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As usual, leading up to the Daytona 500 there are always a lot of buzz about changes that NASCAR will make, or needs to make, to keep this sport moving forward.
1. Points System: Brain France has indicated that a "major" change to the point system could be intact for this season. The plan is to go to a 43 point system - 43 points for 1st place, 42 for second, down to 1 point if you finish last. No word yet on bonus points.
2. Shorter Races: Fox Sports President announced he would like to say shorter races in the Cup series. He believes the attention span of viewers is shorter and the races should fit into a 3-hour window.
3. More Money to Win Races: Along with the new points system, some believe (like Dale Jarrett) that a bigger "purse" would entice drivers to race harder to win a race. DJ says that NASCAR should field only 36 cars, then take the money given to the other 7 cars and give that to the winner.
4. Cup Drivers can't race for Championship in Nationwide Series: Already in place is a new rule that asks each driver which Championship that they will try for when they apply for their "license" each year. Cup Drivers will have to choose to go for the NW Cup Championship or the Sprint Cup Championship. Obviously, we know which one they "must" go for. Kesolowski won't be able to defend his 2010 Championship.
Personally, I would like to see shorter races and less cars on the track. Quite often races go 4 - 5 plus hours, more if there is a Red Flag due to crash or weather. As a busy father of three, I normally DVR the race, then FF through most of it because I don't have the time to sit and watch a whole race. As for the smaller field, quite a few cars are start and park. The ones that continue are too slow to keep up with the top ten. Drivers need to make winning the #1 Priority.
EDIT: I meant to make a poll but my computer glitched and messed it up. Just go ahead and give your thoughts about the changes in your reply's.
I disagree with #4, if a driver wants to run more than one series then s/he should be allowed to do so. I read about how Cup series sucks & yet independent tracks are folding left & right, Nationwide & Trucks can barely fill the front stretch stands. Cup drivers put butts in the seats. This comes with a caveat; if a driver chooses to run more than one series they must drive 90% of that series' events or waiver claims to prize money and points.
Everyone who bags on the start-and-park drivers is forgetting one thing: because of the stupid Top 35 rule they are the ONLY ones who actually have to qualify for the race.
The big boys routinely use pre-qualifying practice as another race setup session. Those outside the Top 35 actually have to focus on their race AND qualifying packages.
Get rid of the Top 35 rule. Nobody, not even Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon, should be guaranteed a starting spot in the race.
How are these for ideas?
1) Drop the fields to 40 cars and eliminate the Richard Petty (Past Champion's) Provisional. Positions 1-35 qualify on time, 36-40 are provisionals. Each team will have 3 non-transferable provisionals they can use throughout the year. The 5 highest provisional-eligible teams in owners points that fail to qualify get first dibs on the provisional spots. Everybody else? Tough luck sunshine.
2) Drop one race from Michigan, Loudon, and Phoenix, and replace them with Road Atlanta, Road America, and Portland International Raceway.
3) After you've eliminated the 2nd Loudon race from the Chase, replace it with a road course and move the Bristol night race to the lead-off position in The Chase.
4) Consider dropping the Brickyard 400. The novelty has worn off. It's typically one of the most boring races of the year and attendance has fallen by nearly 50%. It's become a parody of what was a parody to begin with.
5) Tweak the asinine and poorly thought-out "you can only run for points in one series" rule. The Nationwide races are still going to be dominated by the Sprint Cup guys, but hey, you'll get a "true" series champ eh? The Nationwide and Truck Series need to stand on their own. Set the 3 series up on tiers (1-SC, 2-NW, 3-Trucks) and limit points accumulation to the lowest tier raced in a weekend. Sprint Cup guys would only be able to moonlight in the lower series during their off weekends while the N'wide and Truck drivers could get experience in Cup without penalty. This is how a farm system is set up and how NASCAR should work.
Finally - time limits on the races? This isn't open-wheel or sports cars. You wanna see a race fit into a 2 or 3-hour time window? Watch the edited replay later.
Along with the new 43 point system, the top 10 in points following Race No. 26 -- the "cutoff" race -- continue to earn Chase berths.
Positions 11 and 12 are "wild card" qualifiers and will go to non-top-10-ranked drivers with the most wins, as long as they're ranked in the top 20 in points. The top-10 Chase drivers will continue to be seeded based on wins during the first 26 races, with each win worth three bonus points. The wild card drivers will not receive bonus points for wins and will be seeded 11th and 12th, respectively. It's a move aimed towards rewarding winning and consistency during the regular season.
• 3 bonus points for winning, 2 for most laps led and 1 for leading a lap.
• The last two spots of the Chase will go to the drivers with the most wins who aren't in the top 10 in the standings, but still ranked in the top 20. If there's a tie, the playoff spot goes to the driver with the most points.
• If no drivers have wins after the 10th position, the last two positions in the Chase will go to the 11th and 12th pace drivers.
• The wild card drivers will receive no bonus points and will start with a base of 2,000 points. The previous Chase featured a 5,000-point base and 10 points per win to start the Chase.
