What do you think?Nascar New Chase Format

[rhinoracing11]

16 teams enter the format,last 10 races.Then they will eliminate teams as the chase goes on, after every 3 races.Cutting it to 4 teams, at the last race of the year.The driver who has the best finish of the four in this race is your new Champion.
Now Im a D.I.R.T guy but I do watch other motorsports.Not sure If I like this......

Rob

[Matt Albee]

Anyone who could understand that concept is way ahead of me. The Chase expanded to 16 cars. No reason, they just are. A win gets you in automatically. No reason, it just does. In fact, they don't want teams coasting, collecting points until the last ten races. I get it. But if a team wins a race early in the year ( think Trevor Bayne ) and then barely break the top 20 for the rest of the year, might they not bump out someone who ran top 20 all year and just missed out in points?
Now the rest of it was too much to take in all at once. The points for each car change if it's the crew chiefs' birthday. If a car finds itself out of the top 16, the owner claps his hands three times and spins around while drinking a Coke and they're back in. The 16th place car is in the chase all season unless...............
I looked up the word chase in the dictionary. One of the meanings was " a giant manipulation of a sporting event or events in the name of pretending to be a meaningful sport "

[egspeedway]

The chase format is not what is wrong at Nascar. The problem is their product at tracks other than DIS and Talladega and the tracks less than 1 mile. These tracks provide close and side by side racing for the most part. The one and a half mile tracks are viewer torture with single file racing for 3 to 4 hours. They must do something to the aero package that will facilitate side by side racing and create multiple groove competition. The move to 16 teams is more likely an assurance that more cars with major sponsors(read that multi car teams) will ostensibly be a part of at least the start of the chase. Believe me I hope I am wrong since I will once again attempt to watch until I realize it is a rerun with different color cars. The color being the major difference anyway.

[al_tere_go_05]

and if one of nacscar's golden boys dont make the chase a 17th car will be added.

[andre]

All artificial stuff in order to create drama and excitement.

Put the cars back on spring, let's get rid of bump stop, raise the bodywork a little so air can get underneat, and all those dramatic moments will come back by themselves, and will be the real stuff, not ''Made for TV'' artificial monkey scenarios.

We can all see by overflowing grandstands that they are on the right track...

[Gary J]

A new way to lose fans, longtime fans like us will stop watching because it's contrived, casual fans will stop watching because it's too complicated to figure out.

[Trash Inturn4]

Changes announced by France to the championship format include:

- A victory in the first 26 races all but guarantees a berth in the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup a change that will put an unprecedented importance on winning a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race all season long
- Expanding the Chase field from 12 to 16 drivers, with those drivers advancing to what now will be known as the NASCAR Chase Grid
- The number of championship drivers in contention for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship will decrease after every three Chase races, from 16 to start in the Chase Grid; 12 after Chase race No. 3; eight after Chase race No. 6; and four after Chase race No. 9
- The first three races of the Chase (27-29) will be known as the Challenger Round
- Races 30-32 will be known as the Contender Round
- Races 33-35 will be the Eliminator Round and race No. 36 will be the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship
- A win by a championship-eligible driver in any Chase race automatically clinches the winning driver a spot in the next Chase round
- Four drivers will enter the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship with a chance at the title, with the highest finisher among those four capturing the prestigious NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.

[Old Tymer]

More fluff, no stuff.

If Nascar wants more "effort / less just riding around", just let them qualify and then draw a number to invert, like they do at local tracks. This does two things, (1) it makes for better racing because the fast guys have to come from somewhere in the back, and (2) it puts different guys up front for awhile and gets them tv time that their sponsers would not usually get. The "less" funded teams make up 2/3 of the field every week, but you would hardly know them. Tv only wants to show the same faces all the time. As hard as it is to get/keep sponsers, Nascar should be bending over backwards to help. One of the main reasons that fans are slowly going away is because Nascar has forgotten what made it work from the local tracks. People won't go to their local track to see all "cookie cutter" type cars, so why spend $300 to go see it on a Nascar track.
As for the "chase", just take the top 12 points cars after 26 races and start them up front 1 thru 12 based on their points in those 26 races. Start them with 0 points and for the next 9 races they start 1 thru 12 based on their finishes, (example)- winner=12 points, etc. It keeps more of the 12 cars in contention longer, and keeps someone from being knocked out because of a bad week or being in a non contenders wreck. Fans want to see competition, not a bunch of guys out for a sunday drive.

