Congratulation!!

Well done Juan!! Let's go for the cup.

I don't quite understand the point of the "chase", does it have any affect on proceedings or is it just to add something extra to the series?

Only the top 12 points scorer after 26 races are eligible for the "chase", i.e. to go for the championship in the remaining 10 races.
Last night was the 26th race.

Go Juan It's been a lot of hard work over the last couple of years, mixed with some obvious talent, and it's finally paid off. Not sure if he can get the Cup this year, but it's great to see him finally in the Chase.

Don't forget it also resets the scores of those top 12 drivers.

Actually they all get 5000 points! (presumably to keep the top 12 ahead of the rest of the field on points)

Then you get an extra 10 for each victory (in the first 26 races).

So right now the whole field is split by 40 points before the chase there were 617 between 1st and 12th.

10 points per win isn't much considering you get that for leading the most laps in a race (5 for most laps led + 5 for leading a lap). The 40 point lead Martin has over Montoya is the same as coming 41st in a race! Or the difference between 1st and 8th in one race.

RANK +/- DRIVER POINTS BEHIND STARTS POLES WINS TOP 5 TOP 10
1 +9 Mark Martin 5040 Leader 26 6 4 9 14
2 -1 Tony Stewart 5030 -10 26 0 3 13 18
3 -- Jimmie Johnson 5030 -10 26 1 3 9 15
4 -- Denny Hamlin 5020 -20 26 0 2 9 14
5 +1 Kasey Kahne 5020 -20 26 0 2 5 10
6 -4 Jeff Gordon 5010 -30 26 0 1 12 18
7 -- Kurt Busch 5010 -30 26 0 1 7 14
8 +5 Brian Vickers 5010 -30 26 6 1 4 13
9 -4 Carl Edwards 5000 -40 26 0 0 7 11
10 -1 Ryan Newman 5000 -40 26 1 0 5 12
11 -3 Juan Montoya 5000 -40 26 1 0 2 12
12 -1 Greg Biffle 5000 -40 26 0 0 8 12

JPM talks about being in the chase.

http://www.nascar.com/video/cup/2009/09/13...scar/index.html

I don't either. I think its to make us Americans look like more fools than we really are.

Well, pay attention.

Lets see some classic hard racing from JPM - be amazing to see him win the cup.

just helps to insure no single driver can run away with the title before the final race. and it also rewards the best teams over the first two thirds of the season with a shot at the title. just like a playoffs where all the teams get an equal shot.
I seriously doubt montoya has a chance because he and his team make crucial mistakes that hold them back from wins.

And it's to be noted that he has been faithful to Chip and his team and stayed through the first two years where everyone was screaming that he should go to a top team with a top car.

So Juan has shown perseverance, willingness to learn and loyalty.

It's all paying its dividends.

Go Juan!!!

Agreed, unfortunately.

Apparently, on Monday at the shop, they'll be evaluating possible alternative adhesives for gluing the lug nuts to the wheel before pit stops!

HA! you are the same guy who said that he won't make it to the chase?!

Juan did not look so happy after making the chase. I think his espression would have een totally different if he had run better last saturday. I missed the part where martin says watch out for the 42 - its not in his press release video. I hope RCR puts all his resources behind JPM to help him win races in the chase.

I don't like the chase, but it's there and that Montoya has sneeked in is very impressive.
Now I hope he goes for the win on every race now.

JPM in the chase is great news for the very uninformed Nascar observer like myself!

No Marcus Ambrose which is a shame.

Pretty much. It seems to have been done to try to generate a little excitement into NASCAR. It effectively makes the year 2 totally separate seasons. IIRC, (one of the NACAR experts can help), we've already had a couple of years where the guy that actually garnered the most points during the "season" wasn't the champion.

Well read the answer given then

The rest of the season serves the purpose of qualifying for the chase, like most American sports where you're trying to get into the play offs. It also adds some excitement to races like Richmond this weekend just before the chase, with Kyle Busch and Bryan Vickers fighting on the track for the final place in the chase.

you can almost bet RC has a ton of resources behind the 42. he's said before that he considers dales team a part of his. RCR drivers - and probably harvick specificly because their driving style is so close, has already been working on risky set-up stuff that the 42 couldn't run due to needing to be conservetive. egine and chassis guys are all going to be avilible. since there's no RCR driver in the hunt, there's nothing RC would like better then to have juan as a champion saying " these RCR engines performed well".

Funny I never recall the Chicago Cubs playing in the NLCS.

JPM has come so far

So...perhaps a silly question then, but what if a driver whose not in the chase goes and wins every one of the final rounds? They get nothing?

1 million..

like all sports with some kind of play-off system, it also leads to some conservative strategies. Congrats to JPM! what are his odds of winning the championship?

btw what is RC and RCR?

RCR stands for Richard Childress Racing .. They are are the top team that supplies the engines to Chip Ganassi..
Ironically they do not have any of their drivers in the chase. (Harvick, Bowyer, Mears, Burton).

Go JPM!!! Im thinking to get a channel that shows NASCAR.Has this season been good so far? Im a noob and dont jnow anything about NASCAR

I may be wrong but in theory if Kyle Busch (currently on 3195 points) won everything and got the maximum 195 points per race he'd have 5145 points. So if Montoya was to quit now I think the standing might show Busch in 12th and Montoya in 13th. Then again I haven't read the rules but for me that's how it should work. (not that this would ever happen)

What a joke NASCAR is

A guy who has won 0 out of the 26 races could win the title from a guy who has won multiple races (Martin) that is really ****ed up

ok, thanks. how does it work exactly. If I want to start a team, is it like rally? you can buy a car and modify it? do teams change brands often? or are teams factory owned?
Engine wise the same, are they 'normal' engines tuned by a team or more like f1 and specially made and tuned by the manufacturer?

