The NASCAR conversation this week has been all about "the chase". I'm sure you've heard it. You probably thought, 'Chase? What chase? I thought all races were chases!" Well, yes. Technically all races are chases, but in this case "chase" refers to the chase for a championship.
If you think of the Chase in terms of a playoff-type of system it will help you to understand what is at stake. College sports have their conferences; professional sports have their leagues; Nascar has its chase. You get the idea.
Let me see if I can summarize it for you ... You might want to get a little snack ;-)
After tomorrow night's race in Richmond, the top 16 drivers (the ones with the most points - and don't ask me to explain that one to you - that will be for another day) will advance to the Chase for the Championship. Some drivers already know they are in the Chase because they have won a race in the regular season. Winning automatically qualifies a driver for the Chase, as long as they are ranked in the top 30 by chase time. But there are a bunch of drivers who haven't won a race and who want to be in the Chase so the racing should be pretty crazy at Richmond. I can't wait!
After the Richmond race, the top 16 drivers will all have 2,000 points + 3 extra points for every race they have won this year. There are five drivers who have each won 3 races (Keselowski, Logano, Gordon, Johnson, and Earnhardt) so they will be going into the Chase with a 9 point advantage over the others.
The next three races will be Chicago, New Hampshire and Dover (yay!!). The top 16 will have their total points added up after those three races and the bottom 4 will be eliminated, leaving 12 drivers in the Chase. They are going to be racing for their lives in Dover and it is going to be crrraaaazzzy!!
The same thing will happen after the next three races, taking the field down to top 8, and again after the next three taking it down to the top 4 drivers.
Thennnnn, for the final race of the year at Homestead Miami, those final top 4 drivers will race for the 2014 Championship. The one of those four who finishes first will win it all! So a flat tire, a blown engine, a bad restart and they are DONE! (All the drivers will be driving in these races; it's just these top guys who have a chance to win the championship.)
Make sense? I hope so! You might want to mark your calendars now for these dates, because you aren't going anywhere ... except maybe to the track if you are lucky!!
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