[tccaz]

Here's a thought nascar never came up with let em race the winner get extra points for the win and after the 36th race the racer with the most points is the champion. Oh and get rid of all the downforce crap, make em look like real cars too.

[mr south 59]

A new way to lose fans, longtime fans like us will stop watching because it's contrived, casual fans will stop watching because it's too complicated to figure out.

They are trying to bring back the JR Nation!!! LOL

If NASCAR would have had this points system in place last year JR would have won the championship!!!

[andre]

Yep! And without winning a single race during the whole season.

Might as well put the names of all drivers in a hat, draw 4, and go from there at Homestead.

At the end of the day, this will not sell one more ticket. Nobody will buy ticket because of the Chase or Chase format, great racing sells tickets. Same as in short track racing. If your racing part of the show sucks, you can have fireworks, great announcers, best PA system in the state, or whatever, the base is the racing, and if this is not up there, fans will not attend. They are race fans, not fireworks fans. A restaurant can have the best side dish in the state, if the steak is burned to a crisp, you won't have many customers.

[luke81]

I certainly don't think the system is hard to understand, it's pretty basic. But it's also pointless and totally addresses the wrong problem. As everyone else already said, much of the on-track product is just not very good. When they stole F1's qualifying format they should have stolen more of their ideas too. Shorter races and road courses specifically. A few years ago the chairman of Fox Sports said publicly that the races are too long. And we have many fantastic road courses that they could be in, instead of the same track in a new state over and over. I keep trying to be a fan, but they're making it more and more difficult to give a poo about it.

[Old Tymer]

It's all about money

As with most small companies, once the big corporations move in, things change. Nascar is a perfect example. Everything is now turned towards corporate ass kissing. Not bad except that most of the big money is going to a select few. You can bet that behind the scenes, the BIG sponsers are using heavy influence to steer the sport in the direction they want it to go. After all, it's "their" investment they are trying to protect. They only want to back "winners" and drivers that can sell product. I'll be the first to admit that it makes a good business model for the corporations, but it makes for too much back room back slapping and deal making. You can bet that if LOWES said it was pulling out, that Nascar would be on the plane to beg them to stay, (as long as they were going to back one of Nascar's golden boys). Yet if a small sponser made the same announcement, Nascar might call on the phone and say, "sorry you are pulling out, but we can't help you". It comes down to who is putting the most money in Nascar's pockets. Money is power and power is influence and influence is favoritism and favoritism is what is hurting the sport.

[Matt Albee]

Changes announced by France to the championship format include:

- A victory in the first 26 races all but guarantees a berth in the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup a change that will put an unprecedented importance on winning a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race all season long
- Expanding the Chase field from 12 to 16 drivers, with those drivers advancing to what now will be known as the NASCAR Chase Grid
- The number of championship drivers in contention for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship will decrease after every three Chase races, from 16 to start in the Chase Grid; 12 after Chase race No. 3; eight after Chase race No. 6; and four after Chase race No. 9
- The first three races of the Chase (27-29) will be known as the Challenger Round
- Races 30-32 will be known as the Contender Round
- Races 33-35 will be the Eliminator Round and race No. 36 will be the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship
- A win by a championship-eligible driver in any Chase race automatically clinches the winning driver a spot in the next Chase round
- Four drivers will enter the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship with a chance at the title, with the highest finisher among those four capturing the prestigious NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.

When I said this....whatever this is, was incredibly complicated to keep track of, I forgot that we won't have to. The tv talking heads will do it for us. Every 3 minutes during every race broadcast one or more of the announcers will breathlessly inform us about where each car is in the "Chase" and " if the race ended now Dale Jr. would be in ___ position in the Chase".
Any fan who actually keeps track of all of the above is indeed a true fan. Most of us will just wait to see who's champion.

[scottgarrity07]

So in effect you can kick everyones tail all season long and if you get caught up in a backmarkers wreck in the last race you finish 4th in points. What a load of crap. Get ready for more "Kurt Busch" type of NASCAR "champions". NASCAR Champion, the guy who can beat three other cars and is good at Homestead. Good grief, think I'll watch PASS races on pay-per-view on my computer instead...