Photo: Dominic Aragon/TRE
Sunday night I got back from the golf course and sat down to watch the final 40 laps of the Ally 400 at Nashville. As I watched Chase Elliott drive away on the final two restarts, two thoughts popped into my head…
First off, Elliott has to be the championship favorite as of now. He’s now part of the log jam at the top with two wins on the season while also being one of two drivers with over 500 laps led on the season. He’s led the points since Atlanta and already has 13 playoff points in the bank. Something would have to go very wrong for Elliott to not even make it to Phoenix.
My second thought is that Elliott is perhaps the weakest championship favorite in years. Now that may sound like an oxymoron; but I think there’s some merit to it. Despite a pair of wins, Elliott is on pace for nine top-fives, fewer than any champion has had since Tony Stewart in 2011. Additionally, Elliott has a good, but not great average-finish of 11.9. This mark is the best in the series, but also on the lower end for recent champions.
Elliott has benefitted largely on stage points and salvaging top-10s and top-15s. He has been the most consistent driver in a season defined by inconsistency and parity. While this may sound like a shot at Elliott, it’s more intended to look at how interesting this season has been. Nobody, aside from Ross Chastain, seems to want to go on a tear and have a career year.
This is unlike the past seasons where we’ve seen a nine-win and ten-win season. However, there is one season from a few decades back that we can draw comparisons to. That would be the 2002 season, a year full of surprises and uncertainty, along with a championship that nobody seemed to want to win.
The Elliott of this season was Sterling Marlin, who led the points from the second race of the season up until race no. 27 at New Hampshire. Much like Elliott, Marlin won just twice, riding a wave of top-10s and top-20s to stay atop a fury of inconsistent drivers. Before his season was cut short after a crash at Kansas, Marlin had just eight top-fives in 29 races, with an average-finish of 13.9.
Another similarity in 2002 is the parity. Five drivers scored their first wins, most notably Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman as rookies as well as Jamie McMurray in his second start replacing Marlin. The wins were very split up, as only two drivers, Kurt Busch (another first time winner) and Matt Kenseth won more than three races.
The championship that year went to Stewart, who had to make a thunderous comeback at the end of the season. Stewart was last in the Daytona 500 after blowing a motor and was in seventh after 21 races. From there, he won the next week at Watkins Glen, and rode a stretch of top-fives and top-10s while guys like Johnson and Mark Martin floundered after taking a brief points lead. After getting the championship lead after Talladega, Stewart had one finish worse than 14th and won his first by 38 points.
Now there can obviously be no comparison to Stewart given the playoff format we have today. However, looking at where he was at with seven top-fives and nine top-10s after 17 races, one driver matches both those stats. Having a “down” year after what he did a year ago, Kyle Larson has exactly the same number of top-fives and top-10s as Stewart did after 17 races that year, sitting a spot higher than Stewart was. What does this mean? Probably nothing, but if this season has taught us anything, it’s that you never know what will happen next.
One thing I can say for certain is that I have loved what we’ve seen so far in 2022. Not only has the racing improved, the points battle is truly fascinating to follow. I think things will continue to look good and if we get an ending that’s anything like 2002, we’ll be talking about it for a long time to come.
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