Jack Roush, Carl Edwards lobby for mulligan in the Chase
Car owner Jack Roush suggested after Sunday’s Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway that NASCAR consider throwing one race of each driver’s choosing out of the 10-race Chase For The Sprint Cup in future seasons. And he wasn’t joking.
With Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards second in the standings and 183 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson with three races left, a mulligan might be Edwards’ best – and perhaps only – hope of winning the title at this point.
Roush admitted this after watching Edwards earn his seventh victory of the Cup season on Sunday but gain only 15 points on Johnson, who surged to second in the final laps after taking four fresh tires under a late caution.
“Days like this for teams like ours that have the success we’ve had, that’s what we want to go back and [remember] about 2008 – think about our championship run and what it meant,” Roush said. “But, unfortunately, I think it will come down to thinking about the broken engine parts, the ignition and the other frustrations we’ve had, but it would be my suggestion as NASCAR looks at how to make this [Chase] more exciting, [that] every team had an opportunity to throw out one race and be able to just count nine of the 10.
“That means you could have a mulligan, and you could be able to come back from it.”
Not surprisingly, Edwards also likes the idea of having at least one Chase finish purged from his record. While Johnson has placed no worse than ninth in seven playoff events, a crash-induced 29th at Talladega and ignition-box-induced 33rd at Charlotte dealt a severe blow to Edwards’ championship hopes. In the other five Chase races, he has placed no worse than third.
With a mulligan system in place, Edwards would be within striking distance of Johnson.
“I raced for 20-some years before I started with NASCAR stock-car racing back in 1988, and I’ve raced in a couple of series and had great championship runs with programs where they did throw out one or two races,” Roush said. “They didn’t have a 10-race deal at the end of the season but throughout the year, and what that really meant was until you used up your mulligan, you raced as hard as you could go every lap, and if you didn’t have a mulligan, well then you’d have to be somewhat more cautious.
“It’s more exciting if you’re able to go as hard as you can until you realize that they’re going to really hurt you.”
Edwards’ crew chief, Bob Osborne, concurs with Roush’s idea.
“I don’t think NASCAR wants to see their championship won by this many points, for sure,” he said. “I don’t want to see it won by this many points. I don’t think anybody wants to see it won by this many points, so if they come up with a format that can adjust this and make the Chase even that much more competitive, that would be wonderful.”
Of course, with the Chase rules already in place for 2008, there won’t be any mulligans awarded this year. The best Edwards can hope for is to win the final three races of the season and that Johnson has one or more bad finishes. To clinch his third consecutive title, all Johnson needs to do is come home ninth or better in each of the remaining events.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver hasn’t hasn’t been worse than ninth since the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Aug. 23.
Johnson is on pace to actually mathematically wrap up the title before the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“He’s a heck of a competitor, just like I’ve said before,” said Edwards. “He’s the first guy to come congratulate you when you win, and that just makes him harder to beat. He’s just one of those guys that does it right. So we’ve got to hope that he has something happen like the things we’ve had happen and loses a couple hundred points and we just have to be able to capitalize because I believe with the way they’re running, it’s going to be really tough to beat them, but we can do it.
“We just have to go win, and if we do everything we can, that’s all we can do.”
Edwards hopes that at this time next year, he’ll be the one in position for a championship. If that were to happen, he admits he may not be as keen on the mulligan concept.
“You’ve got to be careful because next year, we might have 183-point lead here,” Edwards said. “I think it depends. It would be good right now, for sure. We’d maybe throw out two [races] - it would be great.”
