This weekend the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL Cup charges into Homestead-Miami Speedway for the final race of the season. The last nine races have sorted out the ten potential candidates and set the stage for an exciting season finale on Sunday. How has each driver fared so far in The Chase? Who still has a shot to win the NEXTEL Cup on Sunday? What does Tony need to do to clinch? Keep reading....
Tony Stewart was leading the points when the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL Cup began nine races ago and still is. If Tony can finish ninth, or lead one lap and finish tenth he can't be beat for the Championship. Interestingly, if Jimmie Johnson leads the most laps and wins the race and Stewart does not lead and finished ninth they would tie. In a tie the driver with the most wins gets it: they both would have 5. Then they look at second place finishes: Stewart has more so he would get the title.
Jimmie Johnson had a strong start to the 2005 season but now he finds himself second in points fifty-two back with just one race to go. Jimmie's only hope is to go all out, lead as many laps as possible to try to get five bonus points for leading a lap and five more for leading the most laps and get the win. Even then he still needs Stewart to have bad luck. It looks like a third consecutive 2nd in points for Jimmie.
2005 is Carl Edwards' first full NEXTEL Cup season and he has made the most of it. With back to back wins in Atlanta and Texas Edwards made a strong charge for the title but came up just short. A 26th place finish in Martinsville will prove to be too much to overcome as he would need both Stewart and Johnson to have bad luck in order to close his 87 point gap.
Greg Biffle has five wins on the 2005 season but hasn't found victory lane since June. A 27th place finish in Talladega and two 20th place finishes in Martinsville and Texas have combined to sink his title hopes. Greg enters Homestead 102 points behind Stewart and an extreme longshot for the Cup.
The most points that one driver can make up in one race is 156. Mark Martin enters Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend 162 points behind Tony Stewart. If not for Talladega and Martinsville where he posted finishes of 41st and 34th this could have been the year. The bright side for Martin is that he will be back in 2006 with an extremely capable team. Mark will points race until the Chase begins, but then he'll turn up the heat for one final run at the NEXTEL Cup.
Ryan Newman is the undisputed king of qualifying, unfortunately they don't give any points for that. Ryan started the 2006 Chase strong with a win at Loudon and top five finishes in all of the first three races. He has not had a top five since Talladega though, and has been steadily slipping back.
The 2002 Champion came into the Chase with high hopes and started off with a solid third place showing in Loudon. He stumbled in Dover with a 35th place effort, had tire trouble in Charlotte to finish 26th and s coming off a frustrating race in Phoenix where he came home 32nd. Matt and his Roush team are obviously capable of more but the Chase for the Cup format only allows drivers to have one bad race in the final ten.
2005 is "Rusty's Last Call" and we are headed into the final race of Rusty's last season of NEXTEL Cup racing. Although he has been a factor in a number of races in 2005 he remains the only driver in the top ten without a win in 2005. He was fourth in points after Kansas but his average finish over the last five races is 26.2. Rusty wanted to go out on top and simply making the Chase has proven that he is not limping home past his prime. Congratulations to Rusty Wallace on a fine career.
Kurt Busch was eighth in points before missing the race in Phoenix.
Kurt Busch was suspended by team owner Jack Roush and is not expected to race in Homestead. Kurt will finish tenth in the final standings. If nothing else, this incident should make his acceptance speech at the banquet interesting.
In 2004 Jeremy Mayfield raced his way into the Chase only to finish a disappointing tenth. In 2005 Mayfield is again on track to finish the worst of all drivers who completed The Chase. Jeremy has only scraped together one top ten finish since the Chase began and four finishes of 24th or worse. I believe that Mayfield is a talented driver but Evernham Motorsports has not yet shown that they can field a consistent top ten team that can compete in The Chase format.
