http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/blog/from_the_marbles/players/denny+hamlin/nascar.p.1283
What if? We play the new points game with previous ChasesHappy Hour: Thanks for the push, J.J. No, really. Thanks.Hot/Not: With new points, does Chase still offer mulligans? You bet.Wreck of the week: Denny Hamlinâ??s chances go a lap downPower Rankings: Happy days are here againMini-racing: Get the entire Chicagoland experience in 11 minutesChase Rundown: Suddenly, Smoke is a factorChase Prospects: Can Matt Kenseth mount a charge?Chase Prospects: Is Denny Hamlin a contender or pretender?Hot/Not: Recognizing the best of NASCARâ??s 2011 regular season
What if? We play the new points game with previous ChasesHappy Hour: Thanks for the push, J.J. No, really. Thanks.Hot/Not: With new points, does Chase still offer mulligans? You bet.Wreck of the week: Denny Hamlinâ??s chances go a lap downPower Rankings: Happy days are here againMini-racing: Get the entire Chicagoland experience in 11 minutesChase Rundown: Suddenly, Smoke is a factorChase Prospects: Can Matt Kenseth mount a charge?Chase Prospects: Is Denny Hamlin a contender or pretender?Hot/Not: Recognizing the best of NASCARâ??s 2011 regular season
After Monday's race, did you find yourself wondering what the points standings would look like if the old NASCAR points system was in place? Don't worry, we've got you covered.
Welcome to our new weekly feature that we'll run every week during the Chase. After every race, we'll translate the finishes from the previous seven years of the Chase to see how previous Chases would have looked like with the new NASCAR points system in place.
And for fun, we'll use the rules that were in place for the 2010 Chase and apply them towards the 2011 Chase to see if drivers really are going to be penalized more for bad finishes throughout the Chase.
Before we get started, we've got a couple things to go over. Since this is the first year of the Wild Card, drivers who started the Chase in 11th and 12th in previous years receive credit for their wins and when running this year's standings with the old points system, Brad Keselowski receives credit for his three wins.
We'll also account for penalties too, meaning that the wrecker still costs Clint Bowyer and that naughty s-word still costs Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Are you ready to see what every other year would have looked like after the first race of the Chase? Let's go.
Read More »
Welcome to the latest Happy Hour mailbag! You know how these work: you write us with your best rant/ joke/ one-liner at nascarmail@yahoogroups.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee , we respond to your messages, everyone goes away with a smile on their face.
Weekday races are always weird, if only because we get a ton of people on our raceday chats who are sneaking away from work and trying to keep up with the race. How do you get your NASCAR fix during a rain-delayed workday race? Got a good story? Let us hear it.
Meanwhile, we start with the push of the week, J.J. Yeley's "assistance" to Matt Kenseth on the last lap of Chicagoland, which resulted in Kenseth getting bounced from 8th down to 21st:
First, did Kenseth actually ask Yeley to give him a push back to the finish line? He's been around the sport for more than a decade, so he should be fully aware of the situation involving last lap help. Or is it some weird situation where Yeley's spotter saw a Ford in distress, and told him to give him a push? If that were the case, it would be completely unfair to punish the no. 17 for that mistake.
Also, assuming Kenseth didn't ask for help, what would happen if Yeley were to, say, push Jimmie Johnson to the finish line instead? Jimmie clearly wouldn't ask for help from a Ford, but maybe Yeley would want to help out Roush Fenway in the standings ...
â?? Corey K.

You're assuming Yeley could catch Jimmie Johnson. Zing! Nah, the likelihood of that even happening is remote, and if Yeley did try something like that, he'd be black-flagged immediately. So, no, that's not a concern for 48 fans.
To answer your first question: no, Kenseth didn't ask for help. It was a case of Yeley just trying to do a good deed for a fellow driver, one that didn't go unpunished. Yeley assumed, as many did, that because two-car pushing is allowed at Daytona and Talladega, and because cars have pushed other cars on caution laps to preserve fuel, it'd be OK in this instance. Reasonable assumption, unfortunate result. Thanks for the help, J.J., but next time, just send a card.
Read More »
Take your seats, class, as we dive head first in to a sore subject for most writing-types like me: mathematics. What does [Chicago]e|OOD do for us in terms of sorting out the Chase field? Have Denny Hamlin's championship already expired? That (and more!) in yet another rain-soaked Hot/Not.
