NASCAR Red-Flags System

Apparently embarrassed over having its 2003 champion win only one race -- and early in the season, at that -- and its sixth-place finisher win eight races, NASCAR announced some interesting changes Tuesday for the upcoming Nextel Cup series.

The 36-race season in stock car racing’s premier division will be divided into two parts. The first 26 races will determine the top 10 drivers, who will take part in a “Chase for the Championship” over the last 10 races.

The points for the 10 leading drivers will be rearranged, each separated by five-point intervals. The leader will start with 5,050 points after 26 races, more than the champion has scored in 36 races the last two years. No matter the margin after 26 races, the second-place driver will start with 5,045 points.

Matt Kenseth won last year with 5,211 points and Tony Stewart in 2002 with 4,800. Eight-race winner Ryan Newman had only 4,711 last season.

No driver outside the top 10 with 10 races remaining has come back to win the championship under the points system that has been in place since 1975.

“There’s going to be a benefit getting more people to follow NASCAR,” said Brian France, NASCAR chairman and chief executive, during a teleconference call. Another benefit, he said, was “making the racing even better, giving our drivers, more drivers, an opportunity to win a championship late in the season. That’s what drove us to this decision.”

NASCAR already has a fan base of 75 million, with 17 of the 20 largest sporting events last year being NASCAR races, according to Mike Helton, NASCAR president, but in those fall months where baseball’s World Series and the NFL compete for TV time and interest, it was thought the series needed an extra boost.

The first race in the Chase for the Championship will be Sept. 19 at New Hampshire International Speedway.

One change was also made in the distribution of points. The winner of a race will now receive five additional points, 180 in total. With five points awarded for leading a lap and another five for leading the most laps, it was possible in the past for the runner-up to receive the same 175 points as the winner. The new system will assure the winner of coming out at least five points to the good.

This points change will also apply to NASCAR’s two other national series, the Busch and the Craftsman Truck. Only the Nextel Cup, however, will operate with a split season.

With Nextel replacing Winston as the series sponsor, each driver in the top 10 will receive a minimum of $1 million, with the champion collecting more than $5 million. Kenseth won $4,038,120 last year.

Reaction was mixed following the announcement, which had been expected ever since it became apparent that Kenseth would clinch the 2003 crown without winning a race after March 2 in Las Vegas.

“Honestly, it’s worse than I thought, because I at least felt if you had a 300-point lead going into the final 10 races that they might knock that down to 100 going in, but five points isn’t really that big of a deal, so I’m really not in favor of the change,” Kenseth said from Las Vegas, where he was making a sponsor appearance.

“The ironic thing to me is that I heard they wanted to emphasize winning races, and I feel this takes away from that. I think a lot of guys will have the feeling of not wanting to make a mistake and just concentrating on getting a good finish to make sure they’re in the top 10. I think it takes emphasis away from winning.”

Sterling Marlin, two-time Daytona 500 winner, was ambivalent.

“The Busch race [last season] came down within the last 10 laps, and the truck race came down to the last lap to determine the champion,” he said. “I thought we had a pretty good deal going, but I guess they wanted to spice it up a little bit. If they had done that in 2001, we would have won the championship, so whatever they want we’ll do it.”

Ed Clark, president of Atlanta Motor Speedway, which will play host to one of the final 10, was enthusiastic.

“With today’s announcement, conservative racing in the fall has been eliminated,” Clark said. “Every lap of each of the final 10 races, including the 500 here in Atlanta, will be critical. The drama and the intensity in the garage and on the track will be higher than we’ve ever seen before in the final races. Wins are critical, and hard-nosed racing for the championship is back.”

Surprisingly, the two most important tracks, Daytona International Speedway, home of the Feb. 15 Daytona 500, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, site of the Aug. 8 Brickyard 400, are not part of the final chase. Nor does California Speedway, even with two dates, May 2 and Sept. 5, get into the favored few. Only one track of the final 10, Talladega Superspeedway, is more than 1 1/2 miles in length.

The final 10 are at Loudon, N.H.; Dover, Del.; Talladega, Ala.; Kansas City, Kan.; Charlotte, N.C.; Martinsville, Va.; Atlanta; Phoenix; Darlington, S.C.; and Miami.

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2004 NASCAR SCHEDULE

Feb. 15 -- Daytona 500, Daytona Beach, Fla.

* Feb. 22 -- Subway 400, Rockingham, N.C.

* March 7 -- UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, Las Vegas.

* March 14 -- Golden Corral 500, Hampton, Ga.

* March 21 -- Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, Darlington, S.C.

* March 28 -- Food City 500, Bristol, Tenn.

* April 4 -- Samsung/RadioShack 500, Fort Worth.

* April 18 -- Advance Auto Parts 500, Martinsville, Va.

* April 25 -- Aaron’s 499, Talladega, Ala.

* May 2 -- Auto Club 500, Fontana.

* May 15 -- Pontiac Performance 400, Richmond, Va.

* May 30 -- Coca-Cola 600, Concord, N.C.

* June 6 -- MBNA America 400, Dover, Del.

* June 13 -- Pocono 500, Long Pond, Pa.

* June 20 -- TBA, Brooklyn, Mich.

* June 27 -- Dodge/Save Mart 350, Sonoma, Calif.

* July 3 -- Pepsi 400, Daytona Beach, Fla.

* July 11 -- Tropicana 400, Joliet, Ill.

* July 25 -- New England 300, Loudon, N.H.

* Aug. 1 -- Pennsylvania 500, Long Pond, Pa.

* Aug. 8 -- Brickyard 400, Indianapolis.

* Aug. 15 -- Sirius at The Glen, Watkins Glen, N.Y.

* Aug. 22 -- TBA, Brooklyn, Mich.

* Aug. 28 -- Sharpie 500, Bristol, Tenn.

* Sept. 5 -- Pop Secret 500, Fontana.

* Sept. 11 -- Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400, Richmond, Va.

* Sept. 19 -- Sylvania 300, Loudon, N.H.

* Sept. 26 -- MBNA America 400, Dover, Del.

* Oct. 3 -- EA Sports 500, Talladega, Ala.

* Oct. 10 -- Banquet 400, Kansas City, Kan.

* Oct. 16 -- UAW-GM Quality 500, Concord, N.C.

* Oct. 24 -- Subway 500, Martinsville, Va.

* Oct. 31 -- Bass Pro Shops MBNA 400, Hampton, Ga.

* Nov. 7 -- Checker Auto Parts 500, Avondale, Ariz.

* Nov. 14 -- Southern 500, Darlington, SC.

* Nov. 21 -- Ford 400, Homestead, Fla.