Is The Chase The Best Way To Determine A Champion?

The Chase is designed to tighten up a ‘runaway’ season in the points, just like a caution does in a race, but does it allow the most deserving driver to win?

Maybe not, but what is the description of the most deserving driver?

This is not an article designed to generate comments about what should be done differently to make the Championship battle better, but more to discuss if what we have is the best possible representation of a true Champion in our sport.

It’s not as tough as it is in the stick and ball sports where in football, for example, a team can win every game of the season and still lose the Championship game and that’s it, they lost.

Stock car racing isn’t near as tough. There is not one, final race that a driver has to necessarily win in order to win the Championship. He can simply perform well throughout the ten race Chase and acquire the most points during that time and be crowned the Champion.

Even with bonus points for wins during the regular season, the points system is still structured to award consistency more than just wins. That is evident from a few seasons back when Kasey Kahne had the most wins going into the Chase and nearly didn’t make it in. Ironically, he has two wins this season and is out of the Chase.

Add in the fact that 5 of the 12 drivers in the Chase have no wins at all in the regular season and the point is made even further.

What about the other end of the spectrum? Kyle Busch has 8 victories so far this season, took the points lead after the second race of the season and only relinquished it once, then quickly took it back. After the points reset he has Carl Edwards hot on his heels just 30 points behind. For the traditionalist, under the old points system Busch would have a 207 point lead over Edwards.

Depending on how the Chase unfolds will no doubt determine the ‘success’ of the Chase system in that if anyone beside Kyle wins the Championship it will have worked perfectly. Especially if under the ‘old’ points system he would win the Championship despite how he performed in the final ten races of the season.

Forget popularity, forget making it more ‘fair’ for all of the drivers in the Chase or more exciting for the fans, is it the right way to determine a Champion in our sport?

The fact of the matter is that if Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had 8 wins so far this season and had locked the Championship up with ten races to go, to a large percentage of the fans the points reset would be the worst thing that NASCAR had ever done. Being that it’s Kyle Busch, not so much.

That’s the problem with any rule or system that the sanctioning body implements in that depending on who the beneficiary is and who it hurts will affect the opinions of it by the fans. It’s what is known as the double edge sword in that it can cut both ways. Don’t forget that this is the system that denied Jeff Gordon his 5th Championship in 2004 and again in 2007. We have all been reminded of that plenty.

Is the fan’s hope that Busch will struggle the last ten races and fall by the wayside? Would that be some sort of vindication of the criticisms of the Chase format if that is the way it works out?

It doesn’t seem fair, but quoting one of the beat writers, David Poole, “Fair is where you buy funnel cakes”.

In using the football analogy, it is no different than in other sports to have a team dominate the season and yet after the reset fall short and lose the title. It just hasn’t been this way in stock car racing.

The Craftsman Truck & Nationwide Series have seemed to work out their points ‘blowouts’ the old fashioned way, by leveling the competition. They do not operate under a ‘playoff’ system and yet in both series the points battle is extremely close as well as exciting.

The end result might wind up be the same, but it just seems more legitimate when the driver who prevails in the series did it unmitigated and steps up to be crowned Champ in New York without any tweaking of the points.

It’s not so much a manipulation of the outcome because all of the drivers have an equal chance to perform well in the final 10 races in the Cup series. Call it more of a mini-series or a microcosm of the season that will determine the eventual no. 1 driver.

The purists still don’t like it and don’t mind even if it is a 700 point blowout under the old system. NASCAR in preserving the ‘Show’ has decided that would not be a good thing and they may be right.

I still say that the popularity of it will depend on who is crowned The Champion after Homestead.