• Any penalties will be adjusted for the new system. Last year some penalties were as high as 150 points.
Also:
• New Qualifying Procedure - The qualifying order will be set based upon slowest to fastest practice speeds.
Here's Bruton Smith's opinion on purses vs points;
"Look at last year's Coca-Cola 600 at Smith's Charlotte Motor Speedway. First paid $399,623 and second $299,404. That's about a $100,000 difference. The difference at California Speedway last year was just over $84,000.
"What if there was a $400,000 difference between first and second?" Smith asked as he stood on the backstretch of CMS, where the world's largest television screen will be built by the May races. "Now you know there is going to be a fight to the finish on that."
The amount of the purse that actually goes to the driver ranges from 25-40%. Drivers are on a salary based on their contracts.
Of course in Bruton Smith's logic, that would be an increase of well over $100K depending on what your contract says.
FWIW He was also banned by NASCAR for one year for his less than honorable dealings with his foreign manufacturers. Don't want to say what is was because some might think I am accusing him of the same thing with NASCAR.
Rick was convicted of Mail Fraud and paid a high price for it. But he learned from his mistake and has redeemed himself in the eyes of many:
Quote:
In 1997, Hendrick began the Hendrick Marrow Program, a non-profit works with the Be The Match Foundation to support the National Marrow Donor Program. It raises funds to add volunteers to the Be The Match Registry, which helps to find a marrow match for patients. It also provides assistance to recipients with uninsured transplant costs. Since the beginning, it has raised millions of dollars, 100,000 potential donors to the organization and eased the financial burden of more the 5,000 patients with grants from the Hendrick Family Fund for Patient Assistance.
Afterward, he and his wife, Linda, were honored in 1999 with the Be The Match Foundation's Leadership for the Life Award. The award recognizes individuals who have made an extraordinary commitment to serve marrow transplant patients. Some of the past patients include U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, baseball great Rod Carew and former Postmaster General William J. Henderson. He takes a personal approach to the cause after being diagnosed in November 1996 with chronic myelogenous leukemia, but has been in full remission since December 1999. Hendrick also has a passion for The Hendrick Foundation for Children, a foundation that supports programs and services that benefit youngsters with illness, injury, disability or other hindrance, and was establish by his brother, John Hendrick. Governor Jim Hunt recognized Hendrick in 1996 with The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest civilian honor. The award is bestowed upon citizens of the state who have a proven record of extraordinary service. Past recipients include journalist Charles Kuralt, the Rev. Billy Graham, artist Bob Timberlake and Hendrick's late father, Joe Hendrick, who was presented the award by Gov. Mike Easley in 2004.
There have been some VERY GOOD rule changes recently, the best of which is the Double File Restarts in all 3 series.
I would love to see the Top 35 rule eliminated - but there has to be a provision to allow a top-notch driver to start a race - even if he wrecks his car during his qualifying run.
I am in favor of forcing a driver to declare his championship intentions in order to allow non CUP drivers to win driver championships in N'wide and Trucks. I don't think they went quite far enough, however. I would like to see a limit of the number of N'wide and/or Truck starts a full-time CUP driver can make.
I am very happy to see that the splitter has gone the way of the wing in CUP. Buh-bye.
Restrictor Plates should be outlawed!!! If Obama can weigh in on the BCS debate, he should be able to weigh in on this as well, don'tcha think? ;-}
2) Make everyone qualify for their spot in that race.
3) There is no reason 60 cars can not be on the tracks of today except at Martinsville and Bristol. Make them hard earned only the quickest qualifiers get in 30 cars.
4) Make them all at least 500 mile races, with the exception being the road races (250 miles on them is enough) with a point for each position at the finish. Add a point for leading a complete lap, but no matter how many laps lead, only the 1 point.
5) No bonus points for winning. Your position gave you the extra point already.
6) Eliminate the chase. It makes a biased system. 2 years ago without the chase bonus points, there would have been a different championship winner.
7) black flag those just riding around and not racing hard.
8) I like the 3 tier system. And allowing the sc drivers to race in the other series only on weekends they are not racing SC.
9) Everyone must be limited to the same valve angles and cant degrees instead of the favortism given to toyota's engines and gm's. If you are going to allow this to continue, then allow a real mopar hemi's angles.
10) Eliminate the wimpy attitudes on tv of the drivers with political/media correct speech. Let them say what they want!!! Yes, I enjoyed the races alot more when the Cale Yarboroughs could duke it out on the turn 4 grass. Clearly the TV viewers did too. Let's you see who really was passionate about trying to win instead of just riding along jockeys that got lucky.
11) If it rains, put rain tires on and get back out there. You will see real quick who really can drive and who can not.
12) Allow more new ideas to be used in the cars. Why? (Example;Rearview mirror if never used before could not be added to todays cars.) ALLOW the inventiveness back!!!
