I Was Wrong

There has been a lot of words uttered and written over the span of the past season concerning the viability of the "Chase for the Championship" driver's point's format. Nearly a year ago, this format was the brain child of newly installed NASCAR Chairman Brian France.

The new point's format had a lot of detractors from the onset, and I have to admit, I was among them, wholeheartedly. All during the season, I harangued the new point's system as did dozens of other media personnel, who, like me, are mainstream traditionalists. Even as the season was winding down to the last ten events, and the chase format began, we were still against the new system for a variety of reasons which all rang true at the time. I can't speak for the rest of the media who were (and some still are) against the system - but I can, and usually do - speak very clearly for myself. I was wrong! For those of you who are my regular readers and come to find this amusing, you'd better print this out and hang on to it for safe keeping, because you aren't going to see those words written by me very often.

At any rate, the "Chase for the Championship" turned out to be a huge success. The final event of the season had one of the most exciting race finishes you'll ever see, no matter which driver, or drivers, you may have been rooting for. The main factor in coming to this conclusion is the reaction of the fans, myself included, who got to see a truly exciting culmination of a championship battle, one that was fought dramatically down to the last lap of the last race.

Jim Hunter, NASCAR's vice president of corporate communications, stated last winter that NASCAR knew what was best for the fans, and that the fans would eventually come around to NASCAR's way of thinking. Now, it's clearly evident that his statement was correct.

Recent news has revealed that NASCAR is considering using the chase format in the Busch Series, but not until 2006. Last season's Busch Series championship battle was more or less between two drivers. This battle spanned the majority of the season, beginning in early summer. Only a couple of drivers, Jason Leffler and Greg Biffle, got close to the fray in the third position, but not close enough to make a difference. Leffler was unceremoniously yanked from his ride by Haas CNC Racing and Biffle caught up to the leaders too late in the season to make a difference.

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