Unless Jimmie Johnson suffers a collapse of historic proportions, the final two races of the 2008 Sprint Cup season will just be a high-speed victory tour for the # 48 team. The defending two-time champ has a 106 point lead over Carl Edwards despite back to back wins from Edwards. So, for the fourth time in the last five years the season finale at Homestead is likely to lack the one thing the Chase was designed to create - drama!
So, what can NASCAR do to inject some excitement into the Chase? Well I have a few ideas:
1.) Create a separate points system for the Chase drivers- Back on Oct. 11th, Edwards' engine stalled at Charlotte which led to a 33rd place finish that resulted in a 96 point difference between him and Johnson in that race. Johnson finished 6th in that race and of the 27 drivers who finished between Johnson and Edwards, 21 of them were non-chase drivers. So here's my theory:
The highest finisher among the 12 Chase qualifiers in each race would earn 12 points; second would get 11; third 10; and so on down to one point for 12th. If a Chase driver won the race, he would receive a three-point bonus, and if he EARNS (not thanks to rain canceling qualifying) the pole, he would get a one-point bonus. I did the math and research- under this scenario, Johnson's edge over Edwards would be just 19 points, and eight drivers would still be in the hunt.
2.) Add new tracks to the Chase- In the regular season 27% of the races are held on 1.5 mile tracks, but in the Chase 50% of the races are run on those tracks. Shouldn't the Chase reflect conditions in the overall season? I propose taking away two of the 1.5 mile tracks and replace them with one road course and maybe Bristol. Not only would this provide a variety of tracks, but would also reward for all-around driving, not just specializing on 1.5 mile tracks.
3.) End the Chase a month sooner- The deeper the season goes just means the NFL season is further along. Once the NFL season is heating up, Sprint Cup usually has it's champion emerging with still races on the calender. This causes less and less people to become interested and not just television viewers. Each week I'm noticing more and more empty seats at racetracks.
Overall the Chase concept is good, but NASCAR needs to keep guys from running away with it. The Chase is broken, so get under the hood and make the tweaks.
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