Suggested Changes For the Lucky Dog Rule

The Lucky Dog rule has been debated since the day it was instituted into NASCAR back in 2003, when the "gentelman's agreement" was broken when Robby Gordon passed teammate Kevin Harvick coming to a caution.

A few weeks later at Loudon, Dale Jarrett's No. 88 car was almost hit when cars were racing back to the yellow and NASCAR felt they needed to stop racing back to the yellow.

This ended the "gentelmen's agreement."

Since that day, some fans feel the lucky dog rule is dumb. Frankly, I agree with them, but the lucky dog is here to stay. However, to me, the lucky dog needs to be revamped.

For fans who are unfamiliar, the lucky dog (also refereed to as the free pass) is given to the first car one lap down, allowing that driver to go to the end of the longest line and get their lap back.

However, if a car falls two or more laps down it is virtually impossible for them to get a single lap back. Even if they work on their car and have one of the fastest cars after falling two laps down, they have no way of getting a lap back except passing by the leaders.

My idea for the hierarcy of NASCAR is to give a car one lap back if they are the first car on their lap.

For, example, let's say David Ragan is two laps down in a race. He works on his car and he is the first car two laps down. He would be able to get a lap back and fall to the tail end of the lap cars one lap down and let him duel it out with the lap down cars.

This way you are making it racier in the back of the field, which is always good.

Plus, you are rewarding guys who work on their car and make it better, while hurting the guys whose cars fall off near the end of the race.

I think it's something to consider.