NASCAR Cup Series

Winless Chase winner a nightmare for NASCAR officials

Published Aug. 26, 2010 4:32 p.m. ET

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This is NASCAR's worst nightmare:

Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart wins the Chase for the Sprint Cup this year.

Without winning a race.

Gordon has won four NASCAR Cup titles. Stewart has won two.

NASCAR doesn't want them winning another.

Not this year.

Not unless they win at least one of the next 12 races.

The Chase, which was implemented in 2004, is designed to pit the 12 best drivers and teams in a 10-race playoff for the series championship.

Ideally, those 12 drivers and teams should be ones that have won at least one of the first 26 races. If not, then, ideally, they would win at least one of the final 10.

Though its points system is based on consistency, NASCAR has never had a winless champion in its 62-year history.

Four drivers (Bill Rexford, Ned Jarrett, Benny Parson and Matt Kenseth) won the title with only one victory. The last time it happened — Kenseth in 2003 — NASCAR immediately blew up its season-long points system and created the Chase.

To have a champion that wins the title without winning a single race now would be a black mark against the sport and a serious knock against the Chase format. The controversy it would create would be practically endless.

NASCAR has even taken steps to make sure it doesn't happen, awarding bonus points to drivers that win races and stacking the odds against drivers that do not.

The closest anyone has come to pulling it off is Kevin Harvick, who finished fourth in the 2008 Chase without winning a race.

In most years, the majority of Chase drivers win at least once. In the first three years of the Chase, only two Chase drivers (Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin) finished the season without a victory.

In 2007, all 12 drivers won.

But the possibility of a winless champion is becoming more and more likely.

NASCAR expanded the Chase field to 12 teams in 2007, and in the past two years, seven Chase drivers did not win a race.

This could be the year it finally happens.

Gordon currently sits second in points, 279 behind Harvick, but has not won a race.

Carl Edwards is fourth in points without having won. Winless Tony Stewart is sixth.

With just two races remaining before the Chase, six of the 12 Chase drivers could be winless heading into the 10-race playoff, creating the distinct possibility that NASCAR could have a winless champion.

The odds are greatly enhanced when you consider some of the drivers that haven't won yet.

Except for Harvick, Gordon has been the most consistent driver on the circuit, with 10 top-five and 13 top-10 finishes.

Stewart struggled early but has been one of the hottest drivers in the second half of the season, scoring top-10 finishes in nine of his last 11 races.

So has Edwards, who won nine races and finished second in points in 2008. This year, Edwards got off to a slow start before reeling off six straight top-10s and climbing to fourth in points.

Is it possible?

Yes, says Gordon.

"Mathematically, I know it is."

"Man, if you score the most points, you score the most points," Harvick said.

Enhancing the possibility is the fact that both four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who each have five wins this season, have been wildly inconsistent.

Both have gone on hot streaks, and then fallen into terrible slumps. Johnson, who wrecked last week at Bristol, has fallen all the way to ninth in points and leads all Chase contenders with four DNFs.

Hamlin is fifth, but both drivers will climb back to the top of the standings when bonus points are added and points are reset for the Chase.

The other likely contenders are Harvick and Kyle Busch, who have three wins each, and 2004 champion Kurt Busch, who has two. The Busch brothers have also been inconsistent throughout the season.

But it's entirely possible that Gordon, Stewart or Edwards could pull the upset without getting to Victory Lane.

If it happens, NASCAR will have some big fires to put out.

"I think it's easy to take shots at someone if that did happen," Harvick says. "A lot of comments would come out, but at the end of the day, the rules are there, and you won the championship the way the rules allow it."

Most drivers say they would gladly take the championship trophy without winning a race.

"You win it however you win it," Gordon said. "Do I want to win the championship without having a win? No. But I'll still take it and take it proudly."

"[I don't mind], not in the least," Stewart said. "I'll take the check. I'll take the trophy. I don't care if I didn't finish in the top 10 the last 10 weeks if I got enough points to win the championship."

Even drivers that have won this year say they won't mind if a winless driver takes the title.

"I would take a championship in a heartbeat with no wins," said Greg Biffle, who has one win this season. "If I won a race and they didn't, and they won a championship, well, then I screwed up somewhere by not running good enough."

"When you're sitting there staring at that trophy and that big check they give you," Harvick said, "you really don't care what people say."

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