New NASCAR points system
 

I haven't seen this discussed yet. I'm not the biggest race fan, but I enjoy watching it a bit. I'm interested in some true fan's perspectives on this. Personally, I hate it, and think its gonna kill the last 10 races. With only 10 drivers guaranteed to be going all out to win. It seems to be more of a novelty than a real way to determine a season champion.

http://espn.go.com/rpm/wc/2004/0120/1713379.html

**non NASCAR fan take

That could be the dumbest system ever invented...

Just weight a win more heavily and problem solved.

What's this NACAR thing you're talking about ?

dola -

Oh, and anway, what do you expect from a guy called 'France' ? ;)

** Nascar fan take

This is the dumbest system ever invented...


I agree with rkmsuf. They should place the emphasis on winning. This move has really turned nascar into something like pro basketball. A long, drawn out meaningless season.

Since I've been following NASCAR since the 70's (pre-TV deal), and follow it more closely year-round that any other sport I guess I qualify.

And I've got pretty much the same take on it you do. It's quite possibly the stupidest f'n thing I've ever heard.

Nextel has decided to try to fix something that isn't broken. And IMO they may very well end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg they wanted so badly.

See ratings. See ratings go down.

I suspect we'll watch NASCAR follow the WWF/WWE business model, peak and then return to much-lower previous levels.

Darryl Waltrip (sp?) expressed his displeasure with this to the Terry Bradshaw during the Eagles-Panthers game, I think. I don't really follow NASCAR that much. Heck; I'm not even sure what station it's usually on these days. NBC, FOX, vice versa? ABC, maybe?

I know toward the end of the season when the changes were starting to be proposed, this one came up and I thought it was just going to be one of those idea's that are thrown out there, everyone realizes its stupid, and they go on from there. As some people above said, awarding more points for a win and also throwing out the points bonus for leading a lap are a good place to start if they wanted change, but this is ridiculous.

Come on guys it's so simple. Keep the lap leading bonus, if you finish out of the top 10 you get zero points and a win should be triple that of 2nd place...

Done, now go get more sponsors...

That is pretty retarded. The rationale that "No one lower than the top 10 with 10 races to go has ever won." is pretty stupid too. Just because it's never happened means it won't happen in the future?

Who cares, it's NASCAR.


Hell, I could drive in a circle all day too...

Yeah but you don't get points...they do. So they've got that going for them...

I think that change in this sense is good. At least a good start. Something needed to be done, IMHO, and more than just extra points for the winner. I think they should look at other categories and award points based upon those as well.

e.g.

Lead most laps (season accumulation):
+10 pts
Win race (each race)
+15 pts
Getting the Pole (each race)
+5 pts
Lead at half way point (each race)
+5 pts
Fastest Lap (each race)
+5 pts
Lead most laps (each race - already in place)
+5 pts
Finsish on lead lap (each race)
+5 pts

I'm not saying that every one of those needs to be used, or that there aren't more options, but I like this sort of idea because it could spark different strategies for different parts of the race.

Way too complicated. How are the people in the infield supposed to follow this?

I thought the overriding strategy of a car race was to win the race?

Try doing it for 400-500 miles, 2-4 hours, bumper-to-bumper traffic at 200 miles a hour. Try doing it at Bristol.

I do if I run over small children... 200 POINTS!

I love the open-wheel points system (expect IRL).

LOL!!

Maybe he was so excited about being the first one to post, he did not check his spelling.

:D

NEXTEL CUP??? It just doesn't sound right at all.

WINSTON CUP sounds much better!

The overall strategy is to become the nascar champion, and this is done via the points system.

Too complicated? They track those stats as it is, so how is this more complicated?

Nextel now makes the rules for NASCAR? I thought it was just a sponsorship thing........ :confused:

I don't like it. They seem to want excitement in the sport right...you don't create excitement by awarding 5 points for fastest lap or 10 points for fewest farts over 500 miles. That's a bummer to try and get a handle on. Not to mention that most sports focus on the winner of events.

It may work for the race teams but for fans it's dumb. They need to emphasize the winners. Not the guys who coast in 20th 50 times in a row but won the pole or led some laps.

They really want to make it exciting...how about an IROC like shootout as the final race of the year. Winner take all...

This is the points system for Formula One. I like it. It's reward the top % of teams. Maybe a system along this lines is what Nascar needs. Reward consistency, reward wins alittle heavier (for some reason, winning a race in Nascar isn't what it used to be anymore).

1st place: 10 points
2nd place: 8 points
3rd place: 6 points
4th place: 5 points
5th place: 4 points
6th place: 3 points
7th place: 2 points
8th place: 1 point

Nascar is unique in that each race is essentially a shootout. If they dropped the championship, nothing much would change (except worrying about points) and it would go back to Wins Mean Everything. However, given that the Series Championship awards a single driver with a title, more money, and "prestige", I think the points system should be spiced up a bit.

