Mike Helton and Brian France can just lick my nuts. C'mon, Lick em!

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a new age in NA$CAR. Most notably, the title sponsor has changed from Winston to Nextel. This is probably a good thing. Although Winston was great for the sport, especially back in the 70’s when the sport wasn’t as popular and Winston would even supply the paint for small tracks if they couldn’t afford it. (Even today, many local tracks are red and white.) But, times change and with the lawsuits and increasing negative pub that comes with having a tobacco company as your main sponsor, NA$CAR sought a new title sponsor in the very hip - Men 18-54 demo - Nextel. That’s fine. As a longtime NA$CAR fan, just pay the money and get out of the way.

If the NFL is proof that communism can work, NA$CAR is proof that a monarchy can work. For a while, anyway. You see, NA$CAR is run by the France family and Mike Helton and his henchmen. There is a board, but they are useless. Brian France is the chairman and Helton is the president. And they run NA$CAR like little boys playing tag. E.g.:

Mike: I got you!

Brian: Nuh uh, I had on force field protection!

Mike: Well I had on undo-force-field-protection, so you’re it!

Brian: Well I had super reflection force field, so you just tagged yourself it.

You get the point. There isn’t even a rule book for NA$CAR. I shit you not. They just make it up as they go. “Um, let’s see, you said ‘shit’ on TV that’ll be. . . .um, . . . $25,000. Yeah, that sounds good.” "You’re spoiler was too low. Um. Hmm… We’ll just dock you 25 points. You’d think the 2nd most popular sport in America would be a little more professional, especially trying to escape the “Redneck Southerner Runnin’ 'shine” stereotype.

To be fair, they’ve done a relatively good job keeping the teams close and competitive. And it is under Helton that the sport has exploded in the past 10 years. But now he’s off his gourd.

Have you ever heard of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Me too. Mike hasn’t.

In the single most boneheaded move in the history of NA$CAR (ok, moving the Labor Day race to CA is a close 2nd), they have totally fucked the points system. Totally. Briefly, they have decided that after the first 26 races, the points will be thrown out and the top 10 or teams within 400 points will be awarded some arbitrary number of points, decending by 5 from first to 10th (or whatever. Confused? Me too.)

And what are these simpletons’ motivations?

Read, “money”. Read, “I don’t give a shit about the effort these guys have put in all year (remember, the NA$CAR season runs from Feb - Nov), I want more people watching at the end of the year.” Asshole.

I’ve got a better idea. If you want more ratings, let’s dump all the drivers on an island and see who can Survive. Or send them off to an island with sexy women who will try to make them cheat on their wives.

Some people might say “Matt Kenseth won the 2003 championship by 90 points, and it wasn’t even close toward the end of the season!” Two things, 1)good on Robby Rieser and Matt Kenseth, they kicked everybody’s ass all season long and deserved the big cushion they had at the homestretch and 2) the Busch and Craftsman series use the exact same points system and their champions weren’t crowned until the very last race.

Even more assine. From Jayski’s website

This is not fucking go-kart racing. This is not Mike Helton and Brian France’s little Hot-Wheels track. There is serious money and prestige at stake here. It’s all going to hell and I may have to start watching the pointy cars at some point.

2

Okay, it seems to me that it’s ridiculous to “go back” and see who would have won had the new point system been in place for the last five years. Knowledge of the point system and how to manipulate it is the hallmark of a top team. Had the new point system been in place, Kenseth would have driven his little ass off in the last few races instead of coasting through and staying out of trouble.

I can’t really say that I like the new system yet (I want to see it in action first), but it does address a valid concern (the sometimes boring last 5-10 races). In most sports the team with the best record gets an advantage (bye, home field, etc), but they still have to play off against the “best of the rest”. That’s all I see this as, a playoff.

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As a whole, I don’t like the change either. That being said, there are two points which make it easier to take.

  1. Even though a driver is out of the “playoffs”, there is still an incentive to win races.

I’m assuming that by “11th place finisher”, they mean the first driver not eligible for the new playoff format.

  1. It eliminates hanging out in the back of the pack to avoid trouble and driving conservatively over the course of the last 2-3 races. Can you say Tony Stewart (2002)? Matt Kenseth (2003)? Sure, they were consistent over the course of the season, but both of them drove like old men for the last couple of races of their championship season. Christ, it was boring to watch.

I think the new format puts the emphasis back on winning races, which is why these guys started racing in the first place. I’ll bet none of them said “I want to finish in the top 15 every race” when they were growing up. They probably all said “I want the trophy, and I want a hot chick to drape herself on me when I get it.”

I’ll give it a season before I make my final judgement.

4

Kenseth had 5 top 10s in the last 10 races. Hardly coasting. The idea that these guys ever “coast” is ridiculous.

As I said, the CTS and Busch series were decided on the final race, in one situation by a position or two. Same points system. NA$CAR.points.broken(0) = false

5

Okay, had to jump back in here to add this:
From an article entitled - Waltrip: New format won’t affect strategy

Emphasis added.
You know, I always thought a little better of Michael than that. Idiot.

