Is it time to give up on the chase?

October 28, 1:05 AMDetroit NASCAR ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup, and more importantly the mid summer Chase to the Race, has made the 36 week NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule much more exciting that it use to be, but we live in a world where people’s interest level is smaller and smaller.

In this day and age it is foolish to try to market an entire 36 race season to casual NASCAR fans, since season is pretty long even for the most die hard of fans. People’s attention span is getting smaller and smaller, it is why the 16 game NFL regular season is so popular. To keep those fans attention NASCAR must make each race exciting, and under the current system that is just not the case.

Far too many nights on Sports Talk radio, guys like JT the Brick, make fun of NASCAR for having moral victories. Far too many times the Sprint Cup series is picked on since one doesn’t have to win to have a good day. In other sports a team wins or it loses, in NASCAR a team can win by winning a race, or win by scoring a lot of points. It is not a system that relates, well to other sports.

It seems that NASCAR needs to emphasize winning more, and I don’t mean by giving the winner more points. The first step should be giving the winner of the regular season, a million bucks.

Remember under the old system, the 11th place finisher each year got a million bucks; this creates another reason to race. It gives the guys heading into the chase another reason to race hard when many are taking it easy heading into the chase.

After that NASCAR should make winning a race a must of qualifying for the chase, or allow the top 12 in points in and anyone who has won a race in the current season.

If that had been the case in 2009 four drivers; Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, David Reutiman, and Joey Logano would have been added to the chase field. Granted that might not have made the chase any better, but by a win and in rule, maybe more guys would push for a win during the first 26 races.

In that scenario NASCAR would have to cap the number of chase participants to say 14 or so. Then if there were 15 guys with one win each, NASCAR could revert to the points system to determine the chase field.

Now eight guys who did not win a race in 2009 made the chase so there is plenty of room to add race winners to the chase even in the 12 team format. Had NASCAR added the 4 races winners to the chase field, and the excluded everyone else by points then, Ryan Newman, Juan Montoya, Greg Biffle, and Carl Edwards would have been excluded.

Now that would have taken one of the best stories of the 2009 chase, Montoya, out and ultimately that would not have been in NASCAR’s best interest. So the solution to this is a little more complicated.

What we know is the chase makes the last ten races of the year exciting, except for when they are dominated by one driver, and the race to the chase makes the summer months exciting, but nothing seems to keep the interest of the casual NASCAR fan.