They really should think about doing it like the PGA Tour. Money list is everything and at the end someone is awarded player of the year. Look how much debate was sparked this season between Tiger and Singh. That's the kind of talk you want and will incent guys to push at the end. Maybe they don't get the payday but the prestige is there. Take the big payday and disperse those funds throughout the season, track the money list and at the end declare the best. If anything it will get fans talking...

But a championship should award the BEST driver. It should not put aside just for "entertainment purposes".

I'm not trying to say that changing the rules is the best thing to do, I just like when things get spiced up a little. Most of the times, change, while at first seen as evil/bad for a sport, eventually turns out to be a good thing. When Winston first got involved with NASCAR, the drivers were pissed, but they fell in love (for the most part) with it and now don't like the Nextel change.

Obviously, what has happened is that the late races aren't drawing as much of a crowd when the race isn't tight (like this year) and they are losing revenue. They feel a need, and rightly so, to make the last race as exciting as the first and the current system just doesn't afford that year in and year out.

Maybe the thing to do is break the season into quarters - at the end of 10/20/30/40 races, there is a winner for that leg of the season. Race 41 is a full-field race where the first 4 positions are determined by the placing of the 4 quarter-winners (even if they came in 40th, 41st, 42nd, 43rd respectively) and the 5 - 43 is the order that everyone else places for that race.

I like that they are attempting to make change, but I don't think they should screw a whole season with a test. Maybe they should do all the points system testing in Busch, or have a contest where everyone has a chance to submit their idea for the best points system in order to get more ideas flowing.

I don't much care for the new system either. It's probably the worst of many options. They could have left the point system alone, or they could have boosted points for winning, or they could have added points for winning poles, or they could have eliminated points for backmarkers, or they could have adopted the Formula 1 point system, or they could have added a bonus race for the top 10 or whatever.

I say they should have kept the old system but taked on an extra 15-25 points on the winner of each race . ......or let the BCS decide the champ .

Bah. If I wanted to watch a bunch of rednecks driving domestic "stock" cars in a circle, I'd go hang out in the parking lot at the Piggly-Wiggly.

Though I despise the new rating system I guess we will have to see how things turn out ....Lets wait till The end of the season to judge . I suspect that there will be a big controversy before this season is done .

It was pretty consistent conversation throughout the "trial balloon" phase that this is an idea borne to NASCAR by Nextel. The theory is that this will generate additional interest in the end of the season & better serve to limit focus of the series to a handful of stars instead of the full field. And doing so will give Nextel better bang for their buck.

It's the same approach that Clear Channel has been using recently with both their Monster Truck series & the PBR Series. Unfortunately, as someone who has followed both for a few years, it's a style that leaves me cold.

How bout if your not a fan of the sport, don't bother even responding to the thread? It's not that hard. Don't try and ruin everyone else's discussion about the topic. I'm really getting sick of people doing that, every thread about NASCAR or the NBA ya have people that just feel the need to mention they don't enjoy it.

But about the points system. I think they should have stuck with the old system, but with an extra emphasis on wins.

If the keep the individual race scoring system as is, then this "any driver outside of the top 10, but within 400 points gets into the playoff' rule is pretty damn worthless. With 10 races to go, it is a pretty safe bet that even 10th place will be outside that 400 points.

They should just award more points to the winner of each race and leave it at that. All a radical change is going to do is steer folks away.

I don't like it, but we'll see how it works out. Usually, with 10 races to go, not very many guys have a chance to win anyway, maybe 2-6.

How 'bout if you're oversensitive and don't have a sense of humor, you just ignore my posts from now on? Sheesh... you can't even make redneck jokes around here anymore without getting someone's panties in a wad.

Franklin - I don't think gold was lashing out specifically at you. I've noticed as well that every time a thread on NASCAR gets started, you have 3 or 4 yo-yo's who feel the need to pop in an express how "boring" it is, or "NASCAR? What's that?" or "oooooh, how tough can it be to drive in a circle". It gets old. I kinda equate it to that Saturday Night Live skit with the guy by the copier. "NASSSSSCARRRRRRRR. NASCAROOONI. The NASCARATOR. Drivin' in CIR-CULLLLS." It's just irritating and after a while you smack the guy with a ream of paper.

Consider yourself whacked. ;)

Now THAT'S comedy!

