year’s Chase, the Championship Round, in which four drivers, pared down from the initial 16, will battle for the series’ championship.
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Six-time series champion will be in New York City on Wednesday to promote the Chase
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Jimmie Johnson didn’t compete in his foundation’s triathlon Sunday morning, but that appears to be the only alteration to the schedule this week for the six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion.
Before leaving for New York City on Tuesday, Johnson said his team did find an issue that could have been related to how he felt following his eighth-place finish at Richmond International Raceway.
"The team found an issue with the cooling system for my helmet," Johnson said in a Chicagoland pre-race team release. "Basically, it was blowing warm air. It’s nice to have a good idea as to what went wrong and why I got so hot in the race car. It’s a newer system that we’ve implemented, so we’re just going back to our old faithful system that’s worked for years and years. We should have the problem rectified."
On Monday, Hendrick Motorsports
officials said that Johnson was expected to fulfill his duties as one
of 16 participants in this year’s Chase Across North America that kicks
off Wednesday. As part of the media tour promoting the 10-race Chase,
Johnson is scheduled to be in New York City where he will appear on
NBC’s "Today" show, NBC’s "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," the
nationally syndicated talk show "Live! with Kelly and Michael" as well
as "Power Lunch" on CNBC.
The 38-year-old Johnson spent approximately 90 minutes in the infield care center at Richmond International Raceway following Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400, where he was treated for dehydration.
Sunday, the health-conscious Johnson attended The Jimmie Johnson Foundation’s latest wellness challenge, the Lake Davidson Sprint Triathlon. While he did not compete in the event, he was on hand to greet and mingle with the participants.
Johnson, the defending Sprint Cup Series champion and a winner of three Sprint Cup races this year, finished eighth at Richmond. He climbed from his car on pit road without assistance, but was suffering cramps in his legs.
"I sat in the car and was talking to my guys about the run and having a good race," Johnson said Saturday night after exiting the care center. "I started to cramp a little bit in my legs, so I figured I would just get out of the car and as I climbed out … the cramping got far worse.
"Then standing outside the car I got kind of dizzy so I wanted to sit down. Once I sat down the cramping got worse."
Each of the remaining 15 Chase drivers will be visiting 15 different cities (one driver per city) including Mexico City and Toronto on Wednesday for the Chase Across North America promotion. Every Chase market will feature one of the drivers, with additional appearances in San Antonio, Los Angeles, New York and Bristol, Conn., headquarters of ESPN.
This year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup gets underway Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway with the running of the MyAFibStory.com 400 (ESPN, 2 p.m. ET).
Johnson is fourth in the standings following the resetting of points after the Richmond race. Brad Keselowski, the 2012 champion, is the points leader.
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