The thing about the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup that the naysayers need to wake up to is that it’s working.
We aren’t really that different from the stick-and-ball sports. In baseball, we have seen World Series where it went to the seventh game before the champion was decided. We’ve also see World Series where it was four games and done.
We’ve had Super Bowls that were really close scores and sometimes gone down to the last yard of the last play. Remember the Tennessee Titans a few years ago coming up one yard short on the last play of the game? We’ve also had Super Bowls that were blowouts.
My point is there never is a perfect world in any kind of sporting events.
It just happens that this year in the Chase, it looks to literally go down to the wire. You heard me say back before the Chase that no one could get on a hot streak and stay there. It really made me believe that we were going to have a really close Chase this year and we are.
So here we are with only three races to go and we truly have the three best teams, with the three best drivers, vying for the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship. These have been the three best teams during the entire season, so it really shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone to see where they are now.
Naturally, crew chief Chad Knaus and the entire No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team have the experience of knowing what they have to do these final three races. They are up against two teams and drivers that have never won a championship. That being said, the team owners for each have plenty of experience at winning championships.
So I have to say it’s as good as it gets right now.
I know saying there are only three races to go makes it sound like we are at the bare minimum. The thing to remember, though, is there is plenty of racing left. This weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, we have a 500-miler. Following that is a relatively short race at Phoenix International Raceway with only 312 miles, but then following that is the 400-mile race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
My point is we have over 1,000 miles to go at three fairly different race tracks. To be at this point in the season with three teams only separated by 38 points, well I am not sure you can make it any better than that.
Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway was exciting and I can honestly say there wasn’t anything I didn’t like. We had a lot of lead changes amongst a lot of drivers. We saw some drivers up front that we normally don’t see running at the front.
I love this Talladega phenomenon that has come about this last two years where two cars can hook up and pick up all this speed over the rest of the field.
Just look at Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson late in the race. They went into Turn 1 running back in like the 20th and 21st positions. They hooked up and by Turn 3, they were in first and second place. I’ve just never seen anything like that in my life.
I know we had the big wreck on the white-flag lap, but I was so thankful to see yet again the safety measures in place do their job and everyone walked away.
I know there are probably a bunch of drivers and team owners that will disagree with me, but I swear I would love to see more than just four restrictor-plate races in a year. I don’t know how you cannot get excited about that kind of racing.
If you notice, the car could do this with the wing and now it’s doing it with the rear spoiler. This car must like the package we have right now. That’s why there is no boring race ever at Daytona or Talladega. Don’t forget, when we head to Daytona in February that there will be a completely repaved track for them to battle on.
There’s no reason to believe that the closeness of the racing plus the excitement won’t be even enhanced on the new Daytona surface.
I really am excited because we should really start our 11th season of NASCAR on FOX coverage off with a bang.
