NASCAR: Power Ranking the Chase Contenders

Are your feet cold yet, because these words can only mean one thing: Hell has frozen over and I’ve dusted the cobwebs (again) off the blog to bring you something hard hitting, thought provoking, and all-around entertaining.

Or I’m bringing you some more NASCAR commentary.

Hey, you’ve got to start with what you know, right?

This weekend marks the beginning of NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup. The Chase is a motorsports twist on the playoff systems found in stick-’n-ball sports involving eliminations and bonus points and automatic advancements and…well, it gets a bit convoluted the deeper you get into it.

Simply put, a championship eligible driver who finishes well and wins races over the next ten weeks will likely be crowned the 2015 Sprint Cup Champion.

(By the way, 16 drivers qualify for the Chase each year. Yes, that is way too many.)

So, without further ado, let’s meet the 16 participants in this year’s playoff, in descending order of how likely it is that they will win the championship according to myself.

16. Paul Menard

Despite only four top ten and two top five finishes so far in 2015, Menard still managed to score enough points to sneak his way into his first Chase – a fact which could lead into a whole discussion regarding the flaws in the current point system, but that’s for another day.

While Menard is capable of showing speed, he and his team aren’t capable of doing it often enough to advance past the first round. But at least he got some cool Chase gear out of the deal.

15. Clint Bowyer

As it turns out, 2015 is the swan song for Michael Waltrip Racing. So far, it’s been far from a storybook ending; Bowyer’s teammate, the No. 55 team, began the year with a revolving door of drivers before David Ragan was given the job, with which he showed plenty of speed each week before settling for some metaphorical form of spectacular failure, be it getting struck by lightning or shooting himself in the foot.

Meanwhile, Bowyer’s year has mostly been an exercise in anonymity with a few (11) top ten finishes sprinkled in to remind us that he still exists. Safe to say, he won’t win the championship this season, although he is a solid dark horse choice to advance to the second round; making it to the third is stretching it.

14. Jamie McMurray

Like Menard, McMurray is making his first postseason appearance. Unlike Menard, the Missouri native is a former Daytona 500 champion and was part of the winning race team at this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona. In other words, there’s a sneaky large amount of talent here.

The question will be if there’s enough car, and while Chip Ganassi Racing is far better than the near-dumpster fire they were a few years ago, they aren’t good enough to seriously compete with the better teams in the sport quite yet. Then again, McMurray may have another upset in him.

13. Jeff Gordon

It pains me to put him this low, but let’s face it: Gordon’s final season in NASCAR has been Clint Bowyer levels of “meh.” The team just doesn’t have the speed to compete for wins, having not been a real threat to claim victory since Talladega back in May.

That being said, this is Jeff Freaking Gordon we’re talking about here. If anyone’s capable of turning a switch and making one final push for one last championship, it’s this guy. But that’s going to take a whole lot of will, and I just don’t see the way it happens.

12. Ryan Newman

In the 2014 finale Newman was the runner-up to Kevin Harvick, finishing only one position away from winning his first championship despite not winning a single one of the 35 previous races. His uncanny ability to “decent-day” everybody to death means he could stick around for a while in the postseason, and maybe even qualify as one of the final four drivers when NASCAR makes it to Homestead.

Unless the racing gods decide it’s time to play a cruel joke, however, he’s not earning the championship without actually winning a race or two along the way. There’s no evidence from his 62 races driving for Richard Childress Racing that suggests that’s a serious possibility.

11. Martin Truex, Jr.

This team has shown plenty of times this season they have the speed needed to race at the front. The problem is, those times were at the beginning of the year. Truex has been cooler than cool (aka ice cold) over the past few months, with five finishes of 25^th or worse and only three top ten finishes in the past 11 races. That won’t be good enough now that the points have been reset.

Still, this has been a wonderful bounce-back year for Truex, and it’s hard to imagine this team taking a step backward next year. And who knows, maybe the No. 78 can rekindle the magic that led to 14 top tens (including a victory) in the first fifteen races of 2015. Just don’t be expecting it.

10. Kurt Busch

To say the elder Busch Brother is an enigma is a bit of an understatement. He has a ton of talent, but is also one hell of a head case. Because of this, it’s hard to predict exactly what will happen with the No. 41 team.

Could they hit a switch and seriously compete and even win the championship? Absolutely. Could they self-destruct, finish poorly several times out of the gate and ultimately fail to advance past the first round, leaving Busch a fuming mass of anger and sass? Absolutely.

9. Carl Edwards

Despite his recent victory at Darlington and a streak of nine straight finishes of 13^th or better, I still don’t think this team is ready to legitimately make a championship push. This is, admittedly, one of those times where analysis takes a back seat to a gut feeling, so I’m totally prepared to own it if I turn out to be utterly and completely wrong.

