Finley Factor: An Instant Classic

The Southern 500’s return to Labor Day lived up to the hype and then some.

With the Sprint Cup series cars running the low downforce aero package used at Kentucky along with softer tires built for said package, the race was clearly the race of the year. Cars could actually, gasp, pass the leader in green flag conditions for a change. Drivers could drive. And although there was only one long green flag run of the night, it still featured a three way battle for the lead by the time a caution eventually came out.

It says something about the quality of the race package used when the night still featured a team lead for over half of the race and a finish that featured the leader, Carl Edwards, drive away from the pack on the final restart.

The presentation of the event was also well done. Cars outfitted with special “throwback” paint schemes littered the grid, and the stands looked on TV to be pretty much full.

Speaking of TV, NBC’s telecast was great and leagues better than what the Fox Sports broadcast could have been. The highlight of the night was Ken Squier, Ned Jarrett, and Ned’s son Dale taking over the broadcast booth for about an hour. Squier still knows how to tell a story, and unlike many play by play announcers today he doesn’t scream every other word out of his mouth. Both Jarretts did well in what they had to do- Ned articulates his words well and Dale didn’t speak over his father or Squier while at the same time helping to guide the two through the call. It would have been wonderful to hear the three call the last fifty laps as Squier is at his best calling the finish but what we got was just fine.

The regular announcing trio at NBC are also jelling really well. Sometimes Steve Letarte will drown Jeff Burton out and start talking from a driver’s perspective, but it isn’t as bad as it was earlier in the summer and it’s a minor nitpick to begin with.

The only real criticisms one can make about NBC’s broadcast was the five minute pre-race show on NBC before ceremonies after two hours on NBCSN and the amount of commercials shown. Commercials are not really NBC’s fault however (They are paying a lot of money to cover these races) and unlike Fox they actually know when to use side-by-side.

Next year, the best course of action I feel schedule-wise would be to swap Richmond with Chicagoland and moving Chicagoland to the off week in June. This makes Darlington the cut-off race before the Chase and that much more important, and gives a week off between Darlington and Richmond, the first race of the Chase. It also doesn’t force NASCAR to go up against the NFL’s opening weekend.


Richmond Preview (All stats are from the last 10 races at Richmond)

The Favorites

Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch are both on a hot streak right now, and both are entering one of their best race tracks. Both are tied for most victories with two, and they are both the only drivers with an average finish of under 10th.

The Sleepers

Carl Edwards is tied in most top tens here with seven, and is looking to get more momentum going into the Chase. Jeff Gordon has said on record multiple times that this is his favorite race track, and although he hasn’t won there in a while, he still has an average finish of 11th.

Ones To Watch

Kyle Larson, Kasey Kahne, Aric Almirola, Greg Biffle, Austin Dillon, Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, and everybody else not in the Chase for the Sprint Cup need to win to get themselves in. Hopefully this year we see more risk taking from these thirteen drivers then last year.


 

Jim Utter of motorsport.com recently wrote an article suggesting Kyle Busch as driver of the year, for his amazing summer run coming off of missing eleven races due to an injury in the Xfinity series race at Daytona in February.

Although it’s not nearly as bad as saying Danica Patrick is a Hall of Famer, in that this can actually be debated, the real driver of the year so far has easily been Kevin Harvick.

Statistically, Harvick is having quite possibly the greatest season in the modern era, or at the very least in the last 35 years. Harvick has four more top fives than Busch has had races, and if he were to stop following Richmond his stat line would still be better than plenty of champions in history.

Sure Busch has two more victories, but Harvick has finished top 10 in all but three of the 25 races so far this season. If he finishes top ten in every race from now to Homestead, very possible with how this team has ran this year, he will finish with a mind blowing 33 top tens in a single season.

Harvick even has a better average finish than Busch in eleven more starts, and they have a relatively even average starting position (8.6 for Busch and 8.8 for Harvick). Harvick also has a better laps lead percentage, beating Busch by a healthy 6.5% (16% versus 21.5% rounded to the nearest tenth).

If all of that isn’t enough, how about Kyle actually losing ground in points to Harvick since his return?

Harvick led the points with 437 points following Kansas, the last points race before Busch’s big return at Charlotte. After Darlington, Busch is 477 points back- a loss of nearly a full race at 40 points.

As great as Busch’s run as been since coming back, remember this is Driver of the Year, not Driver of the Summer or Comeback of the Year. Overall, Harvick has just been a little bit better throughout the entire year so far.

Besides that, Driver of the Year is the champion. Nobody has won the championship yet, so I’m not handing it out yet. I feel the Seattle Seahawks were the best team in football last year overall, but nobody is handing them Team of the Year because they didn’t win the championship.

All stats cited in the Finley Factor are as per Racing Reference unless otherwise noted.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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