iNSIDE SCOOP: Chase Musings After Round 1

OK, the new-look Chase is under way, and what did we learn at Chicagoland?

We learned that Brad Keselowski is on a roll, the racing is pretty good, and none of it means anything once they get to Kansas.

Keselowski won at Richmond and again at Chicagoland. That’s the kind of roll that Jimmie Johnson used to get on as he was whipping the rest of the field on the way to six titles. He’s got five victories, two more than anyone else, and he and Paul Wolfe are hitting on nine cylinders.

The only thing he’s earned is a spot in the top 12 once the Chase resets in Kansas. That’s it. 

Everything resets after Dover. The top 12 move on, the four who missed it go on about their business and we begin anew. If Keselowski blows an engine and finished 43rd, he could be out by Talladega unless he wins again, of course. Same is true for any of the other Chase drivers.

You could see a driver not win a single race win this whole shooting match at Homestead. Matt Kenseth comes to mind, since the Chase was established to keep this from happening the year he won his title in 2003. That year, Kenseth won the second race of the season and didn’t win again, but was so consistent he just top-10’d everybody into submission.

The only way this doesn’t happen is if we have different winners in each race, which then move them on to the next round. For the final round, you’ll have three race winners in the current segment and the top driver in points if it works out as I surmised. That wouldn’t be a bad division, but it depends on who it is, I guess.

What I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction to is if/when Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Jeff Gordon is eliminated. If it’s Johnson who gets the boot, I think you’ll see all the ABJ folks (that’s Anybody But Johnson) happy and the Six-Time crowd fuming.

For the Rainbow Warrior coalition, it will be hue and cry about NASCAR changing the rules all the time and making it so Jeff can’t win No. 5. For Junior Nation, it will be equal parts grumbling about how Junior can’t get it done the way Senior did and denouncing the Chase as trickeration or theater (likely pronounced Thee-ater).

It is going to be interesting, to me at least, how the next two races play out. We’ll likely see Newman, Almirola, Allmendinger and Biffle get the heave-ho, or at least that is what Hoyle would say. I’d wager that we won’t see all four go, but it sure is going to be interesting to see who does.

It’s all about the third, sixth and ninth races, y’all.