Ditch the Chase or Fix it:

By Keith Ott

  I hate it; don’t like it; wouldn’t give it a quarter to “Phone Home,” even if it was that cute little ET guy, and I could actually find a phone that took a quarter.  It still wouldn’t happen.  Get the point?  “The Farce”…Oops, I meant, “The Chase,” a playoff essentially, has no business in the racing world.  Stick and ball playoff junkies don’t be crying my way.  I have no sympathy.  Don’t be bringing up underdogs winning a title.  I could care less...Shoo, just shoo…It doesn’t apply.  No form of racing, in history, has had a playoff.  A racing championship should be based on a consistent high level of performance.  All these drivers have competed against each other every weekend.  The reason the guy in 12th is in 12th is because he wasn’t good enough to be eleventh and he certainly doesn’t deserve a shot at #1.

Wrong:  As if nine “pretenders” wasn’t enough.  They went and upped it to 11.  What’s next?  What if, say Jr. doesn’t make it; do we go to the Top15?  The Top35 already sees to it that the top teams walk into the show.  The Top15 would let the biggest, of the biggest, get most of their cars in the title hunt.  Why even run the season?  We only need to see those 15 cars.

Right:  Alas, if it must stay, cut the field to at least the Top5.  The Top5, even if the points don’t show it, at least sounds like these drivers had a shot at it.  This also puts 5 deserving drivers, not making the Chase,” on the stage. 

Wrong:  There are no consequences for poor racing during the Chase.

Right:  There needs to be a system for eliminating poor performers.  Every playoff has eliminations.  They, ok most, didn’t earn the right to be there in the first place.  Why should they keep a stage table when others not in the Chase have out driven them?  They need to lose the extra points that NASCAR used to separate them from the field and revert to their actual points.  My example would be Mr. Stewart.  In “Real Points,” because he had a terrific last 10 races, he finished ahead of some of the Chasers in real points.  Did he deserve a shot at the title?  Hell no, he missed the cutoff.  A spot on the stage?  You bet.  Eliminating the back 6 after race 5 seems fair.  I don’t think anyone from 13th position could charge hard enough to go higher than that.

So this doesn’t get too long I just have one more thought.  With the Chase, if you can’t possibly be #1, then you race safer and take fewer risks so you don’t become #13.  Racing was about taking risks and chances for the lead and the win. Now, if you can’t win, you best bring her home safely in one piece.