:D

Apparently at the end of 26 races the top 10 drivers will only be seperated by 5 points : Ie.... Dale Jr. at week 26 leads over Ryan Newmann by 200 pts. then that lead would be lessened to 5 points ....basically taking away the hard work of the #1 team . Makes no sense to me .

after dissing NASCAR for years (and probably being one of those 3 or 4 making redneck jokes), I have to admit that I've started watching, and enjoying the races. I still am not an expert on the sport (and probably never will be), but I don't mind the new system. I think it will add excitement to the end of the season that is currently missing.

but, I think there's a bigger question that this doesn't really address: who SHOULD have won the championship last year? Kenseth only won one race, but he was extremely consistent. Newman won 8 races but was killed by several DNFs. There are arguements for both sides of it (personally, I say consistency), and this new system doesn't really address or resolve that big question.

shitfaced dickhead

Shitfaced dickhead.

Kirby Puckett.

Don't make me put my robe and wizard hat on...

If you have some nifty underwear that go with them I'll do whatever it takes. :D

My dad took me to the Milwaukee Mile when i was 3. I've been following racing for 31 years now. I would assume that qualifies me to reply to this thread. Here are a few of my thoughts on this.........

1.)I think this new points format is going to have an adverse effect on race team sponsorship. Here's why......These big corporate sponsors are now going to use this new point/championship system to their advantage. Sponsor says to team, "Ok, we will fund you for the first 26 races. If, after 26 races, you are not in the top 10/400 pts back, we will drop our funding of your team for the last 10 races. If you are in the top 10/400 pts back, we will continue to fund your team for the remaining 10 races." This is going to happen folks. These big companies are not stupid, and if their car/team is not in the running for a championship, why would they want to continue funding the car/team? It's going to lead to unsponsored cars and possibly even shortened fields for those last ten races. Imagine how Nextel will feel if the 30th race of the year only has 35 cars starting?

2.) Speaking of Nextel, anyone who thinks Nextel is having a direct impact on these points/championship decisions is wrong. Nextel told NASCAR that they want nothing to do with any of these decisions. In fact, NASCAR is kicking themselves right now for not implementing this idea a year ago, while Winston was still the main series sponsor.

3.) It's a shame that NASCAR feels the need for such drastic changes like this, especially since the Busch series and the Craftsman truck series both came down to the final race last year to decide their champions. There were 4 drivers in the Busch series still in contention for the title going into Homestead, while the truck series had 5 drivers that could have walked away with the title in the last race.

4.) The last time the last Winston cup race of the season had any real meaning was 1992, the year Alan Kulwicki came back to win the championship.

Am i in favor of the new format? No. Am i in favor of making changes. Maybe. I did have an idea that would maybe be kind of cool. I was thinking if they split the season up into 3-12 race series, and have a spring champ, a summer champ, and a fall champ, PLUS track the total points of all 36 races to have a year end champ, that might bring a little more interest both from sponsors and fans.

I'll say this though, and this comes from a life long Nascar fan.........Nascar will NEVER compete with the NFL when it comes to TV ratings. And i think this is ultimately what Nascar is trying to do. It ain't gonna happen.

do they do this now? because after 26 races under the old rules, there's tons of teams that aren't in the running. why will it be different under the new rules?

My guess is "yes", because now the bar has been set. So now, sponsors are more inclined to say "you need to be within 400 pts of the points leader or we will pull our sponsorship $$$". Now will ALL sponsors do this? Probably not, but i'm certain that it's gonna happen sooner or later. It will get negotiated into contracts, both for drivers AND sponsors, without a doubt.

For someone who's been following NASCAR as long as you have (and I believe you know your stuff), that's sounds awfully naive.

At this point, I don't believe even those paragons of arrogance, the France family, are going to wipe their collective butts without approval from Nextel, not with the size of the dollars involved.

Dola---

Wanted to post an article, from Matt McLaughlin at racingone.com.......

Every so often NASCAR does something so monumentally stupid that even the most jaded and cynical of us who expect little of the powers that be are left gasping as if Jimmy Hoffa had showed up at the front door delivering Chinese food. I’ve been of the opinion that NASCAR could screw up a two car funereal for many years now. But I’ll admit last Thursday’s announcement that the sanctioning body was going ahead with the proposed 26-10 playoff system, albeit with some minor alterations, had me wondering if I was experiencing an acid flashback from my misspent youth.

Since the idea first entered public debate the idea has met with scorn, ridicule and outright contempt by the fans. In every poll I’ve seen the results were overwhelmingly against the idea. Internet message boards aren’t known as bastions of civilized debate, but the passionate dislike of the playoff concept had posters mining new depths of vitriol.

