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Race
Summary:
The
Hottest Hot Rod With several "Hot Rod" teams, it is very
clear that our hottest rod Presley Hot Rods. After passing The Crew
several weeks back, PHR has slowly been pulling away from second place and the
rest of the field. With two races left, a 19 point isn't enough padding to
be comfortable, though. If The Crew can pull a Carl Edwards - some talent
and skill (and an insane amount of luck) - maybe it will be enough to gain the
#1 spot. On the other hand, our league's own likeness of Jimmie Johnson
has just been consistently great in these last chase races. Even if The
Crew turns in a great performance the last two races, it may not be enough to
top Presley Hot Rods. It will be a race to the finish!
Separation Sunday After a
little blurb about the top two teams, there was not much mention of anyone else
in the hunt for the 2008 League Championship. That's because the top two
seem to be in a group of their own. 70 points back is #3 Speedracer, who
just knocked off Whitetrash last week. These two team (#3 & #4) are
within eight points of each other and could give pretty good competition in the
final races of the season. Now, they are certainly not out of contention
for the league championship, but barring a double disaster for the top two teams
the odds are not likely that they will challenge the leaders.
Not-So
Hot Rod The next in line in the #5 place is Hot Rod Wildcat.
Being over 120 points back from the leader, it's say to say that championship
hopes are pretty much finished for anyone fifth place or more.
Racing...
Three-Wide Going into the final turn on the last lap are three
"Racey" teams, JoJoRacing, Billinger Racing, & DUI Racing.
These teams are separated by less than 25 points and look to make things very
interesting in the last two races of the season.
Rounding
out the top 10 Coming in at #9 and #10 after last week are Brickman
and Fighting Corncob, both moving up a spot in the season standings this week.
No
Repeat This Year Last year's league champion dirty duck had some
bad luck and fell out of the top ten this week. Hope for a top ten is not
completely lost, though - with two races left and just a few points back from
#10 and less than 30 points from #9.
Too
close to call? With two races left, here's how the league's
teams break down in the categories:
Wins:
Cattleman has at the very least a tie for the wins category. With a lead
of two at 19 and only two races left, all they need is a winner in one of the
final races to seal the deal and take home the prize for the most wins in a
season! JoJoRacing and Brickman are tied for second at 17 wins.
Top
5's: This one can still be up for grabs, but our top team is also the top
five leader right now. Presley Hot Rods has the highest count at 58.
Another Hot Rod (Wildcat) and Speedracer are in second place with 56. DUI
Racing is also in contention with 55. There are quite a few teams at 54
and 53 - could be a very interesting finish in the top 5's!
Top
10's: The two top teams are tied for top tens! At 89 each, Presley
Hot Rods and The Crew are racing for more than just a championship.
Closely following them is Speedracer with 88. Several more teams are at 84
top tens or just a few less, and they are certainly still in the race with two
races left and a possible 8 point swing in the top 10's.
Record-Setting
Pace Since the inception of the league, the lowest points
total for the season was in 2006 when Razor X won the championship with 1764
total points. This year it looks like our champion will be well under 1600
points. Likewise, since I have been the league administrator, we are also
already ahead or tied with the category records. We have had some great
lineups this year! We have had a few less of the "disaster
lineups" this year - those races where several of the most popular lineup
drivers have a horrible day at the track. The entire league has been doing
well this year, with points totals on average less than ever before. I
attribute some of this to what I'm going to call the "Mark Martin
factor". This year we had a part-time driver (Mark Martin) that did
not race often and therefore did not have a high salary, since the salaries are
directly related to driver points. Mark is a great driver - I would say
much better than the rest of the drivers around his price range. Looking
at the lineups week to week, when Mark is entered in a race he seems to be the
popular "budget" driver in most lineups. And so with good
finishes from a budget selection, lineups are going to look a little better week
after week.
Race On!
~ Adam
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