NASCAR’s next giant leap in public interest–the biggest since the popularity boom began a decade ago–may be at hand.
The new playoffs are near. Roundly maligned at first by purists, they are looking better and better and they could bring NASCAR even closer to the NFL in fall television ratings.
With four races left in the de facto regular season, just the scramble for a wild-card berth alone is vindication of third-generation NASCAR Chairman Brian France’s controversial idea.
When the restructuring was announced in January, the major criticism was that some undeserving driver might slip through the cracks and win the championship on a fluke.
But consider the top four combatants for the wild-card spot, or 10th place in points.
Who would call rookie Kasey Kahne undeserving, with his four second-place finishes, his six top-fives, his near-misses of deserved victories, his spots of awful luck this season?
Or Ryan Newman, who won eight races last year, most on the tour, but didn’t stand a chance for the championship under the old structure?
Or, most of all, the long-suffering bridesmaid of many a championship season, Mark Martin?
Or Dale Jarrett, the 1999 champion whose team had fallen so far behind in reason years, but who at age 47 has driven himself back into contention on recent Sundays?
Those are the guys who occupy positions 11-14 in the standings, with good shots at the top 10.
France doesn’t like the term “playoffs,” because no one will be eliminated in a single event. Everybody, even non-contenders for the title, will keep on racing through the year-ender at Homestead-Miami, as always.
As a reminder, under the new format, the top 10 drivers in points after 26 races qualify for the “Chase to the Nextel Cup.” Heading into the final 10 races, the de facto playoffs, they will be bunched up mathematically so that only 50 points separate positions 1-10, in five-point increments.
The end of the regular season, the 26th race, comes on Sept. 11 at Richmond, Va. The playoffs–there is nothing bad about a term that has worked extremely well for the NFL, NBA, NHL and major-league baseball–begin Sept. 19 at New Hampshire.
Going into Sunday’s GFS Marketplace 400 at Michigan International Speedway, Jeremy Mayfield clings to 10th in the standings, with Kahne only 24 points back, Newman 29, Martin 72, Jarrett 87 and Jamie McMurray (maybe not as deserving as the other four, but who wouldn’t qualify as a fluke champion) 99 behind.
As many as 156 points can swing in a given race.
Now look at the top nine, those pretty secure for playoff spots.
Under the old system, at this point, you would have a four-way championship fight at best. Jimmie Johnson and mentor/teammate Jeff Gordon would be pretty much in control at the top. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart would be in the hunt, but with tough roads.
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Johnson and Gordon already might have gone into conservative modes. Earnhardt and Stewart might not have crept to within 128 and 192 points, respectively, of leader Johnson because Johnson’s and Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports team might not have dared experiment, this late in the season, with such things as the new gearboxes that failed them so terribly at Watkins Glen last Sunday.
No longer do many fans have to back off their favorite driver and make a compromise choice among the few contenders for the title. Now, Matt Kenseth, Elliott Sadler, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick and Bobby Labonte are as much in the thick of it as the top four in points.
There will be traditionalists who continue to bemoan the de-emphasis on consistency throughout the entire season. But that had become a boring format, often leaving the final four or five races of a season virtually meaningless.
Because all major pro sports amount mainly to show biz, NASCAR has as much right to stimulate late-season interest as the others.
There was a time when the World Series pitted the first-place teams in the regular-season standings of the American and National leagues. And once, the NFL championship was decided between the regular-season winners of the East and West.
There were no playoffs in those leagues, and the only reason for creating them was to generate more late-season interest from the public, and more revenue. So NASCAR’s “Chase for the Nextel Cup” is not one bit more blasphemous of tradition than the others.
When the Oakland Raiders became the first NFL wild-card team to win the Super Bowl in 1981, it was celebrated as a spectacular achievement, not disparaged as a fluke.
Same went for the wild-card Florida Marlins winning the World Series just last year.
And the same would go for a Mark Martin or a Kevin Harvick breaking through the pack to win a NASCAR championship.
For decades, by late summer, the NASCAR season was winding down, shedding interest as it dragged on, narrowing to one or two title contenders. Currently there are 15, and a month from now there still will be at least 10.
The season is just now firing up. And that makes Brian France’s idea revolutionary.