What’s more, almost to a man, the drivers themselves said with various degrees of tact they hated the playoff idea. (Well, except Michael Waltrip of course. Waltrip has become such a mouthpiece of NASCAR that if Brian France shoved a stick in a frozen turd and called it a poopsicle, within five minutes Waltrip would find a way to appear on TV eating one, telling people it was delicious, and urging fans to stock their freezers full of them.) Oh, and the talking heads that work at NBC seem to love the idea. There’s a surprise.

With their trial balloon on the playoffs having drawn heavy fire, it would seem any sane NASCAR official would have started backpedaling fast enough to outrun Lance Armstrong through the Alps in reverse. They had a perfect opportunity to distance themselves from the idea and claim that such a concept was never seriously under consideration. Oh, that crazy Jimmy Spencer and those idiots on the Internet. Where do they come up with this nonsense? But in spite of the overwhelming negative reaction to the idea, the arrogance of the powers that be has convinced them to press on regardless.

What particularly irritated me was a comment by NASCAR’s Jim Hunter that the fans don’t understand the playoff concept and once it’s explained to them they’ll love it. You know what? I don’t think so. Hunter’s attitude seems to be that of a parent trying to feed a particularly fussy infant in a high chair. “Ummm, yummy, yummy, strained peas. Open up and say, ah! You’re going to love this. Daddy says it’s good for you and it tastes so yummy.” But the typical NASCAR fan has reached a level of maturity and discernment that they don’t need to be told what they like and dislike. They understand the concept just fine, Jimbo, and most of them hate the idea.

But, NASCAR officials are doubtlessly chuckling behind closed doors, we’ve gotten away with this sort of stuff before. The fans hated the “common template” idea so we relabled it “aero-matching” and snuck it in under the radar. Most fans hated the idea of giving up the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend but NASCAR hid behind the smoke and mirrors of “Realignment 2003 and Beyond” and so muddied the waters fans barely even noticed they were losing a Rockingham race and that Texas Motor Speedway was the real victim of Realignment. Yummy, yummy, strained peas.

But some ideas are just so flawed from the outset, there’s no way you can make them work. You can name a three-legged mule “Secretariat” but he’s not going to win the Kentucky Derby. And compared to the 26-10 playoff system entering a three-legged mule in a Triple Crown event seems like a brilliant idea.

Noting the fussy infant sounds coming from the fans, Mr. Hunter went on to note “Everybody questions change, but we've put a lot of thought in this. I am firmly convinced this will add some drama and some excitement to our season" Put out that roach, empty your pockets on the hood and give us permission to search the car, please. If something as radical as the 26-10 Playoff system is needed to “add some drama and excitement to our season” then you’re overlooking the disease to concentrate on the symptoms. How is it the racing season as we’ve known it has become so lacking in drama and excitement that folks would rather watch a college football game than a Whatever Cup race? Is it possibly because NASCAR has allowed the cars to become so aerodynamically extreme it’s made passing all but impossible? Could it be those cars are so aerodynamic drivers are afraid to tweak their play-pretties rubbing fenders? Is it possible the plethora of multi-use single groove cookie-cutter tracks added to the schedule just don’t allow for exciting racing? Is it possible the cost of Cup racing has gotten so out of hand that half the cars entered in a race are behind the eight ball before they’re even unloaded off the truck Friday morning? Is it possible your drivers have become bland caricatures that spout the sponsor spiel in mind-numbingly robotic terms and don’t elicit much passion these days? Cure the disease and the symptoms will go away too. Give a man with broken a leg crutches and he’ll be able to make some forward progress. Heal his leg and one day he’ll run again.

I’ve been around awhile and I don’t seem to recall there being a lot of problems attracting viewers after Labor Day in 1986 when Tim Richmond was on his hot streak and Dale Earnhardt was heading for another title. This wasn’t an issue when Bill Elliott was competing for the Winston Million in 1985 and engaged in a down to the wire points battle with Darrell Waltrip for that year’s championship. I seem to recall NASCAR added a lot of new fans late in the season when Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki and Bill Elliott were engaged in their epic points battle back in 1992. Maybe we ought to go back and start using the points system we used in those years. What’s that? Oh, yeah, right. I’ll shut my yap now before I end up with a mouthful of strained peas.

Is the playoff system the end of NASCAR? Not likely. But it’s another sign the powers that be have lost touch their most loyal fans. The sport is headed downhill and the decline is growing steeper every season. It’s bad enough to ignore your fans, but don’t go compounding things by treating them like idiots who don’t know what’s good for them. If you’re going to sin, sin bravely. Don’t go tweaking things with “all drivers within 300 points are in the playoffs. (Incidentally Matt Kenseth left Richmond last fall with a 415 point margin over the second place driver.) Don’t go tossing red herrings about with system that gives the Anointed 10 (or 11, or 12 or 13) varying degrees of points and only further confuses fans as to how this mess works. Because it’s not going to work. If you ask me, and I ain’t saying anyone did, this whole playoff idea is Nothing But Crap. And you can abbreviate that NBC.

