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Richmond – This Is It For Chase Chasers

At the end of the Saturday night’s Wonderful Pistachios 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Richmond International Raceway we will know which twelve drivers will be in the Chase for the Championship.

Currently nine spots are filled. Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman have locked their spots and each will be looking for a win to add bonus points to their Chase points. Brad Keselowski has also locked up a spot in the Chase, but he currently has a wild card spot. In order to collect three bonus points for each win he has had this season, Keselowski will need to be in the top ten in points at the end of the Richmond event.

That leaves three spots still available in the Chase with simple and complex scenarios on how drivers can get in. The simplest as far as explanations are that Dale Earnhardt Jr needs to finish in the top twenty and Tony Stewart needs to finish in the top eighteen for each driver to lock their spots in the Chase.

Then there are the winning scenarios, again easy to explain – more difficult to accomplish. If Denny Hamlin wins the race, he will be in the Chase. If Paul Menard wins the Wonderful Pistachios 400, he will be in the Chase. If Marcos Ambrose or David Ragan win and get into the top twenty in the point standings, either one of them will be in the Chase.

If a driver wins their first race of the year and finishes ahead of Hamlin in the points, he will be in the Chase. The most points a driver can earn, including bonus points, in a race is 47, and the least is 1. This means the largest amount of points a driver can earn is 46. Hamlin is pretty good at Richmond, but if he runs into some more of the bad luck and issues that have been a big part of his 2011 season, the door will be open for AJ Allmendinger (-11 points to Hamlin), Clint Bowyer (-12 points), Greg Biffle (-28 points), Martin Truex Jr. (-33 points) and Kasey Kahne (-42 points) to make the Chase.

Another way for a driver to enter the Chase would be if Stewart or Earnhardt fall to the bottom of the pack and allow Keselowski to finish in the top ten in the standings. A wild card spot would open up for the driver with the most wins and in the top twenty in the point standings. This scenario would include any drivers that have currently won this season as well as possibly the winner of Saturday night’s race.

When NASCAR changed the points system prior to the 2011 season, this is what they were looking for after the first twenty-five races of the season, many candidates to get their cars into the Chase for the Championship with numerous scenarios, drama and intrigue.

We may see the field for the Chase remain the same as it is right now, but during the race at the short 3/4 mile superspeedway adrenaline and anxiety will be high for those drivers on the bubble and those with a shot to break into the Chase.

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