The playoffs are here for NASCAR‘s Sprint Cup series with the first race in The Chase, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
The track is one of the youngest on the Sprint Cup circuit with this year celebrating the 15th year of hosting NASCAR races in the top division. The 1.5-mile intermediate track is similar to others the drivers and teams visit each year, but it still seems to provide some unique challenges at the same time.
With plenty of room to get side-by-side to race for position, the track has a somewhat low 18-degrees of banking through the turns. That means it is easy to lose control and slide or spin to end the chances of a win. As always i the Sprint Cup series, another driver’s mistake can also collect drivers that are doing everything right.
The teams need to remain at the top of their game in the pit. A mistake while servicing a car under green flag racing can result in at the least many positions lost, at the worst the loss of a lap. Those lost positions (or a lap) will be very difficult to regain when the driver gets back out on the track.
For the 16 drivers that made the Chase Grid, winning the race means an automatic transfer to the next round of The Chase. Finishing the race in the top 12 means a better foothold to be above the cut line at the end of this round in The Chase. The points for the 16 Chase eligible drivers were all reset to 2,000 starting this week and three bonus points were awarded for each regular season win. This is the only time that wins will be worth extra points for the drivers. Below is the Chase Grid with adjusted points and ranking based on those points for the start of NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Now let’s look at which drivers have performed the best at Chicagoland Speedway.
Top 10 Driver Rating at Chicagoland Speedway
(*=2016 Chase Contender)
*Jimmie Johnson – 114.1
*Kyle Busch – 106.1
*Matt Kenseth – 103.4
*Tony Stewart – 101.2
Jeff Gordon – 101.0
*Kyle Larson – 100.4
*Kevin Harvick – 98.7
*Brad Keselowski – 97.3
*Kurt Busch – 90.1
*Carl Edwards – 89.6
(NOTE: Driver Ratings compiled from 2005-2015 races {11 total} among active drivers at Chicagoland Speedway)
There are nine active Sprint Cup drivers that have won at Chicagoland Speedway. Tony Stewart leads the list with three wins at the track. Both Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski are just behind “Smoke” with a pair of wins each.
The remaining six drivers on the winners list each has a single Chicagoland win. Three of those drivers are Chase contenders this year; Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and last year’s winner of this race Denny Hamlin. The other three not in contention for the championship are Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon. Neither Dale Jr. or Jeff Gordon will be in the race this week as Alex Bowman is set to race the #88 Chevrolet for the next two weeks.
While past performance and recent performance may improve the odds of scoring a win, anybody in the race can have circumstances create the opportunity to claim the checkered flag. As an example, I point out Chase contender Chris Buescher.
That makes the biggest question heading into the first race in The Chase, will the winner be a NASCAR Chase contender that will punch their ticket to the next round or a spoiler that is not in the 16 driver Sprint Cup Chase field?
That answer will be revealed after 267 laps (400.5 miles) of racing in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 Sunday, September 18th starting at 1:30 PM central time (2:30 PM eastern) at Chicagoland Speedway.
By: Buck Stevens