Well, answer this question for me then........Why would Nextel be in favor of implimenting a new points system that is turning off so many fans? Doesn't make any sense to me. If anything, i would think Nextel would demand that the points system stay the same?

Because they're convinced of two things:
1) The existing fans will stick around and enjoy what McLaughlin aptly described as "a poopsicle"
2) Creating "stars" will attract new fans to the TV spectacle

The column you posted aptly puts a lot of blame for this mess on television, and I was remiss in not making a bigger point of that here myself (it's been part of my rant IRL & elsewhere, I just failed to add that prong here).

NBC/Fox are driving the bus, Nextel owns the bus(which is why I was so critical of them earlier), and the fans that have been around for a long time are the ones being taken for a ride.

I don't see this happening. As it is now, teams that have absolutely no chance keep their sponsors, and teams like Jeff Burton, while not in championship contention, lost 2 sponsors while being within the top 12.
The whole trick to sponsorship is that this is money well spent regardless of what point standing their team is in. If their car/logo is seen for even 2 minutes all race, they have a lot of "impressions" of their name out there and the exposure is huge thanks to the incredible viewership of the sport.
With that said, of course a sponsor wants their driver winning races as this gives them the greatest overall exposure and the points championship even more. But to think that the new system will repulse sponsorship I think is premature.
Can't comment on this one, as I don't know.
As i've stated earlier, I think they should first experiment with points changes in the Busch series first.

exactly why they feel changes are needed.

I proposed a similar idea above, and I think this one has the most merit, as each team has essentially a new start every X number of races during one season.
A lot of sports would do well with this sort of idea as the cost of participating is so high. I personally cannot fathom how any NASCAR team that isn't consistently in the top 10 can afford to compete in this climate, but they do, so the money is coming from somewhere and somebody obviously finds it worth the investment.
The current system is CAN be exciting when the right conditions occur. As you mentioned, 1992 was probably the last time this happened. A 12 year stretch of mediocrity in the points game does not make for exciting finishes to a year. Clearly, something has to be done, but I think we have all agreed that what they are proposing doesn't seem to accomplish much and whatever team wins this year, they will probably have the stigma attached to them the same as the strike years in football: i.e., it won't mean much.

Just wanted to say that I really like McLaughlin's work and enjoy most everything he writes.

As a fan, I don't think it will have tremendous impact on whether I watch the race or not. I also don't think it will draw in large numbers of new viewers. One thing that concerns me is that those teams who rank in the teens won't have much incentive, other than just winning races. They will no longer have any need to "points race" since they won't be able to improve their status much. Think about it, if your 11th, your only incentive is to stay 11th, since you can't move up to 7 or 8. The new rules, as I understand them from above, will essentially determine the top ten for the season after week 26. STUPID!!

My other problem is that teams that may have absolutely NO shot at a championship are all of a sudden "given" that opportunity. I tell you, if MY favorite driver is in the top 2 or 3 at race 26, and ends up losing the championship to the 10th place (at week 26) team, I'll be PISSED!

Yep. And stupid may be too kind.

But let's see here, maybe there's something that might reduce the stupid factor from "infinity" to "infinity minus 1".

1) Keep the "top 10 playoff" system (I'll stipulate that we're stuck with it at the moment)
1b) Track the "new" points, bonus points, or whatever else goes into it. That determines the end-of-year champion.

But ...

Since the old system of point scoring is still in place anyway (for pos. 11-43), go ahead & track those "Championship Qualifiers" under the old system as well (everybody knows that's going to be tracked by countless people anyway).
If one of the "Championship Qualifiers" stink up the last 10 races, then they stand a chance of being bumped out of the top ten for bonus money.

I guess what I'm thinking of is -- the new "mini-season" determines the champion but the old system determines final positions #2 thru #56 (or whatever)

Nothing is going to fix something this broken, IMO, but does this make it at least a tiny bit less screwed up?

My feeling is that the Cup should be awarded to the best driver over the entire season. What this does is turn the last 10 races into more of a NCAA basketball tourney type deal. The team that's hottest at the end wins, and I don't think that's a good fit for this sport.

Under this system there is nothing saying drivers 11-43 will be trying to win each week. I'm not an expert, but I also think this may lead to some sloppy driving since these drivers have nothing to gain and nothing to lose, and a driver with a grudge could really screw up the season for one of the top 10 drivers (don't think it will happen, but I think it is possible under this system).

What I think this does is create too many variables and chances to screw up things for some very deserving drivers.

