only the factor of gaining or losing points to the leader.
How can we begin to compare CUP racing to any stick and ball sport? Simply put, we can’t and any attempt to emulate their playoffs is pure insanity. We have forty three teams competing every week in every race and the old, long standing points system was designed to reward teams showing up for every race. All of a sudden, the system that rewarded consistency was thrown on the trash heap and turned into a ten race sprint that ignored the points accumulation of the first twenty six races. The results were Jeff Gordon’s huge points lead in 2004 and 2007 were gone. In this past season’s case, Jeff went from a 300 plus point lead to a twenty point deficit to team mate Johnson.
The closest I can come to making a comparison is this. Right now the New England Patriots are 13 & 0. Would their fans and football fans in general approve of the NFL saying, “OK gang, you were undefeated in the regular season but team X scored more points in their first ten games so you will be seeded second to them in the playoffs. On top of that, we are going to spot them two touchdowns and you have to overcome that deficit in order to advance.” Of course, this is totally unrealistic and could never happen except in the mind of someone like King Brian France in his obvious dementia. Declining race attendance and TV viewer ship proves the concept isn’t working. The Truck Series proves that a season long championship chase can still work.
So what’s the solution. As I’ve recently written, modify the old points system to reward winning in addition to consistency. A points system that allowed the second place driver to earn as many points as the winner was ludicrous and was corrected . But, unlike other racing series, winning still is short changed points wise. The purse payouts more exactly reflects the importance track promoters place on winning. Get rid of The Chase and may the best team win.
A special gotcha award must go out to E$PN. A network that promised to bring the Busch Series to a new level has shown their total disregard of the series, its competitors and we, the fans. The Busch Championship Banquet was a week ago this last Friday but E$PN decided to edit it to a one hour, tape delayed presentation on Tuesday night. As John Daly points out on The Daly Planet, E$PN consistently pointed out the CUP contenders and series while supposedly presenting coverage of a Busch race. In both their Busch and CUP coverage they failed to give us the starting lineup except for a crawl on the screen bottom. Both E$PN and FOX focused on Junior and the race winner without letting us see a final run down of at least the lead lap cars. TNT was such a disaster I won’t waste valuable space critiquing its sorry performance. And, of course, King Brian sees nothing wrong here. Let’s all just move along now.
What can I say that hasn’t been said about the pathetic top thirty five rule? Come February we start a new season at Daytona with its unique qualifying format. Instead of locking in the top thirty five from last year let’s start with a clean slate. Set the field from the qualifying races as of old and let’s go racing. The next four races would be set on qualifying speeds alone with one provisional for the defending Champ and no past champion provisional. If a top thirty five rule is to be used then set it after the first five races of the new season. Last season is so over. Personally, I think races should be made strictly on performance this week, not last week or last year. This back door franchising of the top thirty five isn’t compatible to our form of racing and is totally unfair to new teams or single car operations that took our sport to its heights. To allow car owners to transfer points to a different team is ludicrous and dead wrong. The concept of protecting big time sponsors has backfired as we saw so many well funded teams loading up and going home this past season after they had out qualified ten or eleven teams that were allowed to race. (Josh Pate on NASCAR.com makes some very good point about how the rule really screwed some good teams.)
From all I’ve read we won’t be seeing any changes to The Chase, top thirty five, Buschwhacking or the points system before 2009. As with most of you reading this missive, I’ll tune in the Daytona 500 but beyond that I’m not sure what I’ll do with my Sunday afternoons. This, to me, is a damn shame after the years of building up the CUP and Busch Series to have so many of us no longer anticipating the next race. Kinda reminds me of the question of why people give fruit cakes as gifts that nobody eats.
Cousin Carl being ecstatic about his Busch title demeans the series and, in my eyes, him. I still think his momma is a doll. I think SPEED is
missing out by not trying to set up a revival of the
Winter Heat races that helped us ease our
withdrawals and brought attention to some great
talents.
I don’t favor any one particular driver but, other
than Robby Gordon, favor my Chevy drivers.
With the Gibbs defection to the Toys my list of
favorites got whittled down by three. I keep
hoping that Terrible Tony will find an out in his
contract and maybe end up at RCR in their fourth
Chevy.
I’ll close this out for now. The above is my
opinion based on my observations. You may
disagree but never be disagreeable.
May you all be extra careful in watching after those innocent little ones. God bless you and
yours, this great nation, all who serve to protect and defend and all victims of terrorism.
Never forget: We are the land of the FREE because of the BRAVE.
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