Oct 9, 2006

Messing with the All-Star Race

A couple of weeks ago we gave you our humble prescription for improving the Chase for the Championship. We'd make it a real playoff with losers being eliminated each week.  Then we'd make the final race a winner-takes-the-championship contest.  Simple.  Compelling.  You win the championship race, you win the championship.  No nursing a 10th place finish to take the crown because the guy you're competing with is running 14th.  How ho-hum is that?

Okay, from that you realize that we're all for changes that make the sport more exciting for the fans.  Which is why we applaud the fact that NASCAR is looking into the possibility of changing its all-star race, the Nextel All-Star Challenge, according to a report from the Associated Press.  The only problem is, we think NASCAR might be headed in exactly the wrong direction.

One of the prime movers behind the proposed changes is Lowe's Motor Speedway President Humpy Wheeler, who in my opinion is one of the sharpest minds in all of motorsports, and certainly the best promoter around. Wheeler has a special interest in the race because it is run at his track, and he'd like it to be even more special than it has been.  Unfortunately, what he is reportedly eying is adding even more competitors to the field, and that's where we in this corner think he's making a mistake.  The event is billed as an all-star race, so it doesn't make much sense to bloat the field with a bunch of guys who can't rightly be described as all-stars or, for that matter, even stars.

Now, we know what Wheeler is thinking of.  He wants a bigger field because that means there is more opportunity for "racing action," including passes and crashes. That's the showman in him, and we can't deny that there's something to that.  But a huge field doesn't really have much place in an all-star race.

How's this for a wild idea? Since the race is a three-parter now, why not use that formula to create even more drama?  Run two 50-lap sprints with the entire all-star field with this wrinkle: the winner of the first of the two 50's doesn't have to compete in the second.  Why? Because by winning the first race he has already qualified for the final. Then you pit the winner of the second 50-lapper versus the winner of the first in a final 10-lap sprint -- mano a mano. Winner walks home with a million bucks.  Loser goes home empty.

Can you see Jeff Gordon taking on Junior?  Or Jimmie Johnson going head-to-head with Kasey Kahne?  Now that's drama.  Do it, NASCAR, what have you got to lose?