Offices across the country Monday afternoon featured cheers, moans and groans as the GEICO 400 came to a close at Chicagoland Speedway. The race, yet another featuring dreams realized and dreams dashed courtesy of fuel conservation, provided another reminder that all that seems once predictable in this sport is entirely not. Nowhere was that more evident than with Tony Stewart â?? 2011's chronic underachiever after a hot start â?? taking the checkered flag in the first race of a championship fight that he, just days before, said he wasn't a contender in.
400 miles in [Chicago]e|OOD also produced some striking misfires for drivers like Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon â?? two names repeatedly listed as championship frontrunners after the Chase for the Sprint Cup field was set last week after Richmond. It was Busch, after all, who held the points lead coming to [Chicago]e|OOD courtesy of his 2011 winning ways. And Gordon? It seemed like many were falling over themselves to say Four-Time had the best chance to become the next Five-Time. From Daytona in July to Richmond, in fact, Gordon earned 353 points â?? the most in the series.
But it was Busch (22nd at [Chicago]e|OOD ) and Gordon (24th) who sputtered the most in [Chicago]e|OOD 's final laps, each suffering notable losses in the point standings. Joining them were Matt Kenseth (21st) and Denny Hamlin (31st) in the back of the Chase point standings after race one of ten.
A strong start it was not for those four drivers, but should we consider their [Chicago]e|OOD efforts to be their individual mulligan for this Chase? Were those recoverable finishes, or did the Chase field just complete a round of natural selection? Let's take a look at the numbers and judge them against what happened one year ago in the first Chase race in New Hampshire.
Last year's champion Johnson had quite the inauspicious start in Loudon, placing 25th in the final running order. Had NASCAR not changed the point system dramatically in 2011, we could compare position finish directly â?? apples to apples. However, the new point system is vastly different this year and much more of a punishment for finishing back in the pack. (Last season, the last-place driver earned a minimum of 17.4 percent of the winner's point take. In 2011, that number dropped to 2.1 percent.)
Read More »
land Speedway is so freaking wide that there's not a whole lot of need for cars to get anywhere close to each other, which means that most wrecks are self-inflicted. Enter Denny Hamlin , who faltered going into the Chase and faltered during his very first race. This is a long way from last year, where he was within one race of being The Man To Take Down Jimmie Johnson .
So what's your take on Hamlin's woes? The curse of second place? Ongoing engine problems? Improper sacrifices to the gods of NASCAR? Have your say here ... and speculate on who might be next to fall out of the Chase hunt.
Time for our latest round of Power Rankings. Each week throughout the season, we'll size up who's rising and who's falling, based on current standings, behind-the-scenes changes, expected staying power, recent history and general gut feelings. The Chase has begun, though some drivers need a little wake-up call ...
1. Kevin Harvick . Let's take this time to talk about the conventional wisdom about each of these drivers heading into the Chase, and we'll see how well they stacked up in Week 1. CW held that Harvick was on a long, slow slide to irrelevance after a hot start to the year, but between last week's victory and this week's just-needed-one-more-lap runner-up finish, it's safe to say that Harvick is in fine Chase form.Â Â Last week's ranking: 5.
2 . Tony Stewart . This is how fast things can change in this year's NASCAR: Stewart went from irrelevant three weeks ago to "no chance in the Chase" over the weekend to potential Cup contender now. As with so many other drivers, consistency is key, but outside of Harvick, nobody's more consistent than Stewart right now. Good timing. Last week's ranking : 10.
3 . Jimmie Johnson . Interesting result from Monday's live chat during the race: a full one-third of respondents were cool with Johnson winning his sixth straight Sprint Cup. And yes, there were more than three respondents. CW on Johnson is that he's got another switch that he flips come Chase time, and for much of the race Monday, that seemed to be the case. Six-time isn't a certainty, but it's a distinct possibility. Last week's ranking: 2.
4 . Carl Edwards . Conventional wisdom held that Edwards is a reliable frontrunner who can't quite get to the front on a regular basis. In the [Chicago]e|OOD race, Edwards was a reliable frontrunner who couldn't quite get to the front on a regular basis. So, yeah, it appears we were all dead-on with Edwards.Â Last week's ranking : 3.
