In the movie “Gone with the Wind,” Scarlett O’Hara makes the statement, “I won’t worry about that today. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!”
I sort of feel like we do that in our sport once the season is over.
Now sure, everything slows down to a certain degree after the NASCAR finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The banquets are over and our champions in all three series are crowned. The crews get a much-needed break and get to enjoy the holidays with their families.
There are some exciting things as we prepare to turn the corner on 2010 and head into 2011. You have major crew chief changes like at Hendrick Motorsports. You have major sponsor changes like Budweiser moving to the No. 29 car of Kevin Harvick and Shell/Pennzoil moving to the No. 2 car of Kurt Busch. You have a brand new pavement at Daytona International Speedway that’s going to make for yet another thrilling Daytona 500 in February on FOX.
What fascinates me, however, is how things in the season that just ended, pretty much get swept under the rug and forgotten about until the new season is under way.
The Chase for the Sprint Cup is the perfect example. Everybody writes about what needs to be done to the Chase. You’ll hear the Chase is just fine. You’ll hear the Chase needs to be shortened. You’ll hear the Chase needs to be thrown completely away.
You hear a lot of that with a few races to go in every season, but once the checkered flag falls at Homestead, it just seems that talk stops. That’s why it reminded me of Scarlett’s line about not worrying about that today. Sometimes I think that’s why things don’t get done in a timely fashion. Once the proverbial wheel stops squeaking, then we don’t have to put any more grease on it.
Other things take its place in line, like TV ratings, attracting new sponsors, declining race attendance, etc. Personally, I think the Chase needs to stay on the front burner. I think it’s of more importance than worrying about how many Sprint Cup drivers are going to run in the Nationwide Series.
I know I am deviating from my point, but I just think that whole thing will be a travesty.
They don’t need to be messing around with the Nationwide Series and how it’s been run all these years. I just think this will be another time when rules will be created that will create unintended consequences. That’s unfortunate because there’s nothing wrong with it. Go listen to the lyrics of Billy Joel’s song “Just The Way You Are,” because they really come into play here.
I think the fans sometimes believe NASCAR has let them down on too many occasions. See the fans keep demanding changes. So many of the changes that have been made in the last seven to eight years of our sport have been done to appease the fans. Sometimes, though, as I tell folks, you have to be careful what you wish for.
If these changes in the Nationwide Series that everyone is talking about happen, well I think it’s going to cause a lot of confusion in a series that’s been doing just fine. It might just be one of those times when you might want to leave well enough alone. We do have a tendency to work on something that isn’t broken, until it is broken. That seems to happen a lot.
I know, get back to my original point about the Chase. I evidently haven’t done a good enough job explaining what I would like to see happen to the Chase. Remember that when the Chase starts, there are 12 drivers that are locked in place. You can never fall lower than 12th in the final season points. Once the Chase starts, you literally could go some place warm, sit in the sand and yet still finish 12th in points.
Naturally you have your favorites going in. For this year's Chase it was Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Harvick. Some guys barely made it in and weren’t factors. That’s not surprising. Like I keep saying, you don’t take a mediocre team and turn it into a championship-winning team simply by qualifying for the Chase.
Let’s look at the top 10 drivers. That’s the threshold, because they are the only ones that get to go on stage at the awards banquet at Las Vegas. I never could figure out why they put all this importance of having 12 drivers in the Chase and all the accolades that go with that, but then only allow the top 10 to go on stage.
Being in the top 10 at the end of the year was a big honor. You got to go up on stage, get a big check, thank your team, owner, sponsor and the fans. So let’s look at resetting the Chase field every two to three races. The guys at the bottom are no longer in the Chase. Sure, they can still race for points and for wins, but they can’t win the title.
I like what the NHRA does – the Countdown to One. That’s really what we are trying to do here. If they would have done that this year, there would be some surprises in the top 10 in the final points. The top tier would have been Johnson, Harvick, Hamlin and Carl Edwards, but guess who would have been fifth? Mark Martin in the No. 5 car. Joey Logano in the No. 20 car would have been sixth. Matt Kenseth in the No. 17 and Jamie McMurray and the No. 1 teams would have come in seventh and eighth position in the final points. Greg Biffle and the No. 16 team would have been ninth and then Ryan Newman would have been 10th. Tony Stewart would have finished 11th and A.J. Allmendinger would have finished 12th.
That’s how it would have shook out simply based on points garnered in the last 10 races. The Chase should be about exctiement and what's going to happen next. Is my guy in or is my guy out after this race? Again, you can’t have that if 12 guys are locked in and the worst they can finish is 12th at the end of the season.
I just think it would be a good way to add a little excitement and make the Chase more interesting. Like I have said many times, you have to have a race within a race to keep and hold fans' interest. You simply can’t have exciting starts and green-white-checker finishes and hope that folks stick around. I still maintain they need to award bonus points, money or both at strategic times throughout the race. Give the drivers something to work for during the race and not just set up for the end of the race.
The Chase doesn’t need to be thrown away. That’s not going to happen. I still maintain it needs to be tweaked a little bit. I don’t want to turn it into some gimmick. It should be decided by the competitors on the track, not some tricked-up points system that will get you eliminated.
This is the fairest way to do it. It’s based on performance. Isn’t that what our sport is supposed to be about? You perform – you go forward. You don’t perform – you get knocked out and somebody takes your place.
Now that’s what I call a Chase.
