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Tuesday, January 9, 2007

NASCAR Notebook

(NOTE: Blogger was down for a few hours today. Sorry for the inconvenience).

Looks like the war of words between Little E and his team owner / stepmother Teresa is heating up. They're starting to sound like Trump and Rosie doing battle in the press. See here, here and here for the latest shots.

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And... it sounds like NASCAR is set to tweak its 'Chase' formula. Under the old system, racers who were 400 points out of first place with 10 races left were eliminated... without a rule to formalize it. Under Chase #1 they're were formally eliminated. Looks like Chase #2 will put them back in contention. How nice.

Talk about creating a solution to a problem that didn't exist. So... because Matt Kenseth lapped the field one year, something HAD to be done. Thank goodness the NFL didn't cut touchdowns from 7 points to 3 in the wake of all those blowout Superbowls. Routs are a part of sport. They happen. They aren't a sign of a broken system. Look at last night's college football championship game. Florida whooped Ohio. Do you think the NCAA is going to head back to the drawing board because of it? Me neither.

OK, back to racing... it looks like the new Chase is going to be:

  • top 12 racers with 10 races to go are in the Chase
  • more points for winning races
  • racers more than 400 points out with 10 races to go are welcome to compete for the Chase
  • racers outside the top 12 with the last name "Earnhardt", Gordon (not Robbie), or "Stewart" are automatically in the Chase, regardless of their point standing after 26 races.

One of these is a joke. Possibly more if you think about it. Who would have thought you'd need a degree in mathematics to follow NASCAR? I can't wait until they start giving out 'more' points for wins... and one guy takes several checkered flags early in the Chase... undermining the whole point of the exercise which was to guarantee that the title is still up in the air at Homestead.

There's a more serious story about this issue here.

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