5. Brad Keselowski . You have two schools of thought on Keselowski: one states that he's going to fade now that it's crunch time, the other states that he'll hang tough and perhaps, perhaps , challenge for a championship. And on Monday, Keselowski gave plenty of ammunition to both sides of the fence. Overall, though, he came through the first race better than most.Â Â Last week's r anking : 4.
6. Kurt Busch . I'm starting to think that maybe Kurt Busch needs to be on the edge of completely losing control in order to drive his absolute best. He screamed at his pit crew about how godawful his car was, and then finished with another top 10. Hey, whatever works to get that fire lit.Â Last wee k's ranking : 7.
7. Jeff Gordon . This was exactly the kind of week that Jeff Gordon didn't need. Sure, he can rebound from this ugly outing and challenge once again for the championship; he's not the only guy whose fuel issues shot him in the foot. (Wait, that's a tortured metaphor.) Anyway, he'll be all right, but he's sure not the Cup contender everyone thought he would be.Â Last week's ranking : 1.
8 . Matt Kenseth . Kenseth ran the race exactly like we expected he would, reliably up front but quiet, and then came that last-lap fiasco. Kenseth accepted the punishment from NASCAR for getting a push from J.J. Yeley , but still undetermined is whether Kenseth actually told Yeley, "Next time you want to help out the 17 team, grab a broom or something like that."Â Last week's ranking : 8.
9 . Kyle Busch . This is a demonstration of just how tight these power rankings are; Busch is only a couple good runs from being back on top. If there's anyone in this Chase who can rebound from the sub-20 finish that Kyle suffered, it's Busch himself, but you never want to have your one rotten race in the Chase come first. Â Last week's ranking : 6.
10. Ryan Newman . Newman ended up with a top-10 finish, but that's not going to come close to cutting it in Chase time. He put together exactly the kind of race we expected from him: decent but unspectacular, the kind of quiet competence that'll keep him running but not scare the frontrunners overmuch.Â Last week's ranking : 9.
11. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Look, let's be honest here: Junior is going to get all kinds of garbage for running well in a race where everyone around him ran out of gas. But the truth is that he wouldn't have been in a position to get a third-place finish if he hadn't fought his way up through the field throughout the final quarter of the race. Mock if you want, but the guy had a decent little run even without the fuel-aided finish.Â Last week's ranking : NR.
12. Clint Bow yer. Clint Bowyer was the highest-finishing non-Chaser, which has to be something like having your hot ex-girlfriend tell you that if it weren't for this new guy she met, she'd totally still be into you. We put Clint here to make him feel better, and maybe get him a job in 2012 once and for all.Â Last week's ranking : NR.
Dropping out of the rankings: AJ Allmendinger , whose run of quality races came to a quick end in [Chicago]e|place . Also, Denny Hamlin ... see below.
Lucky Dog : Mark Martin , who snuck into a top-10 spot. And if his prospective future boss wins a race, that can only mean good news for the Stewart-Haas bottom line, and thus potential good news for Martin.
DNF : Denny Hamlin, whose already-rickety Chase chances took a perhaps-mortal blow with his poor finish. 2010 seems a long time ago.
Charging upward: David Ragan followed up last week's fourth-place finish with an 11th-place one this week. Another four months running like this and he's a lock for the Chase!
Next up: Loudon! Lobstermania! Send comments to us via Twitter at @jaybusbee , email by clicking here , and via Facebook at The Marbles page .
You might have missed the [Chicago]e|OOD race on Monday because of things like, you know, work. Fear not; we've got you covered here with video of all the high points of the race. Granted, there were long stretches of the dreaded "ridearound time," but nine of the Chasers — everyone but Denny Hamlin , Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. — took turns at the front, and the last few laps were as thrilling as it gets watching to see if people are going to run out of gas. Who won? Hey, you think I'm going to spoil it for you? Kick back and watch.
The Chase is underway, and each week postrace we'll run down your favorite driver's day and his chances for snagging the Cup. With Chicagoland (at last) in the books, we begin:
1. Kevin Harvick (finished 2nd): Sometimes you're good, and sometimes you're just lucky. Harvick was a little of both on Monday afternoon, as nobody quite knew how much fuel he had and nobody knew whether he'd join the ranks of the unlucky in running out of gas. He didn't, and he's now your Chase points leader. Movement from start of Chase: No change.
