Cup Championship thread --- Phoenix

StandOnIt said:
To me it's a red flag that a team like Penske has cheated up the car and is trying to get the cheats thru inspection.
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=If= they tried, they got caught. The car eventually passed to NASCAR's satisfaction, before and after. The system worked, at least as much can be expected.
 
StandOnIt said:
To me it's a red flag that a team like Penske has cheated up the car and is trying to get the cheats thru inspection. It being the last race and all, the penalties for what they were doing aren't going to hurt their next race AND they might slip some of them by.
After all, teams use umbrellas to shade the car when they go thru inspection. Any little aero tweak that makes it thru is an advantage.
The 22 car has an average finish of 17th on the year and it became the fastest championship car. I say good job, whatever they did made a difference.

Now a lower level team failing three times is another story. It usually is lack of preparedness,
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It might be a red flag but it doesn't make any difference in the end. As long as the car passed inspection, regardless of the number of attempts to do so, raced the distance and passed post-race inspection, it doesn't matter.
If red flags were to be considered when cars fail inspection a few times it shows they are taking every advantage, edge, and/or gray area of the rule book.
 
Whizzer said:
It might be a red flag but it doesn't make any difference in the end. As long as the car passed inspection, regardless of the number of attempts to do so, raced the distance and passed post-race inspection, it doesn't matter.
If red flags were to be considered when cars fail inspection a few times it shows they are taking every advantage, edge, and/or gray area of the rule book.
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Here is what the original poster said below. I read it to say they were pushing every limit so it isn't a coincidence that they won the race. It does matter because a car that runs dirtier is a slower car.

Anyone else realize the car the took 3 tries to make it through tech wins? I don't think that's a coincidence
 
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StandOnIt said:
Here is what the original poster said below. I read it to say they were pushing every limit so it isn't a coincidence that they won the race. It does matter because a car that runs dirtier is a slower car.

Anyone else realize the car the took 3 tries to make it through tech wins? I don't think that's a coincidence
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Why should it make a difference it took three tries to pass inspection and wins?
How many times in recent history have cars taken three times to pass inspection and not won?
Does anyone ever question that?
Fact is, the 22 car made three passes before passing inspection. Logano is a proven winner and obviously he and Blaney had the faster cars on the day the championship was decided. Is anyone questioning how many times the 12 car tried to pass inspection as it was clearly as fast as the 22.
 
Whizzer said:
Why should it make a difference it took three tries to pass inspection and wins?
How many times in recent history have cars taken three times to pass inspection and not won?
Does anyone ever question that?
Fact is, the 22 car made three passes before passing inspection. Logano is a proven winner and obviously he and Blaney had the faster cars on the day the championship was decided. Is anyone questioning how many times the 12 car tried to pass inspection as it was clearly as fast as the 22.
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12 was faster....to your point
 
The fascinating part of the whole race weekend was how superior Penske is from the engineering side. They were mediocre in the spring, and came back dominant in practice, qualifying, and the race. We are talking about teams' best stuff....with time to prepare, and Penske stepped on Toyota and Chevy's throats. Joey is a winner and Blaney has gone next level--no question--but it's the preparation and professionalism of that organization that has everybody looking silly this morning. To come back from the beginning of the year where they were off, and to dominate is quite amazing.....all in a "spec" car that cannot be manipulated. Penske: "STFU and hold my beer." Got our asses kicked. We have work to do. Renewed my Phoenix tickets for next year already. I. Love. This. Sport.
 
Matter of opinion is that most racing fans don't drool over "engineering". They just want their driver to have a fair shake at winning the championship. It used to be about performance in the long season terms not a driver with a 17th place finishing average winning the whole thing. That's a stretch tooo far.
 
StandOnIt said:
Matter of opinion is that most racing fans don't drool over "engineering". They just want their driver to have a fair shake at winning the championship. It used to be about performance in the long season terms not a driver with a 17th place finishing average winning the whole thing. That's a stretch tooo far.
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"Most." Whatever. Everybody had a fair shake at the championship. Everybody. Penske Perfect is a thing to be admired.
 
BobbyFord said:
For S&Gs…
beyondtheflag.com

NASCAR Cup Series: Full 2024 point standings (without playoffs)

2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano did not even finish in the top 10 in total points scored throughout the season.
beyondtheflag.com beyondtheflag.com
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37 points separated the top 4 drivers with only 5 points between 1st and 2nd. I can't see why with the close racing they have in Nascar these days that they can't have a simplistic points system that fans can figure on the fly, and the gerbils/media can find enough drama in that. Bell and Larson were neck and neck almost all season.
 
