Changing the Chase format would change nothing that matters

FORT WORTH, Texas – This is me. About to SCREAM!

I thought I was weary of election talk. And I am. But I would rather be forced to watch campaign ads on a continuous loop for the next three days that listen to one more Sprint Cup driver be asked how the Chase for the Sprint Cup ought to be changed.

Actually, I would rather have somebody poke me in the eye with a sharp stick than listen to more Chase questions.

OK, I am going to try this one more time. Because I am a patient man, I guess.

There is nothing you can to do ANY championship format that will change the fact that Jimmie Johnson and his team have been money in the championship bank the past three years.

In 2006 Johnson rallied from a big deficit with a streak of five races in which he finished second four times and first once. Last year, he won four in a row. This year, he has seven top-10 finishes in seven tries while everybody else in the Chase has had at least one stumble.

Johnson has 23 straight Chase race finishes of 14th or better, with 21 of those being top-10 finishes. If you can run like that, you SHOULD be the champion.

The 12-11-10-9-8 system? It doesn’t change anything. The idea of throwing out your worst finish? Changes nothing. The idea of a shorter Chase – five races instead of 10 – would make it closer after two races but if it was a five-race Chase people would gripe about that not being a fair representation of how to pick a champion. Somebody would STILL want to put a road-course race in the Chase, which is a spectacularly bad idea.

Greg Biffle said Friday he’d like to see Talladega pulled out of the Chase because it’s too much of a wild card. Let me ask this. Does everybody in the Chase have to race Talladega? I thought so.
Sports Illustrated’s Lars Anderson wrote this week that the 12-11-10-9-8 system would have Carl Edwards 19 points behind Johnson right now, meaning Edwards would “still be in the hunt.”

Well, 19 points certainly sounds closer than 183 points, which is Edwards’ current deficit. But, for the 90th time, it’s an illusion. In that system, if Edwards won here Sunday and Johnson finished 43rd, he would still be eight points behind Johnson. In that system, that’s eight positions with two races to go.

But as it now stands, if Edwards wins and Johnson finishes last year then Johnson is only 22 points back. That’s no more than five positions, and that’s counting everybody in the race. To make up ground in the 12-11-10-9-8 system, Edwards would have to beat Johnson and seven other Chase drivers to catch Johnson at Phoenix.

The way it is now Edwards could catch up by beating Johnson and just four other drivers – anybody. Or he could win and have Johnson finish as high as THIRD at Phoenix.

As would be the case in the “mulligan” system, Edwards is closer to Johnson in the current format than he would be in the 12-11-10-9-8 system.

When is an idea a bad idea? When it makes the situation you think is bad even worse than it currently is. And there’s no way to fix a bad idea by talking about – no matter how much you talk about it.