All Purpose NASCAR Thread

The tie thing had long been decided. It was only put into print last week.
Evidenced by:

David Poole, Charlotte Observer, Sept. 24, 2005:


¶ Jim Hunter, NASCAR vice president for corporate communications, said that in the week before the Richmond race the sanctioning body's competition officials met to consider the various scenarios that might come into play after the last race in which drivers could qualify for the Chase.

"We sat down and tried to go through every scenario," Hunter said. "When it came to ties, there was some confusion over that. Nowhere could we find that we laid out exactly what we were going to do in case of ties."

Indeed, a transcript of the January 2004 news conference where the Chase was introduced shows that what would happen in such a case was not addressed. It was spelled out that if two drivers tied for 10th, both would get into the Chase. Officials also addressed what would happen if a driver had one more point than the driver behind him after 26 races - their difference starting the Chase would still be five points.

Hunter said that in the pre-Richmond meeting it was determined that a tie for any position in the top 10 would be treated, for purposes of resetting points for the Chase, as a tie. NASCAR could argue that giving Edwards and Kenseth the same points for eighth is no different from not applying the Rule 17-4-C tiebreaker to bring one driver in and leave another out of the Chase if both tied for 10th after 26 races.

But nothing in its rule book says that.

The tiebreaking procedure set forth in Rule 17-4-C would be used at the end of the season to determine a driver's final position in the standings and the points fund payout that goes with that.

Indeed, Rule 17-4 is entitled "Distribution of Point Funds." Rule 17-3 covers "Award of Points," but the issue of ties is not addressed in that rule.

"I know we will clean up the language (in the rule book) at the end of this Chase," Hunter said. "We will learn from any confusion there might be."

 

Thank you, Ms. Fryer.

Apparently they did not clean up the rule book at the end of the 2005 season.

 

Per Jayski, Casey Atwood replaces David Green in the Brewco Busch ride.

Casey Atwood ... when I think of 1,000 reasons why David Gilliland shouldn't have gone Cup full-time, I think of how Atwood crashed and burned and has had a problem getting rides ever since. I know Gillliland is a lot older than Casey was when he started racing in Cup, but the point remains. End up in the wrong situation and get less than stellar results, as the 38 car is doing nowadays, and good luck finding another ride.

 

Wasn't Atwood in this car when he was coming up? #27, Castrol sponsorship?

 

Yes, he was. Then Jamie McMurray after him.

 

There's also a report on there - via the Athens BH - about Mark Martin taking over the 88 next year, with Roush's support. Didn't see this anywhere else, which makes me a bit skeptical.

And honestly, I didn't see that one coming.

 

Except that Scott Wimmer and Travis Kvapil still have rides.

Anyway, Gilliland probably wasn't ready for Cup, but he'll be OK eventually. The main reason is he's a workaholic (gets to the shop at 6:30 a.m. every day) and since he's a former crew chief, he can communicate the setups better than others with his experience level might be able to. It might be a struggle for a while though.

 

Wimmer and Kvapil won't have rides next year, since their teams likely will be squeezed out by the Toyota cars. Not everyone can become the next Kenny Wallace-style backmarker/rolling chicane.

 

Hus, I've seen a rumor or two out there before about Martin potentially driving for/buying Yates' operation, with Roush's blessing/backing. Not many, but it's not totally out of left field.

It's amazing how far and fast Yates' operation has fallen.

 

So did anybody go on the driver-appearance-slash-pub-crawl with Robbie Gordon on the Jim Beam party bus Thursday night?