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NASCAR considering giving more points to race winners
By Bob Pockrass
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
When Kasey Kahne came perilously close to not making the Chase For The Nextel Cup despite a series-high five victories, the debate raged during the Richmond race weekend on how a win should affect determining the Chase field.
The question: Whether the driver with the most wins in a season might qualify as a wild card or whether a win should be worth more points in general.
"I don't know of too many situations you'd be in with five wins on the outside looking in," Kahne said Sept. 8, the day before he put himself in the Chase with a third-place finish at Richmond. "As good as we've been all year, we've had those six or seven races we did not run well in.
"We've had some engine problems, we've had three or four we just didn't run good in, and I've wrecked in a couple. You add up all those and that's a lot of points."
NASCAR is considering adding more points for a win. The sanctioning body increased the points margin between first and second place from five to 10 points in 2004 when it instituted the Chase format.
"We're looking at what effect it would make to award more points," NASCAR Managing Director of Corporate Communications Ramsey Poston said Sept. 9. "But at this point, nothing is done. It is important for us to get through this season so we have three full seasons to look back on."
Two drivers - Jeff Burton and Mark Martin - made the Chase without a win, while Tony Stewart (two wins) and Greg Biffle (one win) are 11th and 12th, respectively, in points and out of Chase contention.
Burton noted that the point system does not reward a team for winning as much as it penalizes a team for performing poorly.
"That is something nobody really puts any emphasis on, the penalty for doing poorly," Burton said. "If you have a terrible, terrible race, that is a huge penalty that you pay."
But should there be more points for winning? That's been a longtime debate.
"We have always rewarded consistency and I believe we have to continue to do that," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. "I think the system awards consistency, and it always should, but at the same time, as people talk more about the significance of a win and should there more points awarded, I believe that argument is starting to gain some ground and have some substance to it."
Don't count Kevin Harvick among those who think the Chase rules should be changed to increase the importance of winning.
"That is like saying it would be fair that the New York Yankees could be in the World Series because they beat the Red Sox and lost every other game," Harvick said. "If you can't put a whole season together, you don't deserve to be in the Chase, as far as I am concerned, unless you do what you can every week. In other sports, they don't let the guys who beat the best team play in the playoffs. ... That is not how it is."
Mentioned Drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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