Bob Pockrass: Crown NASCAR national tour champions on different weekends
Homestead-Miami Speedway is the site of the season finale for all three national series in NASCAR.
// Mark Sluder, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
The NASCAR Nationwide Series title likely will be decided this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway, and the Camping World Truck Series championship has a good chance of being decided as well.
People will talk about how bad this is, that one race prior to the end of the season, the champion is decided. There will be a feeling that NASCAR’s championship weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway will be diluted if one or more of the champions has already been decided.
But there’s a bigger issue here: Why does NASCAR feel it must crown all three champions on one weekend?
With all due respect to Homestead-Miami Speedway and the people who have created the championship weekend there, both the Truck and Nationwide series could be better off if they crowned their champs on a different weekend.
It would have been more exciting to have the Truck season finish last week at Texas, the Nationwide season end this weekend at Phoenix and then climax the NASCAR schedule with the Cup champion crowned at Homestead.
By finishing on different weekends, each of the NASCAR series would be the focus. Trucks would have gotten more focus at Texas, where pretty much everyone was talking about Jimmie Johnson’s lead and which team Danica Patrick would drive for next year.
The Nationwide championship will be decided this weekend unless Kyle Busch just has a total collapse. That will make a few headlines on Sunday – more than it will next week at Homestead, when all the Sunday coverage will be about how close the championship is and whether Johnson will win his fourth consecutive title.
It won’t be a knock on the Truck and Nationwide series to have a different season finale. They get so lost in the shuffle and schedule at Homestead that having their finales on different weekends would be a way to celebrate each series.
International Speedway Corp., the parent company of Homestead-Miami Speedway, doesn’t need the Truck and the Nationwide Series at its track to sell tickets for this weekend. They are busy trying to sell out the Cup event and have done little promotion in recent months of the other titles being decided.
If NASCAR wanted to crown two champs, maybe it could crown its Grand-Am road-racing series champion this weekend. At least that would help diversify the weekend schedule and, considering the sell in the Miami area is a tough one, having two different style of cars on the track over the weekend might help with attendance.
Texas had a mediocre crowd at best for the Truck race there, so maybe if that championship was being decided, it could have been more of an event. Another option would be to run Nationwide on Friday and then make the Truck championship the main support event of the weekend on Saturday.
A Nationwide championship finale at Phoenix certainly couldn’t hurt that track in its efforts to sell its Saturday event.
If NASCAR wants to have its other series compete on the final weekend, it could have a Truck and Nationwide all-star event at Homestead. Maybe the top 15 in each series get to race for a big payday. Maybe that could run in a doubleheader format on Saturday, making it a spectacular day of racing instead of what likely will be a not very meaningful Nationwide race.
Granted, in some ways it’s nice to cap all three seasons at Homestead. All three series start together and end together. It’s a big weekend blast of championships. But it might be more of a blast for each of NASCAR’s top series if the sanctioning body spread out its national champion celebrations over a few weeks instead of a few days.