Edwards definitely has enough talent to get the job done and, after a slow start, his pairing with crew chief Darian Grubb has turned out brilliantly for both parties. Still, I’ve seen way too many hot streaks flame out between Richmond and the first Chase event, and I have a feeling this will be one of them.

8. Denny Hamlin

Can Denny Hamlin finally avenge his 2010 meltdown at Homestead? Will he be able to build off of his current streak of four finishes of sixth or better? How many more body parts will he injure in 2015? (I put the over/under at 1.5)

Seriously, I don’t believe anyone doubts his talent behind the wheel, he just has to get the job done. I honestly don’t have any better analysis than that.

7. Jimmie Johnson

If I’m completely honest with myself, seventh in my rankings might actually be too high for the six-time champ. Call it the Jimmie Johnson factor; they’ve done it so many times, it’s hard to believe the No. 48 team won’t flip the switch and go into “destroy ‘em all” mode once the Chase starts until every possibility of it happening has slipped away.

Johnson has won four times this season – although none in the last 13 races – which means he’ll start the Chase tied atop the leaderboard. Hi recent results have been all over the board, so it’s difficult to label him as either “hot” or “cold.” Essentially, he enters the postseason, like so many times before, as the ultimate question mark.

*Note, past this point are the six drivers I feel have a legitimate chance at winning the title*

6. Brad Keselowski

The 2012 champ comes into The Chase on a bit of hot streak, with nine top ten and three second place finishes in the past nine races. He also led the most laps in two of those events, one of which is one the Chase schedule (New Hampshire).

Yet, somehow, I couldn’t place him higher than sixth on my grid. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll ruffle some feathers or push too hard in a crucial situation. He did banzai Jeff Gordon at Texas; then again, he also pulled through with a clutch victory two races beforehand at Talladega. In all honesty, it’s easier to make a case for him to be ranked first than to be ranked sixth, but these aren’t your rankings, they’re mine. So tough.

5. Matt Kenseth

Seriously, where did Matt Kenseth come from? He went from having a relatively decent season to claiming victory in half of the final six events of the regular season – twice in dominating fashion, once because 100 cars in front of him (give or take a few) ran out of gas.

He’s arguably one of the most consistent drivers in motorsports and is racing for an organization (Joe Gibbs Racing) that has won eight of the last 11 Sprint Cup races. If he isn't one of the drivers with a chance to advance to the final four when the series gets to Phoenix, I’ll eat my hat...well, one of them anyway.

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

We’ve entered this weird dimension where the No. 88 might be Hendrick Motorsports’ best shot at a title. Okay, maybe it’s just the nature of the 2015 season. Though he doesn’t put himself in position to win a bunch, he’s fast enough and consistent enough at different types of race tracks to have a real shot at qualifying for the championship final.

The toughest stretch for Earnhardt is likely the first round, which places this prediction in a very precarious position; lucky for me, he has shown speed at Chicago in the past and, earlier in the year, finished a solid fifth and 14^th at Loudon and Dover respectively. Still, given this team’s tendency to underperform in crucial spots there is nothing safe about this pick, which makes picking Earnhardt to qualify for the finals almost as sketchy as…

3. Kyle Busch

…picking this guy. Despite missing the first 11 races of the season, the younger Busch Brother still managed to acquire a crucial victory (four of ‘em, in fact!) and the needed amount points to still qualify for the Chase. He’s a driver on a tear with a company on a tear.

Still though, given his past disappearing acts when a strong performance was absolutely necessary, it hard to trust him without actually seeing him pull through. I’m going to do it, though. He has all the talent in the world as a racer and JGR equipment might be better than ever at the moment; it’s simply up to Kyle Busch to make this thing happen.

2. Kevin Harvick

He has 18 top five and 22 top ten finishes in 26 races this season. That’s…absolutely insane. Nobody has been as consistently fast as Kevin Harvick has been since the green flag dropped in Daytona back in February. That’s one heck of a way to defend a title.

If he isn’t one of the four Chasers remaining at Homestead, I’ll be absolutely stunned. If he survives through the elimination rounds, no one can stop him from repeating. No one…except maybe…

1. Joey Logano

The driver who was formally known as Sliced Bread when he entered the sport and then became Burnt Toast while struggling at JGR before finally earning the acknowledgement as simply a really talented racer at Team Penske has already had one heck of a 2015. He won NASCAR’s most prestigious race, the season-opening Daytona 500; he won a road course race at Watkins Glen; additionally, he conquered the night race at Bristol for the second straight year.

He’s entering the Chase having finished better than in 11 of the past 13 races, numbers which are pretty ridiculous in their own right. In his finals appearance last year, he was within striking distance of Kevin Harvick before a disastrous pit stop late in the event took him out of contention. In 2015, he’ll win at Homestead and earn his first ever Sprint Cup championship.

At least that’s what I, some random dude on the internet, think.