Risk versus reward: How drivers race the Chase can change
For the 12 drivers still contending for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, how they approach each of the Chase races is ever-changing.
Facing eliminations at the end of every three races in this new format, drivers looking to advance and be among the final four in the winner-take-all race at Homestead-Miami Speedway juggle a constant balance of risk versus reward on the racetrack.
With each spot another point up on the competition, drivers are trying to get as many positions as they can throughout the race, putting them in a position to potentially score a victory.
Yet at the same time, a bad finish can set a driver way back in the Chase hunt, so drivers must be careful not to put themselves in a situation that could potentially lead to a wreck or otherwise poor outcome.
With so much taking place around them each and every lap, drivers have to weigh the risk versus reward throughout the entire race.
"I think it depends on how fast your cars are ultimately," said Chase driver Denny Hamlin. "If you have a very, very fast car and you've got a little extra in the tank, you can be a little conservative. If you're struggling for speed, you have to race as hard as you can. That's really our mentality, and has been all year long, is to race as hard as we can and fight for every position -- way harder than we have in the past -- because we knew we couldn't make it up on the racetrack. We either had to do it on pit road or we've got to do it with some strategy. Your circumstances change, and I think that's what dictates how you drive inside the car."
Those changing circumstances can come quickly and unexpectedly throughout the course of a race. As Carl Edwards points out, one must be able to react to those changing circumstances at a moment's notice.
"With this format, you have to be able to very quickly alter your strategy and your willingness to take risks or not take risks," said Edwards. "After one pit-stop exchange, one yellow flag, the field can be changed around where you basically have to have a statistician there saying, 'Hey, this is the position we're in and this is how you have to race.' You have to be able to change like that.
"For that reason it's really tough. I don't think anyone has really mastered it yet. Maybe after a few years of this you'll have guys who really understand how to race and where to take the risks in this format."
For Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., both of whom had trouble last weekend at Kansas Speedway, the balance between risk and reward is much different now.
Having struggled by his standards over the past few weeks, Johnson knows a win will automatically lock him into the Eliminator Eight, but he does not feel the reward would be worth the risk of fighting for a win with a third-place car.
"If we don't have an opportunity to win and we're in third, we need to make sure we finish third," Johnson said Thursday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. "This can be a track that creates similar issues to what we saw in Kansas with the tire failure situation and even from a crash standpoint. We run really hard around this track, and it's kind of narrow once you get up to speed and you're going really fast. And then with Talladega, gosh, anything can happen over there. Points are still on my mind, although I think that's a closing door or a fading opportunity. My real opportunity is to win here or to win at Talladega to advance."
On the other side of things, Earnhardt Jr.'s poor finish at Kansas has allowed the team to "go for broke" in the next two races.
"I feel less pressure now, I think, than I did before the race at Kansas," he said. "Even, I think, if we had run in the top five last week, I think today still under the circumstances now I still feel less pressure for some reason -- it's weird. I just think that we have a shot, and I feel good about it."
While wins are the golden ticket into the next round of the Chase, solid finishes mean more than ever, and one poor finish could ruin one's shot at winning the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
There is a fine line each week for competitors between going for a position and potentially winding up in a bad spot. However, for those drivers racing to avoid elimination and contend for a championship at the end of the year, that balance is much finer.
VIDEO: Greg Biffle wrecks Jimmie Johnson at Kansas Speedway