13) Make the engines under hood what comes in the production car version. And simular size +.030" to .060" overbore. Oh that would hurt toyotas too bad as well as the under sized ford engines. Oh well. The designers should have planned for it. Race on Sunday and sell on Monday needs to return to auto manufacturing.
14) Return to the rule the cars should be 2 door ONLY models! If that company doesn't have a 2 door midsized car to race, oh well. Thier fault for bad car designs.
15) At least 500 stick shift rear wheel drive production version of any model raced must be produced and sold to the public by the car company before that body style can be raced. It must have the same type engine and size also.
16) The car bodies must use factory production panels. Allow for blocking in the grille areas and a metal version of the junk bumper covers on production cars. But the team had better be able with trimming for tires bolt on a factory fender or door skin or qtr panel. Hey, I can relate to a car that looks like what the dealer sells on monday.
17) All restarts will be lined up just as the start of the race.
Restrictor Plates should be outlawed!!! If Obama can weigh in on the BCS debate, he should be able to weigh in on this as well, don'tcha think? ;-}
If Obama did this, he would win a lot of votes in the South!
Quote:
Originally Posted by 12GO
1) Eliminate the restrictor plates.Agreed.
2) Make everyone qualify for their spot in that race.
Agreed.
3) There is no reason 60 cars can not be on the tracks of today except at Martinsville and Bristol. Make them hard earned only the quickest qualifiers get in 30 cars.
Are you saying there should only be 30 cars to start the race?
4) Make them all at least 500 mile races, with the exception being the road races (250 miles on them is enough) with a point for each position at the finish. Add a point for leading a complete lap, but no matter how many laps lead, only the 1 point.
I'm in favor of less laps. While the hard-core fans won't agree with less, the future of NASCAR is in jeopardy. The next generation of NASCAR fans just have too many other distractions.
5) No bonus points for winning. Your position gave you the extra point already. Winning needs to be a priority, it seems to have been lost in these newer drivers. Bonus points should stay.
6) Eliminate the chase. It makes a biased system. 2 years ago without the chase bonus points, there would have been a different championship winner. The Chase has been a failure IMO. If it doesn't work this year, scrap it.
7) black flag those just riding around and not racing hard.
Agreed.
8) I like the 3 tier system. And allowing the sc drivers to race in the other series only on weekends they are not racing SC.
Agreed. The NWS has a lot of talented drivers that can't compete against the money and quality of the cars the SC drivers can bring.
9) Everyone must be limited to the same valve angles and cant degrees instead of the favortism given to toyota's engines and gm's. If you are going to allow this to continue, then allow a real mopar hemi's angles. Not real familiar with this, but I don't agree with favoritism, and I think Toyota gets some.
10) Eliminate the wimpy attitudes on tv of the drivers with political/media correct speech. Let them say what they want!!! Yes, I enjoyed the races alot more when the Cale Yarboroughs could duke it out on the turn 4 grass. Clearly the TV viewers did too. Let's you see who really was passionate about trying to win instead of just riding along jockeys that got lucky.
SC racing is so expensive and the owner really depends on sponsorship...it's the sad, but real truth. The drivers need to be PC to make the sponsor happy. I wish it wasn't that way.
11) If it rains, put rain tires on and get back out there. You will see real quick who really can drive and who can not. No matter how good a driver is, the 31 degree turns at Daytona is going to wreck a lot of cars in the pouring down rain. Unless you want to see the cars going 30 MPH all day.
12) Allow more new ideas to be used in the cars. Why? (Example;Rearview mirror if never used before could not be added to todays cars.) ALLOW the inventiveness back!!! Fuel Injection is coming mid-season. Also E15 fuel.
13) Make the engines under hood what comes in the production car version. And simular size +.030" to .060" overbore. Oh that would hurt toyotas too bad as well as the under sized ford engines. Oh well. The designers should have planned for it. Race on Sunday and sell on Monday needs to return to auto manufacturing. CAFE Standards are killing the V-8. Manufacturers need to work harder at this with NASCAR's help.
14) Return to the rule the cars should be 2 door ONLY models! If that company doesn't have a 2 door midsized car to race, oh well. Thier fault for bad car designs.
Agreed. I was frustrated to hear that GM didn't like the look of the Camaro had if it was to meet NASCAR standards, so they abandoned making the changes and kept the Impala. I wouldn't mind seeing the Cadillac CTS-V couple. Also has a 556 HP V-8
15) At least 500 stick shift rear wheel drive production version of any model raced must be produced and sold to the public by the car company before that body style can be raced. It must have the same type engine and size also. Great idea.
16) The car bodies must use factory production panels. Allow for blocking in the grille areas and a metal version of the junk bumper covers on production cars. But the team had better be able with trimming for tires bolt on a factory fender or door skin or qtr panel. Hey, I can relate to a car that looks like what the dealer sells on monday. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
17) All restarts will be lined up just as the start of the race. Double-file? They already do that.
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Let's you see who really was passionate about trying to win instead of just riding along jockeys that got lucky.
