Daytona opens for 500 testing amid controversy over possible championship rules changes

  
  Can NASCAR come up with new championship rules to keep Jimmie 'Mr. Five-Time' Johnson (R) from winning a record-breaking sixth straight Cup title? Well, can't fault Johnson for not promoting the sport by doing the off-season PR work, here in Phoenix, with track boss Bryan Sperber, promoting the Feb. 27th Arizona race. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

  

   But now it looks like NASCAR officials may be changing things.
   Changes in NASCAR's championship rules for 2011 have been promised for months, and official word could come this week, when NASCAR execs hold a press conference in Daytona, during testing for next month's Sprint Cup season opener. Or could come next week at the sport's annual January media whirl in Charlotte.
   One possible tweak being bandied about is that drivers winning regular season events would make the chase.
   Another possible tweak is simply going to a more simplified points system, similar to Formula One, something perhaps easier to understand than the current Latford system.
   Even the current 'chase' playoffs, first used in 2004 (a year after Latford's death), uses the Latford system (after 'rezeroing' the standings for the top-12 after the 26-race 'regular season').
    Yes, the Latford system, with 180 points (originally, now 190) to each race winner, and a five-point, four-point, and then three-point drop to the men finishing behind him, down to 34 points, may be a bit obtuse and arbitrary to today's casual fan.
   But when Latford was asked by NASCAR and sponsor R. J. Reynolds to devise a new championship system, there were only three major full-time teams on the tour, and two key goals were getting all the sport's stars to every race, and not skip a few, and to ensure full fields at every track. You don't race, you don't get points. Simple.
   Today, of course, sponsorship contracts and NASCAR's own contracts with each team and driver generally ensure no one plays hooky.
     
  

  Daytona will be open for 500 testing this week for the first time in three years, and the new asphalt could turn the action Talladega-tight. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   With all the issues facing stock car racing, changing the championship system might not seem a top priority.
   Nevertheless the Daytona 500 is barely a month away, the first round of pre-season testing here in three years kicks off this week...and NASCAR executives are still debating the championship points system and how the 2011 Sprint Cup champ will be crowned.
   With three men -- Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick -- going into last fall's playoff finale all with great shots at the title, the question might be asked why change anything.
   Indeed. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
   And the one common complaint about the current championship points system -- to judge from what fans themselves are saying -- is the chase itself, the fact that the man who has the best overall season (Kevin Harvick this past season) doesn't necessarily get the title.
   And the 'chase' seems to be the one thing that NASCAR isn't interested in changing.
  
   There would seem to be a lot of things that this sport may need to address in the coming months, but the championship points system probably isn't one of the biggest. Or if it is, the top complaint by drivers and teams is that the current system penalizes a man having a bad day more than it rewards him for a good day.
   But in the big picture:
   First, the sport needs more sponsors, so it needs to better control costs, not only on the Cup side, which is dominated by four or five mega-team owners, but also on the Nationwide side, which has been dominated by a handful of top Cup owners instead of being the Triple-A training series for upcoming owners and drivers and sponsors as it should be, and once was.
   The price of a Nationwide team has become outlandish, and the changeover to the new car-of-tomorrow, which obsoletes much of the current inventory, won't be cheap. Nationwide sponsors naturally opt for the most bang for their bucks, and that means Cup star drivers.
   Second, the sport is currently in the process of being downsized in terms of crewmen. How many good crewmen will be walking around Daytona International Speedway this week, during testing, and during February's SpeedWeeks asking for jobs?
   Sometimes there appears to be a disconnect between NASCAR executives and the real world.
  
   Still, one good idea being mentioned is that a man has to win a race during the regular season to make the chase.
   This sport should be about winning and leading laps and trying to lead laps and passing.
   Everything NASCAR tweaks should be aimed at promoting all that.
   That homerun hitter Jamie McMurray, the Daytona 500 winner, didn't make the playoffs, despite his best season ever, with a lot of big wins and great runs, was one of 2010's disappointments. How could NASCAR address a situation like that?
    Maybe just putting regular season winners in the chase might work?
   If so, Ryan Newman, for winning Phoenix, David Reutimann for winning Chicago, Juan Pablo Montoya for winning Watkins Glen, would all have made the playoffs.
   And the regular season's non-winners Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon would have been on the sidelines.

    Still, the three men involved in the thick of the title battle, Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick, would all have easily made the playoffs, so the possible new rules would not likely have made much difference in the title run.
   Indeed, a cursory look at a potential 43-42-41-etc scoring system would have had those three going into the championship finale at Homestead still tightly bunched. (And depending on 'bonus' points, it looks like Harvick might have won the title under the new rules, and Johnson a tight second.)

    What will NASCAR do with the championship rules for 2011?
    If the proposed new rules wouldn't significantly have changed the outcome in 2010, or address the key issues, why change?
   
  
   

       Last January it snowed in Daytona. And it's been such a snowy winter across the U.S. the past few weeks that maybe the Daytona 500 will get a shot in the arm this SpeedWeeks with a 1979-type snowstorm. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)