Proposed NASCAR Chase Changes Are For The Birds!

In its usual fashion, NASCAR floated out some possible changes to the point system to get some reaction before it announces the final changes to be made in less than 2 weeks.

This hare-brained idea is to increase the number of teams in the Chase to 16 with the bottom four drivers eliminated in races three, six and nine with a winner take all final race.

Really?

The only ones who seem to be in favor of this new twist are Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Jeff Burton and both Michael and Darrell Waltrip.

On Twitter, many of the supportive comments were using football and other stick and ball sports as an analogy.

Once again, really?

The thing is, race fans are glad NASCAR is not like a stick and ball sport. We don’t need a TV time out. We don’t want a 2 minute warning. We did not even fully embrace the playoff system that was not a playoff system (Brian France’s words). I seem to remember a time when NASCAR royalty was proud of the fact that racing was not like the stick and ball sports.

Now, it seems that we’ll potentially have a combination of the NFL and American Idol to determine our champion. I guess the only thing we are missing is the fan vote each week. But my guess is that we are getting close to that in the next Chase iteration. Maybe then Earnhardt will finally get his title.

So the 16 teams that have won a race would get into the Chase. If you haven’t won a race, you get in on points in the top 16. Let’s look at 2013 to see how that would have panned out. After Richmond, places 13-16 were Jeff Gordon, Jamie McMurray, Brad Keselowski, and Paul Menard. None of those drivers had a win. Forgetting Smoke since he was injured, the drivers with wins that did not make the Chase were Martin Truex, Jr. (17) and David Ragan (25). So those two drivers would have replaced Keselowski and Menard under the new proposed system.

Gordon went on to win a Chase race and finish 8th. McMurray won a race but still ran badly enough to finish 15th. Truex did not win another race and finished 16th while Ragan finished 28th.

Keselowski won a race and finished 14th while Menard went winless and finished 17th.

Outside of Gordon, who got in due to WaltripGate, no other driver really did much to improve their overall position at the end of the year. It is pretty easy to see that the bottom four drivers would have been eliminated quickly after 3 Chase races. So why even add them?

As much as fans complain about Johnson needing an asterisk by his Chase titles, what do you think the reaction would be if David Ragan became Cup champion due to some flukey point system win? He would not have won because he was the best all year, but just the luckiest/best over 10 races – the exact fan complaint about Johnson being champion all these years.

Personally, I would rather see Johnson champion for staying in the top 5 and winning a lot of races all year long instead of some very, very lucky 20th place driver who had 1 or 2 wins all season long.

One could argue that the chances of a 20th place driver winning it all are slim to none. Granted, but what if it happened? What if the 15th best driver going into the Chase manages to stave off elimination and wins it all? You don’t have to be the best in this scenario, just avoid engine failures, wrecks and have some racing luck.

Is that what we really want?

In my opinion, and you can have yours, is that NASCAR and its supportive drivers are missing the KEY POINT: fans just want better racing during the year. We don’t need or want a playoff system. Give more points for a win so a driver that has an engine failure but can get a couple of wins has a chance to get back in the hunt due to WINNING, not some flukey end of season point system. Cup racing is about winning AND consistency. I don’t want a top 25 driver in the Chase because he or she won a plate race and sucked the rest of the year.

Make the races better and fans will watch. Fans don’t watch because of the playoff system you employ. Brian France watches too much football and want to take fans away from the NFL in the fall. It will not happen. The NFL is the most popular sport in this country and you can’t crack that nut. Just concentrate on keeping fans interested ALL SEASON and the rest will take care of itself. Solve the aero issue with the cars and fans will watch. Make leading the points at the end of the “regular” season mean something. Nothing I have heard to date tells me that there will be any more emphasis on winning during the first 26 races or for leading in points.

NASCAR needs to take its eye off the ball and put it on the track.

Weigh in with your take.

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