Odds for Each 2014 Chase Driver to Reach the Championship Race at Homestead
As the current Chase for the Sprint Cup has played out, how many of you have told friends something to the effect of, “I’ll bet you my driver makes the final round at Homestead”?
Be it all talk or even a friendly wager, many of us like to play the odds on whether our driver or some other driver will be part of the final four-driver field for the season-ending, winner-take-all race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 16.
This Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR), we will have the penultimate race of the Chase, the second-to-last event that will ultimately eliminate four of the remaining eight drivers.
Let’s take a look at the odds I’m placing on each of those eight drivers to get past Phoenix and into the championship-deciding race at Homestead.
Carl Edwards, 11-to-1 Odds
1 of 8
Current Ranking: Tied for fifth with Matt Kenseth, 13 points behind series leaders Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin (tied).
We’d love to see Carl Edwards go into Homestead as one of the four drivers battling for the championship, essentially avenging falling short to Tony Stewart for the 2011 title. But Edwards just has not been overly spectacular in the first eight Chase races.
And if that’s the case, how can we expect him to be spectacular at Phoenix? If he hasn’t been outstanding up to now, PIR is the least likely locale for him to turn things around.
He started strong in the Chase opener at Chicago, finishing third, and then was eighth the following week at New Hampshire. But in the six races since then, Edwards has failed to finish any race higher than 10th (Charlotte).
Sure, he has been good at PIR over the years, including two wins, seven top-fives and 12 top-10 finishes in 20 starts. But even if he does have a strong finish Sunday, he still may be a little too late. The only way he could change that is if he wins.
Brad Keselowski, 10-to-1 Odds
2 of 8
Current Ranking: Seventh in the standings, 17 points behind Logano and Hamlin.
I mean, really, does Brad Keselowski think he has a chance of making the final race at Homestead? With all the enemies he’s made of late, including Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, Stewart and others, Keselowski is in the worst place any driver could be in the Chase: without any friends that could potentially help him advance to Homestead.
Even his Penske Racing teammate, Logano, won't be able to help Keselowski's plight, as he'll be worried about his own chances of reaching Homestead.
Likely the only way Keselowski will make it to the championship race is if he wins at Phoenix, much like he did at Talladega, thus assuring his advancement to the current Eliminator Round.
Sure, he can still reach Homestead mathematically without a win, but it will be difficult for him and Harvick, who are both essentially in the same position.
Had Bad Brad not won at ‘Dega, he would have finished at least 10th, if not worse, and would have been eliminated.
Lightning may have struck for Keselowski at Talladega, but lightning will not strike for him at Phoenix.
Matt Kenseth, 9-to-1 Odds
3 of 8
Current Ranking: Tied for fifth with Edwards, 13 points behind Logano and Hamlin.
Harvick promised that if he didn’t advance to the final race at Homestead, Kenseth wouldn’t either because of their wreck at Martinsville two weeks ago. But there’s a big factor to conider heading into Sunday’s race: Harvick won’t have to wreck Kenseth, because the former practically owns the one-mile flat track. Meanwhile, Kenseth has struggled far too much at the kind of track he grew up on in his racing career.
Consider that in 30 career Cup starts at PIR, Kenseth has no wins and just three top-fives and 10 top-10s. That doesn’t exactly exude confidence in his ability to advance. And, might I add, in the last seven races at PIR, Kenseth has managed just one top-10 finish.
While we’d love to see Kenseth make the championship race and still not have won a race this season, unless he actually does make it to Victory Lane, we just don’t see it happening for him.
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Denny Hamlin, 8-to-1 Odds
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Current Ranking: Tied for first place with Logano.
Picking Denny Hamlin so low was tough, particularly since he’s finished in the top 10 in half of his 18 career starts at Phoenix, with one win and eight top-fives. But he’s struggled in his last two starts at PIR, finishing 28th in this race last fall and 19th in this year’s spring race there.
What’s more, Hamlin has had an up-and-down Chase up to this point.
He has come close to a championship so many other times, yet has always fallen short. Unfortunately, this will be more of the same for him.
Ryan Newman, 7-to-1 Odds
5 of 8
Current Ranking: In third place, two points behind Logano and Hamlin.
In the battle of the two drivers still without a win in 2014, we’re going with Ryan Newman to advance to the final round of four and not Matt Kenseth.
Newman had a rough regular season, barely qualifying in the expanded field of 16 drivers that made the Chase. But since the Chase began, he is riding a streak of two top-five and three top-10 finishes in his last six Chase starts.
Newman is where he is in the rankings because of uncanny consistency when he’s needed it. And we see that not only continuing Sunday at Phoenix, but potentially riding him all the way to the championship at Homestead.
Joey Logano, 6-to-1 Odds
6 of 8
Current Ranking: Tied for first place with Hamlin.
It’s hard not to pick Logano to advance to the final four, particularly since he’s No. 1 in the standings heading into Phoenix. But as we saw with Gordon and how he plummeted from first to fourth after last week’s race at Texas, Logano could also plummet at Phoenix if he gets into trouble on the race track.
Yet there is a case for optimism. Logano’s record at PIR isn’t great, but it isn’t all that bad, either: 11 starts, zero wins, two top-fives and five top-10s.
Logano has two wins in the Chase that have gotten him this far, but he’s slipped in recent weeks, finishing 11th at Talladega, fifth at Martinsville and 12th at Texas. He has to significantly pick up his game at Phoenix and at least leave there in the top four in the standings to allow himself the opportunity to race for the championship at Homestead.
Jeff Gordon, 5-to-1 Odds
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Current Ranking: In fourth place, 12 points behind Logano and Hamlin.
Will Gordon’s season-long “Drive For Five” (a fifth career Sprint Cup championship and his first since 2001) end at Phoenix, or will it continue on to Homestead?
Even with the way he dropped like a rock at Texas after the run-in with Keselowski, Gordon has a ton more experience—not to mention a lot more friends on the race track—than Bad Brad. And that could likely be the defining and deciding aspect for Gordon to advance to the final round of four at Homestead.
He also has three Hendrick Motorsports teammates—six-time champ Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne—who most likely will be watching his back at PIR. And if Keselowski tries to make a move like he did at Texas, don’t be surprised if one of Gordon’s teammates indeed takes one for the team.
Frankly, we’d much rather be in Gordon’s shoes than in Keselowski’s shoes at PIR.
Kevin Harvick, 4-to-1 Odds
8 of 8
Current Ranking: In eighth place, 18 points behind Logano and Hamlin.
Harvick has been battling all season to make the final four at Homestead, and we think he’ll do just that.
Even though he is ranked last of the eight drivers still left in the Chase, he’s only 18 points behind Logano. At this stage of the game, that’s a significant amount of points to make up, but at the same time, right now he's only six points out of fourth place (currently occupied by Gordon).
If Harvick can once again live up to his "Freaky Fast" nickname, we think he’ll be one of the final four at Homestead. Plus, he's been one of the most dominating drivers in the Cup Series at PIR. In 23 starts, he has five wins, eight top-fives and 12 top-10 finishes.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see him win at Phoenix, which would give him the only automatic berth to advance to Homestead. But even if he finishes in the top five, that may very well be enough to put him in the four "haves" rather than the four "have-nots" after Sunday’s race at PIR.
Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
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