Cup chase now more about wins than points
IndyCar’s long-delayed finish comes Sunday
FORT WORTH — Chase Elliott insists he has worried less about the points situation during this NASCAR season than ever before, and that might just be the right approach for those Cup drivers still with championship hopes.
Elliott will start Sunday at Texas just below the cutoff line for the top four that will race for the title next month, even though he currently has the fourth-most points.
“It’s not that I don’t care,” Elliott said. “It does matter, but I just think the more that you understand that winning is paramount and that’s the only guarantee that moves you on.”
Like Joey Logano did last weekend at Kansas to start the final three-race playoff round, holding off Kevin Harvick for the final 40-plus laps to get a victory that took him from outside the top four to knowing he will get to race for the title Nov. 8 at Phoenix.
Of the remaining seven playoff contenders, nine-time 2020 winner Harvick is in the best spot, leading by 21 points over Denny Hamlin, 33 over Brad Keselowski and 41 over Elliott. Alex Bowman, Martin Truex Jr. and Kurt Busch, the rest of the top eight, likely have to win at Texas or Martinsville for a championship shot.
“You count points as a second move, as your backup plan, just because of the fact the thing that you can control the most of moving forward is to win the race,” Harvick said. “I think our team believes in that, and I think you have to race to win and then see where it all falls in the end.”
Harvick has won the last three fall races at Texas, which like Kansas is a 1 ½ -mile track but has a much different configuration, and starts on the pole Sunday. Logano is also on the front row, ahead of Keselowski and Elliott.
It’s the 36th start at Texas for Harvick and Kurt Busch, the most at the track that is hosting its 40th Cup race since 1997.
Another win in the Lone Star State for Harvick or Hamlin, also a threetime winner there, could simplify things quite a bit going to Martinsville. A win by someone already out of title contention would put several drivers in an even more precarious situation at NASCAR’s oldest and shortest track.
INDYCAR: Seven months after the coronavirus pandemic brought the sports world to a sudden stop, IndyCar returns to St. Petersburg, Fla., where drivers were finally sent home 48 hours before the March 15 scheduled start.
IndyCar is celebrating the completion of a season that was once in doubt, but the damage caused by the shutdown is unknown. The entire industry left St. Pete in March unsure how IndyCar could survive.
St. Pete was supposed to be IndyCar’s first under new owner Roger Penske, who spent some $300 million the first week of January to close a deal for both the series and national landmark Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Instead, IndyCar’s ability to even race was in jeopardy, never mind trying to complete a season.
Yet here IndyCar is, back on the St. Pete streets preparing to crown a champion in Sunday’s season finale. Scott Dixon will either win a sixth title or reigning champion Josef Newgarden will make it two-in-a-row.
XFINITY: In Fort Worth, Harrison Burton stormed past Noah Gragson in the final turn Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway to win the Xfinity Series race and deny Gragson a spot in the championship round.