If Ryan Blaney’s analysis of the NASCAR Chase is accurate, then his championship bid is already over after only three of 10 races in the run to the title.
“I just don’t see that you can finish outside the top 30 multiple times and have a shot,” Blaney said last week. “It’s just going to be too much to make up.”
Three days later, Blaney finished 33rd at Bristol Motor Speedway, the second consecutive finish outside the top 30 for the 2023 Cup Series champion.
Blaney has plummeted from second to sixth in the standings since the Chase began, and his frustrations boiled over in a fight with Carson Hocevar, who bumped Blaney into a crash that ended a promising Bristol race after the Team Penske star led a race-high 202 laps.
“I understand why he’s upset,” Hocevar said. “That’s probably his championship. I’d probably be mad, too.”
During the playoff system that existed the past 12 seasons, Bristol was a cutoff race in which four drivers were eliminated from title contention, and the points were reset for the rest of the field.
In the Chase reintroduced by NASCAR this season, all 16 drivers remain mathematically eligible for the title but without a points reset — which leaves Blaney already on the fringe of contention.
He trails leader Kyle Larson by 51 points, which is more than double his deficit to open the Chase.
Meanwhile, Larson and Bristol winner Joey Logano are headed in the other direction by averaging more than 50 points per race since the Chase started.
Larson has erased a 55-point deficit to take a one-point lead on top-seeded Denny Hamlin heading into a stretch of three 1.5-mile ovals where Larson has excelled. He has three wins apiece at Kansas Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the next two tracks on the Cup circuit.
“It’s good, but there’s still so much racing left,” Larson said after a second at Bristol marked his third top five in a row (including a Gateway victory that snapped a 51-race win drought ). “Just got to keep having good consistent days. We’re going to some good tracks for us, but it could easily change a lot in the upcoming weeks. We’ve just got to keep plugging away.”
Logano, who started the Chase ranked ninth with a 65-point deficit, has surged to third and trails by 16 points.
“It was a big hole that we dug ourselves, and trying to make that up on the best teams, it’s really hard to do that,” Logano said. “We’ve done a tremendous job, but it goes to show how quickly it can go the other way. You’ve got to get hot at the right time and take advantage of the cars when you have them.”
Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe set a weekly goal of averaging 40 points during the Chase to have a shot at winning the championship.
In the first iteration of the Chase from 2004-13, the 10 Cup champions averaged a seventh-place finish over the final 10 races. But with the 2017 introduction of stages, two predetermined sections during every race in which the top 10 are awarded points, there is a greater emphasis on running well from green to checkered flag.
Wolfe said the stage points make it possible to make up ground more quickly as Larson (38 stage points) and Logano (37) have shown in the past three races.
“When a team gets hot, and they’re able to win stages, run up front and win a race or two, you can close that gap pretty quick,” Wolfe said. “Maybe quicker than all of us anticipated when these playoffs started.”
Another way to close the gap is by winning. The value of a first-place finish was increased by 15 points this year, and the three Chase victories belong to three of the top four drivers in the standings (Larson, Logano and Darlington winner Christopher Bell).
“I think you’re going to have to win multiple races in the Chase to just keep up,” Blaney said.
NASCAR officials have reviewed video of the scuffle between Blaney and Hocevar, and no punishment is expected for either driver. Competition executives will meet Tuesday for a weekly postrace debrief that includes penalty discussions.
In a similar postrace confrontation at Atlanta three years ago, Ross Chastain struck Noah Gragson, and neither driver was fined. NASCAR once put drivers on probation but removed that penalty from its rulebook this year.
Hocevar said NASCAR would “lose ticket sales” if he was penalized for punching Blaney.
“I would have to think not,” he said. “I kind of have to defend myself at some point.”
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