Racing to Win: Nascar Needs to Show More Love to Winners

(Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

First I must say that I have never liked the Chase format, either of them. I always liked Nascar because it never had an annoying playoff, it was just racing and everyone who was close was in it until the last race.

If you got hot late in the season, you had a chance for the old Winston Cup—well, unless it was one of those years Jeff Gordon or Dale Sr was just running away with it.

Anyway, the whole so called reason for Chase was to avoid the Matt Kenseth championship year of 2003 when he won the championship after winning only one race, though Ryan Newman won eight races.

And though "classic points" now are different than the second points change (2007), in the Chase format, still this is a system that awards consistency and not checkers.

Now granted I'm a die hard RCR fan and none of my guys are in Chase (though changing to a heavy handed points based on wins system doesn't help them), yeah I have sour grapes on Chase but that's because its a fraud if you think this is a championship system for winning drivers.

Its not, IRL (Indy Racing League), is a racing championship for winners, they give out 50 points for each win, Nascar only gives 10 (so does F1), so this is still a system that benefits not only drivers who don't win but as long as you are consistent (meaning 10 ten & top 15 finishes and very few DNFs), you are in the Chase.

The thing about racing (well pre COT), was that playing it safe didn't get you far, might get you into a wall, or many laps behind but now that everyone runs virtually the same car that doesn't do well with aggressive driving (ask Kyle Busch about that), you have really created some NFL like parity.

All of this falls into the hands of a driver like Jimmie Johnson (and I've got nothing against the guy), someone who races well every week, will do what it takes to win without being stupid and crashing himself or other people.

Now I know Jeff Gordon is the model of consistency though he does go into these slumps of not racing well (not racing horrible but not enough to be top 15 or so), and thus has not won a championship in the Chase era.

And its a shame, he's probably the greatest driver of our generation along with Jimmie, but the Chase system is just good enough to keep him from collecting anymore titles, but its not corrected enough to give a man like Mark Martin his due.

Have you seen him drive recently? He is like a man possessed. I don't know what Hendrick did to him but that old man is running a good car every week and is in every race and has won his share of races this year (four to be exact). Now he should be leading the point and on his way to his first much deserved and long over due title.

But NASCAR will keep it safe, and unless Mark can find away to just race so good he can't be denied, once again someone who didn't take the risks will get the championship. I think NASCAR likes it that way, but I don't.

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