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There always has been an incentive if you’re running 11th or 12th in the points. That is, to finish in the top 10 so you can sit at the big table. A very big deal to those guys.

As I said above, Matt had 5 top 10s the last 10 races. As for Stewart in '02, he had 5 top 5s and only finished out of the top 10 twice. Again, not coasting.

Winning a race gives you 5 more points. 5. Not a big deal. Should be much more.

Yeah, get back to me when Harvick has a 250 lead after the Richmond fall race. :slight_smile:

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And with a 529 point lead over (then 4th place in points) Jimmy Johnson after Bristol in August, he failed to finish ahead of him for the rest of the season, finishing a mere 90 points ahead, 12 races later. Without the cushion of such a lead, he may have driven more aggressively trying for the win rather than just avoiding taking a huge hit in points.

Johnson raced his ass off over the same 10 races (1 win, 3 seconds, 3 thirds, 9 top tens) AND he stayed out of trouble. That’s the sort of effort that should be put forth in a playoff race.

And you know I’m not a Johnson fan, but Harvick’s late run was not as exciting as Johnson’s…

But if there are 15 drivers in the playoffs, the table is already set. 16th will get the $250,000, if I’m understanding it correctly.

But with 5 races to go over (then third place and 122 points back) Mark Martin, Stewart’s average finish was 11th. Martin’s was 5th.

C’mon. It’ll be at least 650… :wink:

P.S. Damn you for making me defend the new points system!

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See the quote from Waltrip above. Seems he doesn’t agree with you. I’ll admit the word “coast” might be hyperbole, but it sure looked like he wasn’t trying to win races. This is strictly anecdotal, but listening to the driver/chief exchanges I swear I remember him being cautioned several times late in the year to take it easy and avoid anything risky.

Well, maybe not much more, but it is more now:
“NASCAR also will award a race winner an additional five points, beginning with the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 15.”

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First of all, so many people seem to hate this new system, and they HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN IT YET.

People get worked up about every change NASCAR makes and yet the popularity of the sport just keeps growing.

Nascar says this isn’t a playoff, but I definitely think that it is. I keep hearing “it wipes out what a team did for the first 26 races of the season.”

Well, duh, what do you think the playoffs do in any sport? The Yanks can’t get swept in the world series and still win it the season just because they had 10 more regular season victories than the Marlins.

I think its going to make the end of the season more exciting and I’m looking forward to it.

Not only that, it’s going to make the middle of the season more exciting too. Wait till about race 22 or so, when a few hundred points separate 10th from 15th. Believe me, if your boy Ricky Craven (or whoever) is running in that 15th spot you’re going to have a lot more to root for this year than you did last year.

Now, I still think the “lucky dog” rule kind of stinks.

I’d also like to see more points for winning, maybe a progressive system, 10 for your first, 20 for your second, etc, so by the time you’ve won 8 race you’re getting 80 points for it. it still wouldn’t have helped newman last year, though.

Maybe drivers could keep points from their WINS into the post-season this year. That might have been an interesting change.

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Bruce_Daddy, sorry for the upcoming blatant hijack, consider it a sponsorship decal on mt decklid.

grem0517, I’d like to direct your attention here. It’s free if Yahoo ever sets it up.

Back to racing…

11

Ok, after thinking about this at the gym, I’ve cooled off a little bit. I still don’t like it but what am I going to do? Quit watching? I don’t think so. But I do have some things to add.

First off, everybody keeps comparing this to baseball or football. Apples and oranges, I say. In most other sports, two teams of a larger collection play every once in a while, be it once a week or every couple of days. And there is a winner and a loser that by season’s end totals to a record.

This could not be more distant from the realities in NA$CAR. 40 or so teams compete with 40 or so other teams every week for 36 weeks. Although there is a “winner”, top 5s are pretty good too. Do I think that the current system rewards winning enough? Hell no, but neither does the new system.

If you want to compare it to another sport, how about a marathon. Let’s change the Boston Marathon and after 3 hours take the top 10 guys, no matter how distant they are from each other, line them up and let them sprint for 100 yards. Right, that makes sense. Of course it would be more entertaining but it kills the concept of a marathon.

In summary, it is very simple.

  1. The original points system was not flawed, this is a knee-jerk reaction to one team’s dominace last year.

  2. The new points system does not reward winning enough, it simply awards winners 10 points instead of 5.
    While we’re at it, I’ve come up with some ideas to make it more exciting, therefore more viewable:

-Danger Car: Danger Car is black with a skull and crossbones on the hood. It’s sole purpose is to wreck other cars. Weee!!!

-Popup saw blades like they have on Robot Wars.

-Plastic Lugnuts.

-Switchum Cars: Halfway through the race you get to pick which car you want to drive.

-Semifinals: After the final 10 races, drivers compete on bicycles at Talladega. In tu-tus.

You get the point. There are things you can do to make it more “entertaining” but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

I do like Trunk’s progressive win points idea, however.

Casey1505, send me a link when you get the pool going. I’m warning you though, I’ve very good at these. Just today I cashed a check for $200 from last season’s bet. :wink:

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Dude, they haven’t run Earnhardt’s car in 3 years… :frowning:

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I’m such an easy laugh.