The lack of speed that the 45 had was very suprising to me. I understand someone in the final 4 has to be 4th, but with the speed Toyota had in the spring I was expecting more.

Was it just too much distraction with the penalties and lawsuit? Information overload with JGR throwing everything at them?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
 
Joey Logano has the same number of championships as the guy he replaced at JGR. What's scarier is he's only 34. He's still right in the middle of his prime.

It's entirely possible that we haven't seen the best of him yet. He hasn't had an 8-win dominant type of season. He's very capable of doing so.

Also, 576 straight starts without missing a race. He truly has a passion for the sport, which has gotten him this far.
 
Well...my final thoughts on 2024. Most importantly the racing was better overall. I think NASCAR has done a good job of starting to understand that they need a softer tire and that's huge. I think back to the entirety of the season and the only "boring" races I remember were both Phoenix races (the finale was a little better but not much) and some of the speedway races. I know those have exciting finishes but the fuel mileage parades leading up to that are painful. I think there is still work to be done on the short track package but the softer tires were a great start.

I hope the biggest thing to come out of this is that NASCAR sees the format needs work. No disrespect to the 22 but I just don't believe this was a championship-worthy season. I could pick the low-hanging fruit here and compare him to Larson but everyone knows that Larson had a way better year. Let's compare him to Chase who many seem to think under-achieved. Chase had 4 more top-5's, 6 more top 10's and led more laps and had a WAY better average finish. The ONE category Logano beat him? You guessed it - wins. Don't get me wrong - Logano is turning out to be an all-time great and I am not saying they don't "deserve" this since they went out and did what they had to do to win in this format. My question though is this the type of season that NASCAR wants to be representative of their champion? Logano had a terrible year for over 75% of the time. I was even posting here at one point asking what the hell happened to that team. If I remember correctly, they were going to be eliminated before the round of 8 but then benefited from the Bowman DQ and then pulled a fuel milage win to make the final 4 at which races they were clearly up to something at the car failed tech 3 times. If this is what NASCAR thinks a championship should look like then I guess I just disagree. I think a title should be more reflective of an entire season but that's me I guess - not everyone.

The last thing I will point out as a Chevy/HMS fan is that I am concerned about them overall. For starters, since Elliott in 2020 and Larson in 2021, they are not bringing enough speed to the title race. Had Larson or Chase made it they would have fared no better than Byron. They were decent but you can't be "decent" to win in this format in the finale. Also - I am confused about Chevy's commitment at this point. Ford and Toyota and putting money into developing new bodies and nothing from Chevy of note and they even discontinued production of the Camaro so not sure what they are doing really.

All in all though - Lots of good things happened this year and I think NASCAR is heading in the right direction. Regardless of my concerns above I seriously want to congratulate Logano fans. I hope things continue in the right direction next year. Hard to believe the Clash at Bowman Gray is less than 83 days away already. I hope everyone enjoys the holidays with friends and family.
 
BobbyFord said:
The "Championship" is irrelevant. That's why they're still removing seats.
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if we must have the playoffs go back to it like the first year.

Top 10 in Points gets in.

That was the best version and funny Nascar got drama for the final race with Kurt,Jimmie,and Jeff and that that was still not good enough for them and added wildcard cards a year later.
 
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Charlie Spencer said:
Yeah, we saw it the first time when someone else posted it yesterday. It was irrelevant then and it still is now.
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agreed I get Bobby hates the playoffs and I hate the current version of it but you can't say who would be champion using the old Winston cup format cause drivers race different doing the year cause of the playoffs format so its waste of time to do this when we don't know how things would had played out had we used it going into the season.
 
wi_racefan said:
The lack of speed that the 45 had was very suprising to me. I understand someone in the final 4 has to be 4th, but with the speed Toyota had in the spring I was expecting more.

Was it just too much distraction with the penalties and lawsuit? Information overload with JGR throwing everything at them?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
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Yeah, I was a bit surprised as well, but like I said, I think Tyler is still a step away. He needed a perfect weekend.....The Penskes didn't, but got one anyway. Got beat.
 
BobbyFord said:
Demonstrate something that hasn’t happened? They aren’t under the previous championship method.
The seats weren’t removed under the previous format.
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So it can't shown they wouldn't have been removed under the old format. If that can't be shown, it follows that the current format can't be shown to be responsible for smaller crowds. What has been shown is that attendance is down across the board for live sports.
 
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