Sorry, but that can perfectly happens in F1 as well.

join the club! ;) I only saw a few races and it all seemed a big lotterie to me, when you look more races some tactics emerge from the choas, maybe in a year time, I can predict who will win 5 laps before the finish

Anyways, I think NASCAR should:

• Reward wins with more points during regular season
• Reward wins with more points (at least 25) once the chase is formed

This way:

1. Kyle Busch (4 wins) would've made the chase easily
2. Mark Martin (4 wins as well) will be (at least) 100 points in front of Edwards, Newman, Montoya and Biffle, who did not win any race.

Well, you don't have to watch or follow.

Go 42!!!

I actually think the point system is good as is.. 26 races is a lot and the gap between first and second is already greater than from 2nd to 3rd and so forth.. If you have DNFs in 4 or 5 races that is 15% - 20 % of the races.. Imagine that type of DNF ratio in any other racing series and you would see that they would not have a chance...

For what's worth, a guy walked into a completely different discipline, learned the discipline, worked hard, played under the rule and made it to the playoff in a relatively short time. I think that's what I am celebrating here.

Muy bien hecho Juanito.
Pero...

I really don't care for this scam called "The Chase" but were I to be in charge of it I would offer Shrub and Jr a "provisional" based on the marketability of their "brand"

Jp

If Montoya wins this the equivalent would be Vettel, Hamilton, Rubens, Kimi, Massa, Jenson winning 15 F1 races between them and then there being a 2 race "shootout" where the previous points standings mean nothing and Timo Glock becoming WDC

They'd finish 13th

Damn right, and he should have thought about it for 26 races, as simple as that.

Either the championship should be fought and won over the course of a full season or those that don't make the "playoffs" should be eliminated from the competition. That is how "playoffs" work.

Yes, in essence they are, folks not in the chase will not have a chance to become champion.

If you can get Trackpass Scanner from nascar.com, its possible to listen to the drivers pit radio communications live and threwout the race, great way to follow the race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv_NLuX7XWk WATCH IN HD!! (unless it hangs )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfBN3AfosBc

Sorry dude, but I'm not talking about other racing series, I'm talking about NASCAR and and I'm just looking for a way to improve NASCAR rules.

I'm a JPM die hard fan, but I would prefer to see him fighting for positions instead of that conservative mode he was playing in the last few races. Having said that, I think JPM would've made the chase this year in any other circumstance, because his team's been pretty consistent all year.

But tell me you didn't enjoy the battle between Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers for the final chase spot. Imagine that fight between 4, 5 or 6 drivers.

OTOH, I -and everyone else, I think- appreciate wins more than anything. I'm just proposing to reward them a little more as an incentive to see more drivers fighting for wins.

A final note: I think JPM can drive exactly like he has until now, and still he'll have a pretty good shot to a final win. NASCAR points system rewards consistency. The best driver in the last six races was Brian Vickers -btw, nobody's mentioning as a candidate- and he won only one of those races.

Not really.. F1 is a very short series compared to NASCAR and it has a lot fewer drivers..
Montoya's 10 position after 26 races out of 43 drivers is the equivalent of running 4th in the F1 standings by the 13th race of the year..
The equivalent to the CHASe that you describe for F1 would actually be the last 5 races of an 18 race calendar.. not 2.
10 / 36 = 5 /18.

Exactly. That's the way I see it. It's weird to be in a stage competing with people that has no possibilities to win anything, and you still have to fight with them to achieve your results.

not entirely true - the max they could finish is 13th - but if their sitting like 30th in points right now, they probably would finish the season in the high teens, low 20's depending on how everyone else on the track does. - for the most part, those outside of the top 12 now get a jump on those still fighting for the cup to work on their stuff for next year.

it depends on the team and the deal. as far as factory support goes, it's mostly money and maybe tech sharing with the teams but that's it. the teams are responsible for their own equiptment, but each manu has one or two key teams that they support and all the other teams buy stuff from....

for example with ford roush pretty much builds all the engines with ford support, and yates works on most all the chassis - and the other ford teams buy cars from them. Chevy supports both hendrick and RCR, and then the chevy teams buy from them - stewart/hass, hall of fame racing buy from hendrick, while Ganassi/DEI buy engines from RCR, but build their own chassis.

most of the small 1-2 car teams buy complete cars from the big guys and go from there, but there are some small teams that build their own engines and chassis, not many though. as far as the engines go, everyone does different stuff. they have to use the same block, but apart from that a Hendrick engine is completely different from a RCR engine - even though they are both running chevy blocks.

Toyota is really the only one that does it different, they pretty much sell the engines to the teams, like Red Bull and Waltrip - and then those teams modify it from there, but share their tech back with the factory who sends it to the other teams.

when you listen to the drivers talk, they are contractually obligated to mention which engines their runnning. so JPM for example will say " the power from these RCR engines was good today"



none of the teams are factory owned, it's not normal for teams to change brands often, but everytime a contract is about over, they all look at the other brands and see who's gunna give them the best deal - but manu's do offer extra to keep a team in their stable