There is an online petition to NASCAR that opposes the current changes in the system. Currently at 7435 signatures.

http://www.petitiononline.com/WC11223/petition.html

I agree with most everything you say, except this......The drivers that are not in the "playoffs" have 2 things to race for (hopefully), sponsors and prize money. And if the first decides to leave, then the second becomes even more imperative.

I am so opposed to this "playoff" idea, it's not even funny. A driver could potentially have 5 wins, 20 top tens, show tremendous consistantcy throughout the season, and still not win the championship. I don't really care if Kenseth only had 1 win last year. He showed that week in and week out, he could run up front with the best, and be one of the best. 36 races is a hell o a long season. the guy with the most total points after those 36 races should be rewarded for his efforts.

My comment earlier about the 1992 season was merely an observation, it was not for arguments sake, just fyi.

One thing that bugs me about this whole thing is how drastic this change is.

When it is determined that a certain car make has an advantage, NASCAR GRADUALLY makes changes to the other makes to make things more fair.

This new system is a big change. My wife has been a loyal NASCAR fan since 1975. We fight come football season over the tv because she has to watch the race. She doesn't want to watch anymore with this new system. That's a bad thing.

It is going to suck when Tony Stewart has a 350 point lead after 26 races and he ends up finishing in 5th place with this new system when he would have finished with a 200 point lead under the old system.

Exactly. PLUS, this change is going to effectively start a new era in NASCAR. How in the world are we supposed to comparte previous seasons and championships with what will now take place? What if Jeff Gordon wins his 5th championship using the new "playoff" format, but with the old points system, he would have finished 3rd, and, for arguments sake, let's say with the old system, Mark Martin would have won his 1st championship? Boys, i'm here to tell you that the shizzle is gonna hit the hizzle. The NA$CAR braintrust had best pray to the racing gods that this scenario does not take place.

This wasn't directed just at your comments. It's just that everytime a NASCAR thread comes up people feel the need to make the same "redneck" jokes over and over again. It's getting very old and annoying. Maybe there are some people that would like to have a discussion about it without the "jokes" all the time.

But NASCAR is completely ruining the sport with the new points system. There is no need for a playoff system. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the previous system. It rewarded drivers and teams that went in each and every week and ran well. Now they are trying to reward drivers who might get more wins but also have many more bad finishes. It would be like in football trying to give the championship to an 8-8 team that had 8 blowout wins but yet lost 8 times over a team that went 13-3 but won only close games.

Antoher thing that came up in my discussions with the wife...

There comes a time every year when the teams out of contention realize this. Then, they start thinking about getting into the Top 10. If you make the Top 10, you get to speak at the awards banquet. After 26 races, those teams outside of the Top 10 don't have this chance anymore. Tony Stewart was in 11th after 26 races last year. He finished 7th and made the banquet.

The more and more I think and talk about this, it sounds worse and worse.

Sorry for the long post, but i felt the need to post this story as well, from Nov. 19, 2003. Another great story.........

On Monday night’s Inside Winston Cup program “guest expert” Jimmy Spencer may have dropped a bit of a bombshell. According to Mr. Excitement he had a discussion with Brian France at Homestead concerning a potential new championship scenario for 2004. Spencer says France told him that after the second Richmond race next year only drivers who are in the top 10 in points would be eligible for the champion’s title. After Richmond there will be ten races left on the schedule. Those top ten drivers would enter a sort of playoff in which the driver who scored the most points in those final ten races would be crowned champion, regardless of how many points they scored in the prior 26 points races.

Could NASCAR seriously be considering such an idea or was Spencer having a little fun and blowing off steam after a long season? No one can be certain and likely that’s the way NASCAR wants it right now. The Daytona Beach organization is famous for floating trial balloons considering such proposals. If the drivers, team owners and fans embrace the idea, they look brilliant. If the idea is loudly panned, they can go on record as saying that Spencer was mistaken and no such idea was ever under consideration. Spencer would take a little heat from some elements of the media. In exchange for being their fall guy, NASCAR would likely cut Spencer a little slack the next time he accidentally gets onto pit road a little too fast or “accidentally” nerfs Kurt Busch into the cheap seats.

In general most of the long time fans I’ve discussed this issue with don’t care for the idea. They point out that in two of the three top touring divisions of NASCAR the current points system provided an exciting points race that went right down to the final laps of the final race of the season this year.

Others, myself included, note a potential problem with the new method of determining a champion. With all the multi-car teams currently in the sport, let’s say one team owner has one team in contention for the title, and the other three not part of the anointed ten. Would Nextel Cup racing become like Formula One where the teammates tried to help their fellow driver win the title by harassing, blocking or even wrecking other championship contenders? Might they not be tempted to run illegal cars to influence the outcome of races the points chase since they’ll only get a monetary fine or at worst a points fine which is not critical since the offending driver is no longer a contender for the title?