2. Tony Stewart (finished 1st; -7 points): No better way to stomp all those "Is Stewart done?" storylines flat than to go out and win the very first race of the Chase. Stewart played it smart all day, running strong when he needed to and conservatively when he didn't. And now, thanks to the reset, all the "will he miss the Chase?" nonsense is history. Movement: Up 7.
3. Carl Edwards (finished 4th; -10 points): Yet again, Edwards runs a smart, under-the-radar race, and yet again he's rewarded with a solid finish. This is exactly the way you need to run the races you don't win, and Edwards' fuel tank could be a difference-maker down the line. Every race counts. Movement: Up 2.
4. Kurt Busch (finished 6th; -11 points): As usual, he was screaming his head off about one problem or another with his crew, and as usual, he turned an alleged hunk-of-junk car into a top-10 finisher. As with others around him, he managed to keep his head while others were losing theirs ... which may be the first time you've heard that said about Busch. Still, a solid run from one that could have been disastrous.
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (finished 3rd; -13 points): Well, well, well, lookie here. Critics of Junior are getting more shrill in their complaints about the 88, and you know the cries here will be that he only got a third-place finish because everyone else ran out of gas. Last time I checked, there are no asterisks for fuel-mileage runs. Movement: Up 4.
6. Brad Keselowski (finished 5th; -14 points): Any doubts about Keselowski being a legit Chase competitor should be long gone by now. He continued his impressive streak of races with a run that leaves him in the top half of the Chase. As with others, he was the beneficiary of other drivers' poor fuel planning, but hey, whatever gets you there. Movement: Up 3.
7. Ryan Newman (finished 8th; -14 points): It's a good day when both you and the boss run well, and although Newman ran out of gas on the last lap, he's still got to take heart that the guy signing his paychecks will be in a good mood. Still, Newman could have used a better finish than this against a tough Chase field. Movement: Down 2.
8. Jimmie Johnson (finished 10th; -16 points): Perhaps the biggest shock of the race came in the fact that Jimmie Johnson had this one in his hands and lost it. For much of the race, he appeared to be the class of the field, and the cries of "six-time" began in earnest. Now? Not so much. He could still win, but it'll be more of a climb than he wanted. Movement: Down 3.
9. Kyle Busch (finished 22nd; -19 points): His empty tank at the end of the race was a devastating blow. A top-10 finish turned into a 22nd, and Busch now finds himself with work to do just to get back within sight of the leaders. He's got the talent to win every week, but clearly, so do many of these other guys.Â Movement: Down 8.
10. Matt Kenseth (finished 21st; -24 points) : Funny how things can all come undone in just one lap. Kenseth had the strongest car for much of the race, but he ran out of gas and then took an unfortunately-timed push from JJ Yeley . The penalty for that assistance dropped Kenseth even farther in the standings. Thanks for the help, dude. Movement: Down 4.
11. Jeff Gordon (finished 24th; -25 points): So close, so close to being a salvageable afternoon for the man many have picked to dethrone Johnson. He'd fought his way backÂ into theÂ top 10 even after having problems with pretty much every element of the car, but ran out of fuel and ended up in (ah, sad irony) 24th. Movement: Down 7.
12. Denny Hamlin (finished 31st; -41 points): Hey, thanks for giving it a go, Denny. Troubles right from the start hampered Hamlin's attempts to move upward through the field, and finally stumbled onto pit road late in the race during a green-flag stop. This sure looks like it isn't Hamlin's year. Movement: No change.
Your turn. Who helped their Chase chances this race, and who killed 'em?
After the season's first Dover race, it sure looked like Matt Kenseth was going to grab a win or two more before the Chase and put himself at the top of the points reset.
Dover was Kenseth's second win of the season, and since then has nine top 10s and what could have been a near-win, when he pushed teammate David Ragan to a win — brightening Ragan's Chase hopes for a brief period of time.
But with the good runs, there have also been some ugliness. In the three races between his wins at [Texas]e|place and Dover, Kenseth finished 35th, 21st and 25th. If that happens in the Chase, Kenseth's toast.
Kenseth's best Chase track: That would be [Texas]e|OOD , where Flatline has an average finish of ninth. He was also close to winning the fall race last year, losing to Denny Hamlin on a green-white-checker restart.
