Season of Turning Points

Love it or loath it, the controversial new Nextel Cup points system is doing precisely what NASCAR President Brian France said he hoped for when the Chase for the Championship was announced.

“We need more excitement in the fall, more to talk about, more to write about when the season is running down and football is getting so much attention,” France said shortly before the 2003 season began.

With two races remaining, Sunday at Darlington and Nov. 21 at Homestead, Fla., five drivers are within striking distance of leader Kurt Busch, the Ford driver from Las Vegas who has 6,191 points and has led from the start of NASCAR’s 10-race playoff.

More pleasing to NASCAR is that two marquee names, Earnhardt and Gordon, are in the hunt.

Jeff Gordon, the four-time champion, is second, 41 points behind Busch, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., emotional winner of last Sunday’s overtime race at Phoenix, is third, six points behind Gordon. Their positions would be reversed if Earnhardt had not been penalized 25 points for using a vulgarity on national television after winning at Talledega, Ala., early in October.

Those two Chevy drivers, along with the late Dale Earnhardt, Junior’s father, account for more than 80% of NASCAR’s merchandise sales.

Jimmie Johnson, who won three Chase for the Championship races in succession, is one point behind Earnhardt, with veteran Mark Martin still in the hunt, 54 behind Johnson. The other five, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, Matt Kenseth and Jeremy Mayfield, are too far back.

Rarely have there been more than two drivers with a shot at the Cup bonus with two races remaining.

Last year, for instance, Kenseth had the championship clinched before the series reached Homestead.

Kenseth had won only one of 36 races and resulting criticism was instrumental in changes being made in the points system, one that had been unchanged for three decades.

The old system used cumulative points from all 36 races. The new system cut the season in two -- the first segment of 26 races to determine the 10 finalists, and the second one of 10 races, the Chase for the Championship. The points were so structured that only the 10 leaders after 26 races would be eligible for the championship. Some drivers, particularly Newman, were against the change. Most, however, said they would wait and see how it played out.

“I like it,” Gordon said after the Phoenix race. “I think it’s a positive thing.... There is no arguing that it has certainly added more excitement and entertainment to the season.”

Busch, who won the Chase opener at New Hampshire and has held his lead, said, “NASCAR has implemented a new program that has [given us] a whole new outlook, a different outline and format to achieve the championship. I believe this format is better because your team has to be best at the end of the year, but on the other hand you had to go through 26 races to get to the final 10.”

When Johnson won three consecutive races, yet still couldn’t overtake Busch for the lead, there were grumbles. In the first two races Johnson won, Busch finished fourth and fifth. Johnson gained only 20 points in each race.

Only when Busch suffered early engine problems at Atlanta and finished 42nd when Johnson won again did Johnson move into a challenging position.

“It was no different than a college football team, say UCLA, winning three games in a row and not getting close to the conference championship because they had a slow start,” explained one NASCAR spokesman. “Look at Jimmie’s start. He was 11th, 10th, 37th and 32nd in his first four races. He’s lucky to be as close as he is.”

Criticism of NASCAR points is nothing new. Since 1985, when Bill Elliott won 11 races and lost the championship to Darrell Waltrip, who won only three times, there have been movements to make winning more lucrative in the standings than consistent finishing. The system, in which a winning driver gets as few as 10 points more than the runner-up, stems from the pre-Winston Cup era, when drivers, notably David Pearson in the Wood Brothers Ford, ran only selected races and often did not contend for the championship.

Winning races, particularly the big ones such as the Daytona 500, were considered more important than the championship. There were as many as 55 races on the schedule, sometimes two on the same date, so no one could make them all.

One of the changes made when R.J. Reynolds Tobacco put its Winston stamp on the series was to make the championship more significant than individual races. Consistency became key.

Last year, Newman won eight races and finished sixth in points; Kenseth won one and the championship. In 1996 Terry Labonte won only two races to 10 for Gordon yet won the title, and in 1993 Rusty Wallace won 10 to the senior Earnhardt’s six but lost to the Intimidator.

When the new format was introduced this year, the points system remained as it has been.

A driver gets 180 points for winning and five more for leading a lap. The second-place driver gets 170 points. If he also leads a lap he, too, gets five bonus points. If he leads the most laps, he gets five more bonus points and his total of 180 points is only five fewer than the winner’s 185.

After the 2004 champion is crowned, there may be some tweaking of the points system to weight winning heavier before the 2005 season opens.

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NASCAR Standings

Nextel Cup series point standings with two races remaining (Sunday, Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C.; Nov. 21, Ford 400 at Homestead, Fla.):

1. KURT BUSCH...6,191

2. JEFF GORDON...6,150

3. DALE EARNHARDT JR....6,144

4. JIMMIE JOHNSON...6,143

5. MARK MARTIN...6,089

6. TONY STEWART...6,049

7. RYAN NEWMAN...6,041

8. ELLIOTT SADLER...5,869

9. MATT KENSETH...5,855

10. JEREMY MAYFIELD...5,836

Points breakdown: How points are awarded in NASCAR Nextel Cup races: Drivers who lead at least one lap during a race are awarded five bonus points, and the driver who leads the most laps earns an additional five bonus points. The points break down this way: winner, 180 points; second, 170; third, 165; fourth, 160; fifth, 155; sixth, 150; seventh, 146; eighth, 142; ninth, 138; 10th, 134; 11th, 130. Note: The driver finishing 12th earns 127 points, and each driver after that earns three fewer points than the driver ahead of him. Source: NASCAR