Who would like the new championship idea? My guess is it would appeal to a lot of newer fans who have never quite figured out the arcane way NASCAR awards points and bonus points. Those casual fans don’t have the emotional investment long time fans have in the sport and aren’t as resistant to radical change as a result. And over the course of the last couple years NASCAR has shown they are willing to leave long time fans interests on the sideline as they reach out to newer, more affluent, hipper fans outside the traditional Southeast marketplace where the sport has flourished. Mark my words, the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy will give the command to start the engines at an NBC broadcast race sometime next year. Hopefully not at Darlington or Talladega or things could get ugly.

But the primary beneficiary and the probably the driving force behind the new championship idea would be NBC/TNT. NBC has to deal with circumstances a lot more difficult than FOX has to in the first part of the season. Not only does NBC have to broadcast races while a majority of viewers are more interested in the World Series, but they also have to go up against the ratings juggernaut of the NFL. And coincidentally (not) the new ten race NASCAR “playoffs” would start the same weekend as the NFL regular season.

NASCAR is the only one of the big four sports that doesn’t have some sort of “playoff.” In fact the race that is termed “The Super Bowl of NASCAR”, the Daytona 500, starts off the season which seems back-ass-wards. For the other big three sports the playoffs at the end of the season tend to generate high ratings as even casual fans who don’t follow the sport all season tune in to see the best teams compete against each other in elimination rounds. And there’s nothing particularly fair about the way those stick and ball championships are decided. An NFL team could go undefeated all season and face a Wild Card team that barely broke .500 during the regular season in the Super Bowl. What’s more, they could lose the championship for having one off day despite 19 consecutive wins. And that’s pretty much the same way the NASCAR “playoffs” would be run.

NBC has had some disappointing ratings this season particularly once the NFL season kicked off so likely they are the driving force behind this potential move. For whatever reason during their brief career as a NASCAR broadcast partner, NBC has chosen to focus on the “Drive to the Title” rather than showing each race as an individual event important in and of itself. This year FOX handed off the coverage with the title all but wrapped up and doubtless that hurt ratings among casual fans.

Other beneficiaries would include the ten tracks that host the final ten races of the season. In terms of a championship those ten races would be more important than the 26 races that preceded them. That would help sell some tickets. And it would be increasingly unlikely that the championship would be locked up prior to the last race. Those last ten races as they are currently scheduled offer a interesting mix of events including one plate track, one short track, the flat mile at New Hampshire, the high banked mile at Dover, the hard to categorize new Homestead facility, storied old Darlington (the circuits toughest track) and Atlanta and Charlotte, two of the sports biggest markets. The ISC owns five of those tracks (naturally) and the France family controls half of Martinsville. Speedway Motorsports owns two tracks that hold events in the final ten races, and Dover and New Hampshire are independent, at least for now. Bottom line the ISC is the big winner in such a move and if it benefits the ISC, NASCAR brass is likely to rubber stamp the idea.

So what would this year’s championship results look like if only the top 10 drivers in the points leaving the second Richmond race were in contention for the title and only their last ten races counted towards their points total. Here’s the average finish of those top ten drivers in the final ten races:

J. Johnson 6.5
J Gordon 7.4
R Newman 9.6
K Harvick 11.8
DEJ 11.9
M Kenseth 16.0
B. Labonte 17.3
T. Labonte 19.0
K. Busch 26.4
M. Waltrip 26.9

A quick check of the actual points awarded for those top three drivers (including lap leader bonuses and most laps led bonuses) gives the following result:

J. Johnson- 1529
J. Gordon- 1514
R. Newman- 1456

So Newman would have arrived at Homestead with a chance at the title and after he was wrecked out early, there would have been a tight points battle between Johnson and Gordon in the final race of the year.

As with all statistics, the above can be misleading. For one thing drivers drove those final ten races based on the rules as they are today. Kenseth naturally would have turned things up a notch and likely have finished better had he been playing under the proposed new rules, while under the current system Johnson and Gordon had nothing to lose by going wide open every race in a Quixotic chase of an unlikely title down the stretch. It also assumes that the points system for those final ten races would be the same as this year’s system, a very big if. Plus the figures above are “Matt Math” which is always suspect.

