The Triple Crown is the most prestigious accomplishment in thoroughbred horse racing. Find out what a NASCAR Triple Crown would look like in the modern era!The Triple Crown is one of the most prestigious awards in racing. No, not car racing, but horse racing. In order for a horse to win the Triple Crown, the horse must win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. That very feat occurred for the 13th time in history on Saturday at Belmont when Justify took home his third crown jewel win of the year.
What makes it special? Simple. It doesn’t happen often. In fact, Justify is just the second horse in the last 40 years to accomplish this feat (the other was American Pharoah in 2015). With the combination of difficulty and rarity, a Triple Crown is designed for the best of the best to showcase their ability.
That is why I propose that NASCAR implements a Triple Crown concept at the Cup Series level. For fans who have been following the sport before the 2000s, you may remember the Winston Million era.
This concept involved four crown jewel events, including the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, the Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. If a driver won three out of four events, they’d receive $1,000,000.
My idea is similar, but a little bit different. In my opinion, NASCAR has three true crown jewel events, which are the Daytona 500, the Coca Cola 600 and the Southern 500. Sorry Brickyard fans, but the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway just doesn’t cut it anymore. I didn’t include the yard of bricks for the sole reason that I don’t believe it belongs on the schedule, but that’s another conversation for another day.
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Back to the concept. NASCAR should take the three races I listed above and offer a major incentive to any driver who can win all three events in the same season. The goal would be to make these crown jewel events even more special with an extra incentive for drivers to go for it all on the biggest stages of the sport.
Of course, with high stakes come high rewards. Any driver who wins the three proposed races would receive a major cash prize. Considering $1,000,000 isn’t much to teams these days, maybe NASCAR and their sponsors could offer a bigger prize, such as something between $5,000,000 and 10,000,000, to the team that could conquer all three of the crown jewel events in a single season.
To further boost the importance and difficulty of the Triple Crown, NASCAR could also entice teams by offering playoff points to whoever accomplishes the feat. This could occur in one of two ways. First, NASCAR could double the amount a playoff points the Triple Crown winner already had. At worst, this would give the winner an additional 15 playoff points (five received for all three wins and then that total doubled).
The second way by which this could occur would be NASCAR giving a set amount of points. For instance, NASCAR states that the Triple Crown winner receives 25 playoff points. When a driver wins the third major event, NASCAR would add those 25 points to that driver’s already existing points total. No one needs to explain why this would be very important to teams down the stretch.
In addition to financial and point incentives, this concept gives drivers another statistical category to aim for during their careers. The proposed Triple Crown has the potential to be the biggest accomplishment a driver could complete aside of winning a championship.
Just how hard would it be to accomplish such a feat? Consider this: in NASCAR’s 70-year history, only three drivers have completed this particular Triple Crown cycle. The first driver to do so was LeeRoy Yarbrough in 1969. The second driver who did so came seven years later in 1976 when David Pearson won all three major events. The third and final winner was none other than Jeff Gordon, who did so 21 years ago in 1997 (I was three years old).
The rarity of such an accomplishment only pushes the idea of making this a theme in the sport. If a driver such as Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch or Kyle Larson could take home the three major trophies in one season, it automatically sets them apart from their competitors.
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Overall, NASCAR has tried incentive-based ideas before, and they were successful. Fans felt like events were special when those events had more than just points on the line. This idea could spark more excitement in fans and give teams yet another reason to go for broke when the bright lights are turned on.