COMPEITION, POINTS, AND THE ALL PRO SERIES
IT’S ALIVE: Well, I’m back, after a somewhat
unplanned hiatus. Seems the Talladega race weekend took more out of me than I
realized, and I had a small case of "race burnout". But the muse has
hit me on the head once again, so here we go.
HOMETOWN BOY MAKES GOOD: Hey, a fellow from my
hometown of Huntsville, Tennessee is going to be the grand marshal at a Winston
Cup race. He’s finally made it to the big time!
Sure, he’s done a few other things in his career, but this
has to be the highlight.
Of course, I’m talking about former White House Chief of
Staff, and former Senator from Tennessee, Howard Baker.
THE COMPETITION HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: The
Memphis Busch race was a snoozer. Except for the bit of racing after the
last caution, there really wasn’t much to get excited about. But that’s what
happens at a flat track I guess.
Although the Busch championship has effectively been
locked up for several weeks, Sunday’s race made it official. As they said on TV,
Jeff Green will set a record for the biggest point margin (unless something
really bad happens in the next two races). If the competition in Winston Cup has
been lacking, it’s been even more lacking in the Busch Series.
The top ten in points are separated by over 1600 points
(all figures are after the Memphis race). What’s up with that? Here’s what I
think.
When you have 4% of the drivers (the full time Winston Cup
drivers who won) taking 47% of the wins you can see
why the 2000 Busch Season was so boring. Counting all 23 full time Winston Cup
drivers, they took 17% of the points (21,335) and 16% of the prize money
($3,359,990) in the races through last Sunday.
The fact is, the Cup drivers are stinking up the
show. They’re also pushing up the amount of money it takes to run in the
series.
NASCAR needs to look at this and find a happy medium
between "if you’re fast enough to qualify you race" and "we’re
screwing our full time Busch teams".
The Busch Series has several functions: as a feeder series
to Winston Cup (e.g. Steve Park, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Bobby Labonte, Jeff
Gordon); as a "remedial" series for drivers who stepped up too quick
(e.g. David Green, Chad Little, Kenny Wallace); as and end in and of itself, for
drivers who don’t really want to run in Winston Cup (e.g. Randy LaJoie); and as
a "substitute" for Winston Cup races for tracks that aren’t on the
Winston Cup schedule (e.g. Nashville Superspeedway).
In every case but the last, padding the field with full
time Winston Cup drivers is a detriment. In the case of standalone Busch races,
having Winston Cup drivers in the field probably attracts more fans than would
otherwise attend. But do the cons outweigh the pros? I think it’s getting to
that point. When you have one third of the field made up of full time Winston
Cup drivers, and you send 15 Busch teams home, then the series will suffer.
We’ve seen that this year over and over. Plus, it makes for boring races, and
that’s not good for the sport.
There are a number of ways NASCAR could get the best of
both worlds out of this. They could limit the number of top twenty Winston Cup
drivers in the field (or top ten, since it could be argued that lower ranked
drivers might need the experience). They could limit the full time Cup drivers
to maybe 5 Busch races a year. Hopefully the brains in Daytona are looking at
the situation and working on it.
I don’t think NASCAR can afford many more Busch seasons
like this.
PLEASE CHANGE THE POINTS: Here we go again. I’ve
already seen the annual whining by some people saying that the points system is
unfair and needs to be changed. They’re even blaming it for the big points
margin that Bobby Labonte has. And the usual "let’s give the winner more
points" nonsense is in there too.
You want to have a boring season, give the winner 200
points. When someone wins five or seven races and has a 1000 point lead over the
second place driver with 5 races to go, how interesting is that going to be? In
effect, that’s what’s happened this year in the Busch Series. Green has gotten
more points by finishing ahead of the Cup guys who finished ahead of the regular
Busch guys.
I’ve maintained (and I still maintain) that the
championship should be based on all races, not just the ones you win. If you DNF
more times than you win, should you be a champion? I don’t think so.
YOU’RE USING MY UNION DUES FOR WHAT?: Full
disclosure: I don’t like unions. I think they’ve outlived their usefulness and
cause more problems than they fix. But if I were a union member, in addition to
being outraged that my dues were funding political campaigns (that I may or may
not personally support), I’d be outraged that my dues were going to sponsor a
race or a team. I think I’d be demanding a refund, since the union obviously has
more than enough money to operate and do the things a union is suppose to do.
The United Auto Workers logo has been on several cars and been a part of sponsoring
several races. But it looks like they’re going to be a bigger
sponsor than in the past with their involvement in the #25 car next year. Why do
they need to sponsor a team? Beats me. It’s not like they have a product they
need to convince me to buy. I don’t think they’re trying to convince workers
they need to join up. If you’re in a situation where the UAW is the union
at your work, then you don’t really have a choice about whether you can join
or not.
SO, HOW WAS PHOENIX?: I didn’t see either of the
races from Phoenix, but judging from NASCAR Online’s scoring, they both looked like
snoozers. I was too busy at Nashville Speedway. They
ran the last All American 400 there Sunday. You can watch it on TNN next Sunday.
As Mike Garvey said, the All American 400 is the Daytona
500 for a lot of drivers. You don’t see too many races where a "minor"
series like the All Pro Series runs longer races than the more major series that
run at the track. The 400 lap race for the All Pro guys is the longest one
they’ve run all season, and it’s longer than the Busch and Craftsman Truck races
that were run at Nashville. The Winston Cup races at Nashville were 420 laps.
There have been a lot of drivers you’d recognize who tried
to win the All American 400. The pole sitter the first year was Mark Martin.
Dick Trickle and Rusty Wallace won the next two poles. Wallace and Darrell
Waltrip both went to victory lane in the race. Drivers who would go on to make a
name for themselves in the Winston Cup or other series have run that race.
Drivers like Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki, and Tim Richmond all tried for the
coveted guitar trophy.
Next year, the "All American Classic" will be
run at the new superspeedway the weekend after Thanksgiving. Running this race
at the new track I think is a big mistake. The All Pro Series is a short track
series, and should be run on short tracks. They should have waited until the
5/8’s mile track at the new complex was completed, and run it there. They
haven’t said how long the race will be, but I suspect that it’ll be shorter than
the Craftsman Truck Series race.
They still plan on running two All Pro races at the
fairgrounds track next year, which will give the fans two more chances to see
these guys shine on the historic .596 mile oval.