NASCAR: The Chase Desperately Needs More Equalizers

By Brian Thornsburg | Oct 19, 2015

A game of chance.

That is the phrase that many fans and media pundits alike use to describe NASCAR’S latest Frankenstein of a playoff system. While the phrase might be accurate in terms of the luck and survival aspects of the Chase format that was introduced into the Sprint Cup Series just last year, the phrase doesn’t accurately represent the minority of drivers who really have no chance when they enter the Chase.

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Let’s be honest with ourselves for a brief moment here, did you really think drivers like Paul Menard, Clint Bowyer or Jamie McMurray had any real chance of surviving the first round of this year’s chase? Heck, if it wasn’t for a five-dollar car part and a little bit of bad luck, Jimmie Johnson would still be in this thing and Dale Earnhardt Jr. would be the one who was sent home two weeks ago at Dover.

Let’s be even more honest here, how long do you really expect current Chase drivers like Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Newman to last in this perpetual game of chance? While both drivers are certainly capable of moving into the final two rounds of the Chase if one of the bigger dogs succumb to a bad race or two, that’s not really giving these drivers a fair chance to win it all at the end of the season.

In fact, as the Chase is now, it actually eliminates almost any chance of drivers like McMurray, Bowyer, Menard, Newman and Truex Jr. winning it all at the end of the season. The reason for this lies in the fact that the chase is inherently set up to benefit teams that dominate on mile and half cookie cutter tracks that the Cup series visits throughout the season.

Looking at the race tracks that are visited during NASCAR’s version of the postseason, we see that eight out of the ten of them are either mile or 1.5 mile tracks. If anything, that’s a huge advantage in favor of the powerhouse teams, who dominate on those kinds of tracks throughout the season.

If you don’t believe me on this, I dare you to name one single track in the chase besides Martinsville and Talladegea that hasn’t been dominated by Gibbs, Hendrick, or Penkse. I guarantee you that it’s impossible to and that’s where the disadvantages for the less powerful teams rest.

The point here is that while tracks like Talladega and Martinsville are decent equalizers in the Chase, they aren’t enough to offset the massive advantage top teams like Hendrick, Joe Gibbs Racing and Penske Racing have when it comes to the cookie cutter tracks.

What NASCAR needs here is a change of pace and it starts with a change to their coveted Chase schedule. Instead of giving fans two equalizer tracks and eight cookie cutter, single file parades, why don’t they introduce tracks like Daytona, Sonoma, Watkins Glenn and even a previously unused road course into the mix?

Doing this would take the advantage away from the bigger teams and make it more equal for teams that don’t have a chance to win on a weekly basis on the mile or 1.5 mile tracks. This would also give NASCAR’s postseason and lot more variety, which would really help increase fan interest in the new format. Besides, this are some of the best drivers in the country, shouldn’t they race on all types of tracks in the playoffs and not basically one type?

It’s not a perfect solution. To some, it might sound a little whiny and unnecessary but if NASCAR really wants their postseason not to be this random paced game of chance, then let’s give everyone a chance, not just those with the resources that enable them to dominate the rest of the field at a specific type of track.

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