NASCAR puts focus on wins and comes out victorious

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - For better or worse, NASCAR always has been a sport of consistency.

With the threat every weekend of mechanical failure, a wreck, or just plain bad luck, a driver’s ability to avoid problems on the racetrack has been an effective, if unspectacular, way of winning a Nextel Cup championship in recent years.

NASCAR recognized during the offseason that watching the sport’s top drivers race for wins is far more exciting than watching them try to avoid mistakes every weekend. So they did the right thing this season: They changed the points system used to crown the overall champion by putting an emphasis on winning.

If Jimmie Johnson's championship-winning performance was any indication, NASCAR’s changes were a resounding success.

Johnson and Jeff Gordon essentially battled to a draw during the Chase for the Cup, as both drivers had an average finish of fifth place during the past 10 races of the season.

So, with the same average finish as Gordon, how did Johnson win the championship by 77 points? Because he won races — a lot of them.

“If we didn't win four in a row, this would have been a much different race,” Johnson said of his Chase battle with Gordon, who finished in second place. “Not saying that we wouldn't have been in a position to win it, but we needed every point coming in here, and that's why I was attacking like I was. The victories made the difference.”

Under NASCAR’s old Chase rules, Johnson would have started his championship run in sixth place, 25 points behind Gordon. With the new system, drivers were ordered at the start of the Chase by wins during the “regular season,” and Johnson's series leading six victories at the time gave him the top spot in the standings and a 20 point lead over Gordon.

But a pair of wins by Gordon put the No. 24 team right back in the Chase lead, and at that point, Johnson realized the path to the Nextel Cup would run through victory lane.

“From my standpoint in the car, I know who I am racing against,” Johnson said. “I had to go on a tear like that. I had to win races to stand a chance to beat Jeff Gordon, plain and simple.”

But that is exactly how it should be. Winning is the goal of every other sport, and there is no reason NASCAR should be different.

“You see a lot of the teams — the Roush guys getting better here during the Chase, you see the Penske guys [improving],” said Johnson's team owner Rick Hendrick. “They have a ton of smart people. We can't come back just like we are this year — we're going to have to be better…or we're not going to be able to compete.”

So congratulations are in order for Jimmie Johnson winning his second consecutive Nextel Cup championship, but also to NASCAR, for making winning important again.

Get up to speed on the latest in NASCAR by listening to Wilson's Race Report every weeknight at 8:25 on 93.1 WPOC.

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