Personally I don’t like the proposed system. But I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance it will be implemented unless the drivers, team owners and fans throw the Mother of All Hissy Fits in the near future. Even at that those complaints might be outweighed by NBC who is paying NASCAR the big bucks to broadcast the last part of the season and whose contract renewal will start being discussed in the near future. It’s an interesting idea and I can see certain benefits to the proposal, but I think there’s less radical ways to give the points system a tune-up without tarnishing the worth of the other 26 races. If the idea is adopted I’d like to see one major change. Take the top nine drivers after Richmond and the driver with the most wins who is not included in that top nine. That way a driver like Dale Jarrett or Ricky Craven, hopelessly out of the top 10 late in the season but already having won a race, would have a chance to run wide open in late summer trying to win another race and get into the “playoffs” on the equivalent of a Wild Card entry by having more victories than the tenth place driver.

Brian France has already hinted big changes are in store for the new era of NASCAR racing and this might be the first indication big changes are afoot for 2004. NASCAR has a habit of making big announcements at the New York banquet, so keep your ears open that week whether you approve of the NBC payoff “Playoffs” or not.

A big reason part of Nascar to me, is that they have too many races and long of a season. Plus, they run at many tracks twice.

wait - you're saying 7,400 NASCAR fans actually have internet access?

(ha ha, couldn't resist)

Damn, I guess they didn't go with my suggestion that all teams that race get a million points for showing up. That way all the drivers would get points that were simply amazing to look at. Nobody would ever question they weren't better than F1 drivers.

"I mean, Michael Shumacher only got 120 points last year, but Dick Trickle???? Who, doggy, that sumbitch wrassled up 2 million points last season!!!" - NASCAR fan.

I like watching NASCAR, but damn, they dumb it down so that people with no teeth can enjoy it. And not Hockey players with no teeth, I mean, people who wonder why there aren't ever any teethbrushes as the store. That just takes a little something away from it. You know what I mean?

LOL :p

Does that make sense?

Contrary to popular belief, there ARE literate Nascar fans........And they have multiple teeth. thay jus doent spel so gud sumtimes. So stop being a racist, discriminating.....um.....whatever you are, and stick to the thread's topic. If you don't like Nascar, go play smack the penguin or something.

Agreed. This crap is getting old. Nascar is the BIGGEST sport, and its kind of sad to hear this when guys like Davey Allison, Dale Eardheart, are killed doing what they loved to do in an extremely dangerous sport.

It's the theory of the lowest common denominator, brother. Marketability to the masses. I don't make this stuff up.

Uh-huh.

And yet those LCD's are more educated and earn more money than the average American.

I'd have to think most of the fans that go to the races have to have a little bit of money. It sure isn't cheap to spend a day at the track.

Well, in fact, they do. If anyone subscribes to SI, you should have received your 2004 Nascar preview edition by now. They did some interesting surveys that would shoot down the typical stereotypes.

I think that a BCS like formulating system would be more accurate than this new points system ......

I would like to see what the NASCAR points layout would look like if they did use a F1 or even CART scoring system. I wonder if the same guy would be champion?

Yeah, but to compare NASCAR to F1/CART would be unfair. Nascar runs a field of 43 cars, F1 I believe goes with 24, and CART ran just 17-18 cars last year average. Plus, Nascar is a completely differnet beast then open-wheel racing, and CART/F1 run only 17-18 races a year compared to NASCAR's 30-some races/

My buds rip on me all the time about my preference of NASCAR over their precious open wheel stuff and I stopped caring long ago. Let them smack their legs and cry "Wee Doggie" and "always going in circles" all they want. To each his own.

As I said, I'm not a big NASCAR fan, just watch a bit of the race each week and check Sportscenter to see who won if I miss it. But I find F1/CART racing mind numbing. Its just so boring for me, seems like nothing ever happens.

But F1/CART are differnet beasts. I don't like the IRL much, I rather watch NASCAR, but I love CART/FI. It's all a preference in the style of racing. But I appericate all types of drivers in all series.

This idea is very, extremely, horribly, disgustingly, pathetic.

Wow, I just got to this thread and it's getting long, so I breezed through it (it's getting late), so forgive me if I missed the pro-change post, I didn't see it.

I can't believe NO ONE is for this. I heard a pretty good observation on this earlier today, and wanted to throw it out. NASCAR is a major sport (for those who do not believe this, please check out the fan base numbers - they are staggering). Sports have playoffs to determine champions (aren't most screaming for a NCAA football playoff). Anyway consider this.

If an NFL team goes 16-0, and get ousted in the conference championship game, should we consider them champions ? Insert any major sport to this scenario, and our answer is NO. A team needs to perform in clutch, in playoffs to be crowned champion. The regular season is simply the engine that drives you into the playoffs, and from there everyone lines up at the starting line together .... race to the end !

Just look at the first 26 races as the "regular season". I think this system will be great, and eventually YOU will like it ! :)

signed_Devils Advocate

But to compare auto racing to a team sport is a differnet beast.