NASCAR: Final Thoughts on the 2014 Chase

Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

So as Kevin Harvick celebrates life as a Sprint Cup champion – at last, many people might say – I’m sat at my desk trying to sum up my thoughts on the inaugural season of perhaps the most controversial playoff/elimination procedure ever seen in professional sports, let alone motor racing. When it was first announced back in February, mouths fell open in disbelief. On this very site I accused NASCAR and Brian France of jumping the shark, and turning the Sprint Cup into an utter farce in a quest for cheap TV ratings.

And after ten weeks of deafening media hype, punch-ups and carnage, did the Chase finally manage to convert me from cynic into believer?

…almost.

With ten laps to go at Homestead, I was there. Watching Harvick, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin scrap furiously for the win, my heart was racing. I defy anyone to watch those final laps and not be moved in some way. We’ve seen terrific races for the victory before, but knowing the seismic scale of what was on the line cranked the tension to 11. You would have to have a heart of granite not to feel even a slight quickening of the pulse.

However, as Harvick took the checkered flag, something strange happened. I felt a twinge. I didn’t feel a wave of astonishment or a sigh of relief, and I didn’t leap up and cheer like I normally do at the end of a thrilling race. And let me make this perfectly clear  – this has nothing to do with my own personal feelings for any of the drivers involved in this final showdown. My qualm was, ‘Oh, Harvick won the race, and therefore the title simply because of this one race.’ And it just…didn’t feel right. It felt artificial. Like nothing that had come before it kinda mattered. And seeing Gordon circulate as a bystander safe in the knowledge that he had been comfortably the strongest and most consistent driver all year just didn’t sit right.

I am braced for your comments about how I’m a cynical old fogey. So hear me loud and clear: the 2014 Chase was a roaring success at what it set out to do. It was designed purely for maximum spectacle and entertainment value in the final season stretch, and made no pretense otherwise. It was full-on peanut banana sandwich crazy, with WWE brawls and drivers wrecking random bystanders for random positions (let alone the win!), and the Homestead finale was a suitable crescendo with equal parts heartache and hysteria.

I’ve seen many fans state (sometimes insufferably smugly) that that’s all that they care about. Fantastic, and you know what? I had fun with it too. It’s impossible not to have fun with it. It felt like a Days of Thunder movie made real, or NASCAR as directed by Tony Scott – it felt at some points like all that was missing from the lunacy was cars exploding and jumping through the air in slow motion. The thing is…if I wanted six-pack-and-pizza explosion-fests of ridiculously OTT action, I’d just rent out Bad Boys II or Die Hard on DVD. And it would be considerably cheaper than going to the track itself. And only last 90 minutes, not 36 weekends.

Let’s compare the Homestead title decider to my favorite racing memory of 2014 – the V8 Supercars Bathurst 1000. This was a race which almost matched the entire Chase for levels of drama, controversy, heartache, superb racing, and a heart-stopping finale in which, after eight hours of racing, one of the world’s biggest motorsport events was won on the last lap with barely a kilometre to go. It was a story of a legend (Jamie Whincup) falling on his sword as young star Chaz Mostert romped home an underdog winner from last on the grid. It was one of the all-time great races.

And what separates these from the Chase? In terms of excitement, nothing. In terms of authenticity, worlds apart.

The 2014 Bathurst 1000 was so mind-blowing and dramatic because it wasn’t scripted or forced in any way. No debris cautions (unless you count an upside-down car as merely debris), no arbitrary resets and tactics, one simple goal and everyone going hell-for-leather to achieve it. And out of this maelstrom came an organically grown epic story of triumph, tears and terrific racing.

Above, I compared the Chase to a blockbuster Hollywood movie. At least in a Hollywood movie, you a) get so engrossed in the movie that you forget it’s a carefully scripted work, or b) you go in knowing exactly what it is, check your brain at the door, and get entertained for two hours. With the Chase, it’s obviously not a) because why on Earth would NASCAR push and hype every last detail of the format at every turn? So it’s relying solely on b) to appease audiences – and judging on this year alone, that is enough.

But for how long will it be enough? One wonders.

The hardcore fanbase remains staunchly divided; even many who love this format would secretly prefer no Chase at all, but embrace this format because it’s easier than pining for the good ol’ days everyday. And if we must have ball-sport playoffs in motor racing (a concept which still hasn’t started making sense), then perhaps best to go unapologetically whole hog on it. Was it hugely entertaining? At times, yes. Is it the right way to decide a championship? Definitely not. Does it have longevity? I doubt it. It’s a Chase which embraces the culture of Buzzfeed-style viral-video flashpoints, clickbait to be consumed, reacted to and forgotten about swiftly. And that’s the ultimate danger of sacrificing credibility at the altar of TV ratings – especially when there’s more and more proof that perhaps these mythical ‘casual fans’ NASCAR has been chasing all these years don’t really exist, and if they did, they paid attention for five minutes before returning to Instagram.

So let’s clean up the empty popcorn buckets and cans of fizzy pop and wait for next season’s bonkers jamboree to roll around again – with perhaps yet more tweaks from Brian ‘I can’t leave things alone for five minutes’ France – and I guess only time will tell how long it takes for us to get bored of endless playings of Days of Thunder, Driven and Transformers every season. For now, it’s the greatest thing ever for many – except perhaps Jeff Gordon.

Finally, I should mention that this weekend, Japan’s Super GT championship ended with only two points separating 1st and 2nd in the premier GT500 class, and a tiebreaker in the GT300 class. That’s with no Chase or points resets whatsoever.

Just saying.