Kenseth's worst Chase track: It's technically a tie with Talladega, but we'll go with Kansas and his 19.3 average finish. That's kind of surprising given Kenseth's success on intermediate tracks. If he wants to be a serious Chase contender, he'll have to improve on that.
Key Question: Can Kenseth grab top 10s at all five intermediate tracks in the Chase? If he does, you're looking at a serious championship contender.
NB's prediction: 8th. Maybe it was a simple off-the-cuff oversight, but it was interesting that Tony Stewart didn't list Kenseth as one of the guys who could win the Chase. (Smoke didn't list himself either, by the way.) It helps that the two tracks Flatline's won at earlier this year are in the Chase and if he can repeat at both, maybe Kenseth can join Smoke as the only two drivers to win non-Chase and Chase titles.
Last year, Denny Hamlin won at Richmond, the final race to the Chase, and won two Chase races (Martinsville and [Texas]e|OOD ), mounting perhaps the strongest challenge to the reign of Jimmie Johnson .
This year, the No. 11 bunch had to survive an early race crash to finish 9th and make the Chase by virtue of being the one-win driver in 11th-20th with the most points.
Not exactly a repeat performance.
Engine reliability is still the same storyline that it's been all year, even with the TRD engines now under Hamlin's hood. The good news is that Hamlin has three straight top 10s heading into the Chase, the first time he's done that all season. Heck, it's only the second time he's had back-to-back top 10s.
So what's up?
Hamlin's best Chase track: This one is obvious. Good old Martinsville. Hamlin has 10 top 10s in 12 races and an average finish of 6.6 at the paperclip. He's almost as good at Loudon too, with an average finish of 7.2, better than his average Richmond finish.
Hamlin's worst Chase track: Hamlin's worst average finish at a Chase track comes at Dover, where he's got four top 10s in 11 career starts. But that is skewed a bit after five consecutive finishes worse than 20th from 2007-2009.
Key Question: What's the real No. 11 team? The one that barely made the Chase or the one that had the points lead going into the final race last season and won eight races, a number twice as many as Hamlin's 2011 top fives?
NB's Prediction: 9th. While it can be argued that the No. 11 team is running well at the right time, "well" may be a relative term. If this spurt of consistency is the sign of things to come and Hamlin betters his averages at Loudon and Martinsville, Hamlin could again be a serious threat to Johnson.
26 races are now complete in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' 2011 season, meaning that the 12 Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers are now having dreams of ice cream, sugar plums and the Sprint Cup trophy. The previous 26 races, though, still meant something. Before we leave them in the dust, let's take a look back at the meat of NASCAR's 2011 season.
HOT: NASCAR's loop data system captures some pretty cool data these days, recording speed, passes and much more during the course of every event. Best of all? NASCAR's crack stats team crunches those numbers in a recognizable format giving us this â?? a way to recognize who has been the best in many areas inÂ NASCAR's first 26 races. The results are in, and some may surprise you:
Best average running position: Kyle Busch, 9.96
Most green flag passes: A.J. Allmendinger, 3,202
Fewest times passed under green: Carl Edwards, 2,109
Total times w/ fastest lap: Kyle Busch, 594
Most laps in the Top-15: Kyle Busch, 5,945 (79.5%)
Highest % of laps led: Kyle Busch, 15.8%
Most laps completed: Juan Pablo Montoya, 7,441
Best closer (most spots gained in final 10% of race): A.J. Allmendinger, +3.4/race
Most laps completed on lead lap: Dale Earnhardt Jr., 93%
Fastest in traffic (car within one car length): Kyle Busch
It's really of no surprise, of course, that Kyle Busch has a bunch of those categories in hand. Regardless if New Kyle Busch or Old Kyle Busch shows up, that No. 18 is virtually always fast. The biggest surprise in my book is that Juan Pablo Montoya has completed the most number of laps of anyone in 2011. I'd bet Clint Bowyer wants a re-count in that department.
Anyways, continuing on with your regularly scheduled HOT/NOT...
HOT: The Chase for the Sprint Cup could be the most competitive, top-to-mostly-bottom yet. Kevin Harvick seems rejuvenated, Jeff Gordon is sweltering hot and Tony Stewart is staging a comeback. Oh, and Kyle Busch is just a few mistakes from sheer domination so far, while Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards could kill 'em with quiet consistency. Someone invited that Johnson character back, too.
Read More »
