THE LATFORD POINT SYSTEM IN THE 1990s

         One of the sport’s unresolved controversies has been the utility of the Latford point system.  The controversy stems from the system’s emphasis on a team’s average finish as opposed to general performance.  Defenders of the system note that driver and team consistency should matter in a points race and that the Latford system has made for consistently close point races.

         An interesting, and revealing, angle to the debate is offered when one looks back at the Latford system in use during the decade past.  First off, the 1990s saw Dale Earnhardt win four Winston Cups, Jeff Gordon three, and Alan Kulwicki, Terry Labonte, and Dale Jarrett one apiece.  Compare this to the 1980s – in that decade Darrell Waltrip and Earnhardt won three titles apiece, while Bobby Allison, Labonte, Bill Elliott, and Rusty Wallace each won the title once.

         More revealing, though, is how the point battles of the 1990s transpired.  Entering the decade Rusty Wallace was the defending champion, Darrell Waltrip had come off his finest season (not in stats as much as in completing unfinished business), Mark Martin had broken through into championship contender status and Dale Earnhardt had seen what looked like a sure title explode in his face.  For 1990 Wallace and Waltrip would falter – Rusty won twice but broke a lot and finally left Raymond Beadle’s team, while Darrell broke his leg, went 0-for-29 in the season, and bought the #17 team from Rick Hendrick – while Earnhardt ripped through, winning nine races, piling up top fives, and leading over 2400 laps.  Yet his point battle with Mark Martin was tight all season, as Mark compiled top fives amid three wins.  When it finally ended, Earnhardt had won by just 26 points – and would have lost by 20 without the NASCAR penalty at Richmond in February.

         The 1991 point battle was less dramatic.  Ricky Rudd briefly led the points, but after the Winston 500 Earnhardt took control and clinched the title by just qualifying at Atlanta.

         The point battle that still excites the sport is the 1992 campaign.  Davey Allison led the points until Waltrip hooked him into a savage tumble at Pocono.  With relief help from Bobby Hillin, Davey retook the point lead a week later at Talladega, but Elliott took it back and by Rockingham in October held a reasonably comfortable lead.  Coming up were Kyle Petty and Alan Kulwicki, both over 270 points back after the Delaware 500 in September, while Mark Martin was still in the hunt as well.  When Elliott broke at Phoenix (his third breakage in five races) Allison won the race and the top six were seperated by less than 100 points.  Martin led much of the Atlanta finale but then blew, Kyle lost a lap on an ill-timed yellow and finally broke, and Allison was knocked out by a spinning Ernie Irvan, and by leading one more lap than Elliott, Kulwicki aced the title by ten points – the narrowest margin in Winston Cup history.

         Since then, however, the margin of victory in points has never been truly close.  1993 was a stirring battle of titans as Earnhardt nailed down six wins (five of them in an eight-race summer span) and Rusty Wallace recovered from Talladega injury to nail down ten wins.  But crashes at Daytona, Talladega, Charlotte, and Dover, plus breakage at Sears Point and Pocono and lousy efforts at July events at Daytona and Talladega plus Watkins Glen and Phoenix all enabled Earnhardt to win by 80 points.

         1994 was even stranger.  Rusty nailed down eight more wins but the point race was primarily between Earnhardt and Ernie Irvan.  They won six of the first ten events and led the points into August.  Earnhardt retook the point lead after Irvan’s blown tire at Indianapolis, and when Irvan was nearly killed at Michigan, Rusty found he could do little more than chip at Earnhardt’s point lead.  With back-to-back engine failures in October, Earnhardt clinched the title by winning at Rockingham.

         1995 was an example of choking.  Jeff Gordon bagged seven wins and then shot himself in the foot in October and November, but he had enough of a point lead so that despite a laughable effort at Atlanta while Earnhardt roared to an easy triumph, he won the title.  His 34-point margin of victory was grossly deceptive, for the point title wasn’t nearly that close.

         If 1995 was a choke that didn’t stop the champion, 1996 was a choke that did.  Gordon bagged ten wins and led Terry Labonte by over 100 points entering October, but at Charlotte he broke while Terry grabbed only his second win of the year, and Gordon ran poorly at the subsequent event at Rockingham.  Despite breaking his hand during pre-qualifying practice at Phoenix, Labonte finished third and only had to finish in the top ten at Atlanta to win the title.

         1997 was yet another near-choke.  Again Gordon grabbed ten wins, and this time he finished in the top ten at Charlotte’s October 500.  His point lead over Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin was once again well over 100.  But at Talladega he wiped out himself and 22 others, and then at Phoenix he finished 17th while Jarrett won.  Despite that, he was so far ahead that only a complete collapse at Atlanta could give Jarrett or Martin the title.  As it happened, he almost did just that – he blindsided Bobby Hamilton on pit road before qualifying, timed a backup car out of the top 35, got lapped in the race, and finished just high enough to win the title by 14 points.  Once again, the slim margin of victory was hideously deceptive, as the actual point race did nothing to justify such a margin.

         If 1995-97 saw point finishes closer than they could possibly deserve, 1998 and ’99 were just plain point routs.  Gordon slaughtered the point race and clinched it at Rockingham in 1998, while Dale Jarrett nickel-and-dimed his way to clinching the title at Homestead in 1999.

         What the 1990s have shown is that the Latford point system no longer does what it was designed to do – promote close point finishes.  Compare this past decade with the point races of the 1980s – the title genuinely came down to the last race in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1988, and 1989.  It also came down to the finale in 1985, though Bill Elliott’s DNF in that race made for a deceptively lopsided margin.

         The faults of the Latford system are well known, but now must be added what had been the system’s greatest strength – close point races.  When I read or hear a reminiscence of the 1992 point race, I sense that people believe the sport will no longer see a point race that truly comes down to the final race.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Changes to the point system can bring back the down-to-the-wire nature that made the Latford system work for so long.