A schedule can be a good thing.
It tells you when to wake up, when to do certain tasks and when to show up to work on time so your boss doesn’t fire you. The same schedule can also be a bad thing in that it becomes tiresome and tedious. Sometimes repeating the same thing over and over again can wear a person out or cause them to lose interest.
Unfortunately for NASCAR, that’s exactly the problem with their current schedule for the Sprint Cup Series Chase. With the exception of Chicagoland, the Sprint Cup Series has raced the exact same schedule to close out their season since the chases inception in 2005. This has not only created a huge disadvantage for drivers who might not be particularly good at a certain combination of the tracks, but also creates a level of monotony in the thing that’s supposed to be bringing excitement into NASCAR.
While the Chase for the Sprint Cup did bring a new level of excitement to the sport in 2005 and again with its latest format in 2014, it’s still become a mess of predictability. It’s literally the same ten tracks to close out the season every single year! No replacements, no variation in the order, just the same ten races!
I know I’ve said that a few times now, but with a Chase format that was designed to be so unpredictable and exciting, should we really have a schedule that is just the opposite of that? Keep in mind, I’m not saying that the ten tracks should be scrapped and replaced, although that would be an interesting concept to see. I’m just saying that NASCAR could at least randomize the order ever year to create different combinations in each round.
Not only would it give an added level of unpredictability to the fans every year, it would also allow drivers who don’t do very well at the current combination of tracks to have a chance to change their luck entirely. For example, If Talladega was picked as the postseason opener, it would really level the playing field and give drivers that don’t do well on cookie cutter tracks a chance at making it to the next round of the Chase.
Let’s say the first three races were Martinsville, Talladega and Phoenix. that combination would give veteran drivers like Johnson and Harvick an advantage, while still giving the lesser experienced teams a chance to pick up a win or a good finish at places like Talladega and Martinsville.
Or say that NASCAR changed the schedule entirely and it was a new combination of race tracks every single season. Doing this would not only increase the chance for team that didn’t do well with the old Chase schedule to lock in a win and make it to the next round, but would make for some interesting schedule combinations as well. Maybe even a road course or a night race at Bristol to shake things up.
The point is, the schedule should be different every year, so no one driver is walking into the Chase with an advantage over the rest of the field. Randomizing the Chase schedule would take away some advantages a driver might have heading into the Chase and will also be a fun new viewing experience for fans every single season.
The only question left to answer here is, how does NASCAR go about randomizing the Chase every year?
They could hold a random drawing at the beginning of the post-season and announce the tracks like lottery ball numbers, or even allow fans to vote for how one or two rounds of Chase tracks will be organized. Doing this gets the fans involved and would allow them to be more involved in the Chase experience entirely. In fact, if NASCAR allowed its fans to help shape its post-season, it would probably be the first time that something like that had happened in the history of auto racing and even sports itself.
In the end, we need a change NASCAR fans, not only to our chase format, but the schedule itself. Allowing for the same ten races to go by year after year will just create more advantages, more disinterest and an overall black mark on the Chase itself. This change, along with others, could change our sport for the better!