As the NASCAR Cup Series heads into the third race weekend of the regular season, there are plenty of heavy hitters who are already making their presence known.
Perennial favorite Joey Logano, points leader Ross Chastain, last week’s victor Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin are sitting solidly in the top 10 in points.
This means they are the favorites to win the championship title this season.
Now wait a minute. We’re only two races in and the word championship is already being thrown around? It’s way too early to be doing that. There are plenty of others like Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott who are contenders too.
Well, according to history, they really aren’t.
That’s because drivers who performed well in the first two races of the season overwhelmingly wind up holding the championship trophy at the season’s end versus those who don’t. Sixteen of the last 23 Cup champions held a top 10 points position after the second race of the year.
That is good news for Logano’s title defense and bad for 2021 champion Larson. After crashing out on the final lap of the Daytona 500 and suffering engine woes at Auto Club Speedway, the California driver sits a distant 24th heading into Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend.
Larson is not alone in this predicament, as several other supposed championship threats have stumbled out of the gate. William Byron and Chase Briscoe were playoff drivers last season but currently sit 29th and 33rd, respectively. Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones and Ryan Preece are also near the bottom of the list.
But no driver is in worse shape than Tyler Reddick. He was in the playoffs last year, but right now, you can count the number of points he has on one hand. Two early-race crashes in as many races will do that to you.
So it is no surprise that a driver with just four points is sitting dead last among all points-eligible drivers, including Travis Pastrana, JJ Yeley and Jimmie Johnson, who all have only competed in one race so far this season.
So, what’s the big deal? We’ve got 34 races to go. Larson and Reddick are championship-caliber drivers. Only a few points have been awarded so far. They will get back up to the top in no time. Frankly, at this point in the season, to quote Drew Carey, the points really don’t matter.
Once again, history says they actually do.
Since 2000, the furthest back a champion has been after competing in two races was 22nd, above where all…
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