NASCAR: Kevin Harvick wants title race location to rotate each year
By Asher Fair
NASCAR Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick would like to see the sport rotate the location of their championship finale each season.
The NASCAR Cup Series championship finale has been held at Homestead-Miami Speedway in each of the last 16 seasons dating all the way back to 2002, and that is set to be the case once again for the 17th straight season this year.
It doesn’t look like it is going to change in the near future, either. At least, there haven’t been any immediate talks regarding the location of the championships finale changing or rotating within the next few seasons.
However, 2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, a 17-year veteran of the sport, would like to see that change, as he does not believe that the championship finale should be held at the same track, Homestead-Miami Speedway or any track for that matter, year after year.
Here is Harvick’s opinion on the matter, according to Motorsport.
"“Those are the types of things that we need to create. We need to create events and moments. There needs to be a rotation of the championship race. I don’t think we should go to Homestead-Miami every year. I think it gets stale.“It is a great race track but it isn’t all about the race track. It is about the event. How many times have you had a crappy Super Bowl but everybody goes to the Super Bowl because it is an event? That is what we need to create.“You have the Charlotte road course and Las Vegas and Richmond in the playoffs. That first round is totally different. There is nothing the same about that.“We need to create more of our own headlines like that – that are slam dunks. People don’t like the same thing. The (races) are not all going to be good. If you make the schedule exciting and make the events exciting, that is what guarantees you the people to come back if they had a good time. If you have a good race on top of it, great.”"
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Harvick, who won the 2014 Cup Series championship by winning for the first time at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the season finale, has a point. While he is set to enter his 18th season in the sport this season and he himself may not be racing for many more years to actually get to experience a potential change in the venue of the championship finale, he would like to see this change as a benefit to the overall excitement of the sport.
It’s not a stretch to believe that many fans likely agree with him. The racing itself at Homestead-Miami Speedway has not been spectacular, but that’s beside the point. The point is that the championship should not be decided at the same track every season, and that’s what we have seen with Homestead-Miami Speedway for most of this millennium. A rotation for the locations of the championship finale like Harvick has recommended would certainly not be a bad idea at all.
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Would you like to see the NASCAR Cup Series championship decided at Homestead-Miami Speedway, or at any one track for that matter, every single season, or would you like to see a rotation of tracks that get to host the championship finale from year to year? Right now, we are dealing with the former, and we have been for quite some time. That may not change anytime soon.