NASCAR week 20

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Harvick 100%
Johnson 100%
Hamlin 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Kenseth 93%
Edwards 79%
Burton 77%
Biffle 67%
Bowyer 51%
Martin 48%
Newman 28%
Kahne 26%
Reutimann 13%
Earnhardt 11%
McMurray 3%
Montoya 2%
Logano 2%

As we get down to the final few races, the divide between whose got a chance and who doesn't has really widen. Seven spots in the Chase look pretty well solidified, and another five appear very likely to make. It's really just down to who's getting the 12th spot, with Bowyer and Martin having an even chance. However, Newman and the rest of them aren't out of the game yet. Earnhardt is only a few points behind martin, he's chances are just low because of his record last year.

McMurray won, but as you can probably tell, it didn't help him a lot, it basically just kept him in the game. If he had finished 21st or worse, he would no longer have a chance. The biggest gainer was Burton (65% to 77%) although he only finished 6th. He actually has more points than Kenseth, he just has a poor record from last year keeping him down. The biggest loser was Reutimann (25% to 13%), erasing the gains he made when he won at Chicago.

McDonald's and Condoms

I keep seeing this story pop up on various blogs and forums. The reason I wanted to comment on this is because this is the original source of the story: CAP News. Notice anything about the site? It's a satirical site like the Onion. This fact is pretty obvious once you visit the site, but few people are.

The post on Failblog is where most people have seen the story now, but it provides no information on the source, plus the story has a less tongue-and-cheek tone so it's obviously not from the original website. Instead that image is taken from Opposing Views which in turn uses Terra as it's source (or more correctly, just copies it), which doesn't provide any source information at all.

This brings up something about blogs that I've really grown to dislike, it seems nobody is capable of sourcing where information originally came from. If they cite at all they just cite the blog they read it from until you just end up with a chain of blogs posts about an article that none of them of actually read.

NASCAR week 19

Top 21 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Johnson 100%
Hamlin 100%
Harvick 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 99%
Kenseth 88%
Edwards 71%
Burton 65%
Biffle 56%
Martin 49%
Bowyer 43%
Newman 34%
Kahne 31%
Reutimann 25%
Earnhardt 20%
Montoya 13%
Logano 5%
McMurray 2%
Truex 0.2%

Saturday's race was kind of insane and led to lots of weird results, the most notable being Reutimann winning. Despite winning though, he was not the biggest gainer as his chances of making the Chase still remain low (19% to 25%). The biggest gainer was second place finisher Edwards (59% to 71%) who has been shaky ground for a long time, but now looks very likely to make the Chase. The biggest loser was Biffle, who used be pretty safe, but is now on shaky ground (71% to 56%).

NASCAR week 18

Top 21 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Johnson 100%
Harvick 100%
Hamlin 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 97%
Kenseth 84%
Biffle 71%
Edwards 59%
Burton 56%
Martin 52%
Newman 42%
Bowyer 36%
Kahne 30%
Earnhardt 25%
Reutimann 19%
Montoya 17%
Logano 8%
McMurray 2%
Truex 1%

Switched to the top 21 drivers as there are only 21 drivers left that can make it. Harvick hit the 100% mark, so despite winning the race, he was not the largest gainer. Instead it was Burton, who finished 5th, who was the biggest gainer (44% to 56%). The biggest loser was Newman (49% to 42%), who like many of the drivers, got involved in one of the many wrecks this race.