And I would be remiss if I didn't first address probably the biggest announcement of the 2011 NASCAR seasons thus far: the new points system.
The story of the now-former NASCAR points system is often touted as legend: Bob Latford supposedly drew up the system on a napkin before the 1975 season, and it stuck. The winner of a race was awarded 175 points, with five fewer points going to each position until sixth place. Sixth through eleventh would be separated by four points each, with points decreasing by three for every position after eleventh. Unlike previous systems, which were relative to conditions such as race length and prize money earned, the new system was standardized for all races. It was intended to encourage teams to run for a championship, in an era when few teams had the luxury of funding to chase a title. Richard Petty won the 1975 championship, but independent drivers Dave Marcis and James Hylton finished second and third under the new system, on the strength of their consistency (only seven drivers ran all 30 races, and Marcis had one victory in 1975 to Petty's 13).
Not that Latford's system went unchallenged since the seventies. It was in the media-rich '90s and 2000s that it truly came under fire. When Matt Kenseth won only one race en route to his 2003 championship, while Ryan Newman won eight races and finished in sixth place overall, the outcry was that Newman's race victories should have carried more weight in the points than Kenseth's consistent season. With Kenseth's steady success blamed for lagging TV ratings and NEXTEL primed to be a new series sponsor in 2004, NASCAR chose to tweak the system. The result was the controversial "Chase for the Championship," a sort of playoff system where, after twenty-six races, the top ten drivers in the points would be locked in to compete amongst themselves for the series title, re-seeded according to their position in the points, and later based upon the number of wins they scored on the season.
The points system was never a totally intuitive points system. But at the same time, if you (as a fan) could grasp the workings of the points system, you were part of the "in" crowd. It was sort of like the track operator who explained that for years, they had never needed a scoreboard because "we knew Vermonters could count."
I suppose that's why I felt insulted when Brian France announced a new "easier to understand" points system for 2011. The new system awards 43 points for first place, with one fewer point for each lower position, and three bonus points to the race winner (plus a single bonus point for laps led and one more for the driver who leads the most laps). All drivers still receive points, so if you scale down the old system, the spread through the field is still about equal, with the exception of the top eleven (where the spread used to be a bit wider) and the race winner. So while I'd prefer no change to token change, it's not the system that I have a problem with.
It's that we, as fans, were told we needed something "easier to understand." So are NASCAR fans stupid? (My friends would argue this point, but mostly for my reaction.) What about simply widening the gap between first and second place, as was done a year or two ago? That way, a small points premium still exists for a top ten finish, with a higher weight for winning. That's the effective outcome here, anyway. Or give first, second and third places a higher points differential and keep the rest the same.
Instead, Brian France and NASCAR have handed fans the equivalent of the Easy Reader version of the same points system, simplified for fans' convenience. Never mind that only the savants in the fan base (who already would have no problems with the old system) and ESPN's statisticians (who have computers) are going to compute points standings on the fly. And never mind that they've altered the Chase recipe yet again, this time including the two drivers outside the top ten (but inside the top twenty) who have the most race wins.
The PR line is that this is another step toward solving sluggish TV ratings and race attendance. Incidentally, this is a problem NASCAR has faced since, oh, they started messing with the championship system wholesale in 2003. I would go out on a limb and even point to 2001. That was the year NASCAR transitioned from a primarily cable-TV schedule to broadcast-network fodder. Instead of no-nonsense broadcasts for race fans, we were treated to gimmicky broadcasts playing NASCAR up as some kind of spectacle. I've long felt that the pressure was on to shift NASCAR racing from an enthusiast's sport to a sport that could be followed by the most casual viewer, like football. And so we old-guard fans were treated to inane interviews and contrived catchphrases and broadcasts that assumed that everyone tuned into Fox was watching cars go around in a circle for the first time ever. NASCAR and their TV partners started chasing viewers, not fans. In the boardroom, viewers can be quantified. Fans are a little harder to pick out.
That's the best explanation I can come to as to why, since 2001, NASCAR racing has undergone so many tweaks and changes. "Aero-matched" race cars. A championship playoff system. Green-flag finishes. Caution flags for "debris on the track" that bunched up the field, but without any debris to show for it. A tweak to the playoff system. The "car of tomorrow" redesign (which I can't argue has produced a safer race car, but the original model lacked aesthetics that have been creeping back into the newest version). Another tweak to the playoff system. Late race-start times to benefit West-coast fans, then consistent start times to benefit all fans, and now late-season late-start times to conflict less with NFL football. Now, we get a new points system, and yet another tweak to the championship system.
All of the above have been introduced as solutions to sluggish ratings and attendance that started when NASCAR started tweaking the system in the first place.
NASCAR's biggest problem, at least as I've seen it, has been credibility. I'm not going to argue credibility this time, but I feel that in order to establish credibility, a sporting organization needs to be consistent, and this goes back to the method that determines a champion. Again, I'll draw the comparison to the National Football League. Over the last several years, much like NASCAR, the NFL has tweaked its rules to create a better game (as athletes improve) and to promote better safety for the players. Evolution is natural. But the method of determining the NFL Champion has not changed. When the New England Patriots missed the 2008 playoffs despite a strong season in a strong division, no one changed the rules. This year, in the wake of the Seattle Seahawks clinching their division with a losing record, there was talk of new rules as to how home-field advantage is determined, but no one talked of keeping such a team from the playoffs as long as they win their division.
Yet when a NASCAR driver wins a bunch of races but runs inconsistently the rest of the season, and misses the championship cutoff, suddenly the rules must be reconsidered. It reminds me of a few seasons back, when both Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had weak seasons and were likely to miss the Chase for the Championship. The talk centered around how TV ratings might suffer if two of the most popular drivers missed the Chase. Two years later, not ten but twelve cars were now eligible for the Chase. And Earnhardt still missed it.
In the last ten years, there have been at least four different approaches to determining NASCAR's premier-series champion, including this year's changes. To me, it feels like there should be just one.
No matter how easy it is to understand.
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