Are Kevin Harvick’s championship hopes already doomed? The odds are against him under Chase points system
Can Kevin Harvick become just the second driver to lead the regular season and win the Chase? // LaDon George, NASCAR Illustrated
Though many of his peers consider him the favorite to win the Sprint Cup championship this year, points leader Kevin Harvick can’t feel too good about his current place atop the points standings.
History is not on his side.
With one race before the Chase For The Sprint Cup begins, Harvick holds a 219-point lead over Jeff Gordon. Under ordinary circumstances, he couldn’t lose the lead even if he finished last at Richmond.
But these aren’t ordinary times, not with the 10-race playoff determining the champion.
Harvick’s solid points lead will be wiped out after the race at Richmond Saturday night, dropping him at least to third when points are reset for the Chase.
He will trail four-time champion Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin by at least 10 points, even if he wins at Richmond.
Points are reset after the Richmond race with each driver receiving 5,000 points, plus a 10-point bonus for each race he has won. With 50 bonus points each for five race wins entering Richmond, Johnson and Hamlin will hold an advantage of 10-30 points on Harvick, who has three wins.
But it’s the history thing that may stand as his biggest obstacle.
In six years of the Chase, only one driver who held the lead after 26 races – or the regular season – has gone on to win the championship.
Tony Stewart dominated the 2005 season. He held a 185-point lead after 26 races and went on to win the Chase.
In the other five Chase seasons, the points leader after 26 races has not won the championship – even in years in which the driver dominated the regular season.
Jeff Gordon had a 60-point lead wiped out when points were reset for the inaugural Chase in 2004. He wound up finishing third behind champion Kurt Busch, who started the Chase seventh, and Johnson.
Kenseth, the last driver to win a championship under the old, season-long points system, lost a 57-point lead in 2006, when Johnson won his first of a record four straight titles. Kenseth wound up second.
Gordon saw a 312-point lead wiped out in 2007 while Kyle Busch lost a lead of 207 points in 2008. Stewart finally felt the pain of losing a big lead last year. He was up by 179 points before points were reset for the Chase.
While Gordon was a strong contender for the title in 2007, finishing second to Johnson, Busch and Stewart weren’t so lucky. Busch wound up 10th in the 2008 Chase while Stewart dropped to sixth last year.
The fate of the regular-season points leader has again stirred the debate about whether there should be some sort of bonus for the driver that leads the standings after 26 races.
“Stewart was in this position last year and we are in it this year and it is hard to explain to the fans that you have 26 weeks and you get nothing for it,” Harvick says. “So, I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. We all know the rules when we come in so you just race by that system and see what happens.”
Johnson has won the Chase four straight times, but has never led the standings after the regular season. He’s undecided on whether the regular-season leader should earn a bonus, or be allowed to start the Chase in first place.
“There are definitely arguments both ways,” Johnson says. “You have to look at it either way. I struggle with it because, at times, especially when NASCAR is asking my opinion on changes for it, people chuckle and don’t want to take me seriously with changes that I suggest after winning four championships.”
Johnson has won 12 Chase races during his four championship runs and 18 overall. He believes there should be a larger bonus for winning races, but also thinks that the system should continue to award consistency.
“There is no doubt that the points are tight and it benefits being consistent more than anything else,” he says. “I feel like our series is so long that the points structure should reflect a consistent team and driver.
“I think over a 10-race span, what we have could be modified some. I think you could have a bigger gap to win a race, but still at the end of the day, it does reflect consistency.
“If we only ran 10-12 times a year or played 16 games or whatever compared to other sports, then I think you could be more creative with it, but when we race 36 times a year, the champion needs to reflect what the season is about.”
