Is there a loophole in the NASCAR Chase points format? Juan Pablo Montoya has been around NASCAR long enough (this is his 3rd full season and he is learning more every race) that he's a legitimate title contender. That's not the issue. The question is that Juan Montoya (official website) is currently ranked 3rd (NASCAR standings here) despite not really matching up in a number of categories.
Let's look. He has not even won 1 race all season. This by itself is not that unusual as 4 Chase contenders have not won. However, the point is that 13 other drivers have won a race. Also, its not the only Montoya weak spot statistically. He has finished in the Top 5 in a race only 6 times through 30 races. Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin have finished in the Top 5 twice as often. Tony Stewart has finished in the Top five 15 times and won 4 races and yet Montoya is ranked ahead of him? Not only this, Tony Stewart is even less bad than Montoya, finishing worst than 20th just 3 times versus Montoya's 5 bad finishes. So what is it that makes Montoya ranked so high?
The answer is the Chase. Standings are basically reset once the Chase starts (with 10 races to go the top 12 drivers in the standings all have their points reset to 5000 plus 10 for every race they have won-- so, essentially even). Four of Montoya's 7 Top 5 finishes have come in the last 4 races (the first 4 of the Chase). Pretty clutch performance. Still, Tony won 2 weeks ago, but his 14th and 9th finishes in the first two Chase races. If there is a loophole it is consistency. The NASCAR points formula penalizes a winner-take-all mentality. Some more recent chatter about the topic here.
(note Montoya finished 35th in last nights NASCAR race dropping him to 6th)
