It’s always been a controversial idea – taking the top twelve drivers in the championship after twenty-six Sprint Cup Series races, and putting them in their own race-within-a-race, battling for the championship, eliminating drivers from contention every few races, as the rest of the forty three-car Sprint Cup Series field races for wins around them – but, like it or not, NASCAR’s answer to playoffs in other sports is here to stay. The driver with the most points out of that field of twelve is crowned champion.
There’s always conversation about which tracks deserve a ‘Chase’ date, and it got me thinking that if this is NASCAR’s playoffs, then they should be taking place on the best and most diverse tracks on the schedule. Right now, five of the ten races are on 1.5-mile cookie-cutter ovals, which fans hate, because the racing is usually boring: cars strung out, and very little passing.
So, if chairman Brian France handed me the keys to the NASCAR castle, this is how the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup would unfold:
1. Indianapolis Motor Speedway
What used to be a well-attended event at the spiritual home of motorsport has lost some of it’s lustre in recent years. Let’s be honest, IMS wasn’t built for NASCAR, and, as such, the racing isn’t anywhere near what we see from the IndyCar Series on the same track. Still, it’s an important stop on the Sprint Cup Series – and every driver in the field covets a Brickyard 400 win – and the perfect way to reinvigorate the weekend is to have it as the first Chase event.
2. Bristol Motor Speedway
The most exciting track on the Sprint Cup Series, and another of those races that every driver wants to win. There’s scarcely more of a spectacle in the sport than the night race at Bristol, in front of more than 150,000 fans clustered around the tiny 0.5-mile high banked oval. That’s why I’m advocating the night race be pushed back into the fall in order to place it in the Chase. If you want a wild card event, this is it. Anything can – and often does – happen at Bristol!
3. Charlotte Motor Speedway
A ‘home’ race for drivers and crews, and always one of the best-attended races, the fall race at Charlotte on the original 1.5-mile tri-oval is currently in the Chase and deserves it’s place as a primetime Saturday night race. Charlotte is a part of NASCAR tradition.
4. Watkins Glen International
If it’s going to be a true test of the best drivers in the sport, the Chase for the Sprint Cup absolutely needs a road course. I’d be doing away with the short course that NASCAR current runs on, in favour of the long circuit that includes the famed ‘Boot’ section, one of the most recognisable and exciting corners anywhere in North America. Like Bristol, this is a wild card track that could really shake things up.
5. Martinsville Speedway
A half-mile track like Bristol, but slow where Bristol is lightning fast. Even so, this is a great track for action, not to mention fraught tempers, and a traditional stop on the circuit that remains popular with fans. Currently the only short track on the Chase, and the only track, really, of it’s kind in NASCAR.
6. Auto Club Speedway
Way out west is the fast and multi-groove two-mile superspeedway. We’ve seen some spectacular racing over the last few years, and the Chase needs a representation of every sort of track the Sprint Cup races on during it’s regular season. 400 miles under lights is definitely enough here. No need for those extra hundred miles that used to make us all yawn.
7. Phoenix International Raceway
Early in the season, NASCAR heads west, and they’d do so again in my reimagined Chase, visiting Auto Club Speedway, then Phoenix. The flat 1.0-mile track in the desert is currently the penultimate Chase event, but would move two races forward in my line-up.
8. Richmond International Raceway
At the moment the 0.75-mile short track is the last race before the Chase. I say throw it into the mix late in the going, under lights, and see what happens! The racing on the moderately-banked short track is always furious, with the usual frayed tempers bound to be more frayed than usual given that the event would be so deep in the Chase.
9. Darlington Raceway
One of the oldest and most important tracks in NASCAR, the ‘Track Too Tough To Tame’ has traditionally held the Southern 500 over the Labour Day weekend in late August, but I’ve moved it into the fall, to mid-November, as the final race in the Chase. Five hundred miles around the egg-shaped speedway would really sort the field out.
10. Daytona International Speedway
The spiritual home of NASCAR. The season starts here with the Daytona 500 every February and should end here, crowning the Sprint Cup Series champion at the most famous track of them all. Plus, a restrictor plate track should be in the Chase, for entertainment value if for no other reason.
On the final night of the season, with the possibility of a huge crash, interest in the sport would be way up. I’d push Talladega out – make it the final race before the Chase, or run it over the Labour Day weekend to replace Darlington – in favour of Daytona.
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