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Coca-Cola 600

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Can Ragan Alter The Wild-Card Picture?

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The eyes of the auto racing world will be in Indianapolis on Sunday, but the eyes of TheSportsNotebook are still focused on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The circuit will be in Charlotte for the second consecutive week, with the running of the Coca-Cola 600 (7 PM ET, Fox).

This is the first points race in two weeks—last week’s event in Charlotte was a non-binding All-Star competition, and a driver that offers some intrigue right now is David Ragan. He’s well behind in the points standing sitting on 26th, but he also has a win. Ragan is the only driver outside the Top 10 with a win and that alone makes him a factor for the postseason discussion.

Let’s take a brief step back and summarize the postseason qualification for people who may just casually follow NASCAR or are new readers to TheSportsNotebook. The top ten drivers qualify automatically. Then there are two wild-cards spot taken. It’s not necessarily #11 or #12 that go—the first criteria is outright wins, and in the event of a tie, then points is used to settle the spot.

That makes Ragan being the only non-Top 10 driver with a win significant, but there is one hitch the driver has to overcome. To be eligible for wild-card consideration you have to rank at least 20th in the points standing and right now Ragan is 26th, 61 points out of eligibility.

“That’s not all that much,” said our resident NASCAR junkie, my brother Bill, when I asked him about Ragan’s point deficit. “If he can just have a string of Top 10s he can make that up.”

Therein lies the problem for Ragan. He’s been consistent, but it’s consistently ranking 20th or lower. Forget the Top 20 overall—in 10 of 11 races, the Ragan has been outside the top 20 in every individual race. The one exception, of course, was his win at Talladega.

Furthermore, Talladega is a super speedway that’s known for its unpredictability. The fact this is the only place Ragan has ran well doesn’t speak positively about his ability to be consistent. Furthermore, Ragan has been a full-time driver since 2007 and only once has he finished in the final Top 20.

Nonetheless, Ragan has the chip he earned at Talladega and until some of the other wild-card possibilities get one of their own, he has to be kept in the playoff discussion.

SUNDAY NIGHT IN CHARLOTTE

Charlotte Motor Speedway—also known as Lowe’s Motor Speedway—picked up the nickname as the House of Jimmy Johnson, thanks to the circuit’s marquee driver winning five times in six races here from 2003-05. But recent years have seen balance, and Johnson has won only once in the nine races Charlotte has hosted since 2008. And there have been some unexpected winners in that time frame, from Jamie McMurray to David Reutimann.

Johnson shares the favorite’s role with Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth, each at 6-1, with Denny Hamlin right behind at 7-1. Kasey Kahne is an 8-1 shot, and then Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon are all slotted at 12-1. There seems to be a lack of respect for Keselowski and Edwards, given the former is last year’s champion and the latter is running second in the points standings.

And if you want a real longshot, David Ragan is 100-1—another upset win would really turn the postseason picture on its head.

Tight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Heads To Charlotte

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The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes to Charlotte on Sunday night for the Coca-Cola 600 at a track with a  reputation for belonging to one driver, but a recent history that suggests otherwise.

“Charlotte is known as the home of Jimmy Johnson,” TheSportsNotebook’s resident NASCAR consultant Bill Flaherty (who doubles as the writer’s brother) told me. The Charlotte Motor Speedway is sponsored by Lowe’s, the same hardware company that also sponsors Johnson, but JJ also won five of six races there in 2003-05. But just as the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry peaked from 2003-05, so did Johnson’s dominance in Carolina. Over the last five years, Charlotte has continued to host two races per year and we’ve had 10 different winners. Johnson’s one of them, but that’s parity that the NFL would smile upon.

Whether this track belongs to Johnson or not is up for debate, but there’s no debating that the controversial driver is making a hard push in the standings. He’s up to fifth place and within 39 points of leader Greg Biffle. “He should be further back, but that’s another story altogether,” Bill griped, regarding NASCAR’s decision to reverse its 25-point penalty on Johnson early in the year when he and his crew chief did the equivalent of putting their car on steroids. To put the point reversal in perspective, it’s the different between fifth place and ninth place. Johnson is also doing his best driving in recent weeks, winning the last Sprint Cup race two weeks ago at Darlington, and then winning a non-points All-Star race last week. I think it’s safe to say that Biffle and other leaders, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin are quite conscious of Johnson in their rearview mirror right now.

Another driver on the move is Kyle Busch, who’s jumped into ninth place and is (-62) back of Biffle, while a comfortable 14 points ahead of 11th place Clint Bowyer. With the top ten drivers guaranteed a spot in the Race For The Cup this fall and a recalibration of their point totals, that’s a significant benchmark. What’s even more significant is that two wild-card drivers are also chosen and Busch, thanks to some early wins, was well-positioned to be one. If he’s in the Top 10, that wild-card spot can go somewhere else, and Bill has his eye on Brad Keselowski, currently sitting in 12th but with wins at Bristol and Talladega under his belt, as being in prime position.

The Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte starts at 5:30 PM ET on Fox. For those that will be inclined to otherwise watch the NBA’s Western Conference Finals opener between San Antonio-Oklahoma City later on (check TheSportsNotebook on Saturday for the preview) or Sunday Night Baseball with Washington-Atlanta in a key NL East game, have the end of the race in Charlotte ready as a place to audible down to during commercials. Of course hard-core NASCAR fans need so such option, as the Cup race is as tight as it’s been since the beginning of the season.