ncsupack1 said:
Glasswolf said:
SVG smokes the field in Mexico City for career win #2. He was 132 points below the cut line but now has a spot in the playoffs
Not a bad race, time to move on. What I mean by this is that, I'm not a fan sometimes of this rule. But hey, it's what we have.
I think I commented last week about Mexico City being a true short track, but obviously I was wrong and it was a road course... my unintentional mix up goes back to my earlier stance that I didn't really mind if they went to a new track (either true short, or road) as long as the track it was replacing was of "like kind".
So now today, seeing that SVG won yesterday - I went to the NASCAR website to see what kind of tracks were in "The Chase" this year, and the first thing that jumped out at me was the headline called it a "provisional" win, which then made me need to research something else (which I will come back to later).
Round of 16 shows Race 2 of The Chase at World Wide Tech outside of St. Louis and while they definitely have a road course, it says this will be run on their egg-shaped oval. Other two tracks in 1st Round are Darlington and Bristol, so I don't see him being a threat to win in that round - but the 1st Round is just about not totally sucking, so there's a chance he could sneak through to the Round of 12, I suppose.
Round of 12 has the Roval as Race 6, and a lot of the big names run good there so I wouldn't call him a favorite to win there - BUT he did finish 7th there last fall, so it's not totally crazy that he could maybe win there, but I would doubt it.
Everything else after that is all ovals, so I'm not too concerned about him going deep into The Chase or anything like that, if I'm being totally honest.
Now coming back to this "provisional" thing... so Van Gisbergen is sitting in 30th right now in points. If I'm counting correctly, that is now 10 different drivers that have now won a race this season. I'm counting 10 more "Regular Season" races before "The Chase" starts, so while it's still mathematically possible that we could have 6 more 1st time winners before the playoffs - it's certainly not likely, so he's probably in "The Chase" for all intents and purposes at this point (as well as Josh Berry currently sitting in 19th).