If I Were the King of NASCAR For a Day...

NASCAR is, undoubtedly, the most popular form of motorsport in the United States. But that does not mean it is perfect. Not at all. In fact, if I were given the reins at NASCAR to make any sweeping changes that I wanted, here’s what I would do:

CIRCUITS

NASCAR currently has 36 races per season, spread across 23 tracks. If we maintain the 36 race schedule, I would alter the races just a bit. If a track hosts two events per season, then one of the two races must be run using the infield road course (where available) or in the opposite direction of a standard NASCAR race. The detractors of this idea say that it is too difficult for a race engineer to set up a car for right-hand banked turns. I say, if a race engineer finds that kind of car set-up “too difficult,” then perhaps he is in the wrong profession.

For example, Daytona hosts two races per year. The Daytona 500, iconic as it is, should stay on the oval circuit. So the Pepsi 400 on the July 4th weekend, should go to the configuration shown below. This is the track layout used for the 24 Hours endurance race.

Atlanta Motor Speedway, in the past, hosted two races, but has since cut down to one. That doesn’t mean the infield road course should be off limits. I happen to like AMS’s infield portion.

 

My favorite infield road course, though, has to be Homestead-Miami’s layout. The road course portion uses only the main oval circuit’s front and back straights, while providing a layout that would give fans some interesting racing.

 

Also, since we’re stuck with a “playoff,” I would alter the schedule to include at least one road course in the playoff format.

RACES

Most NASCAR races are 500 miles. Let’s be honest, that’s too much. I would limit races to no more than 400 miles or 400 laps. The only exception would be Bristol and Martinsville, the short tracks. 500 laps there feels right.

I would also develop set-in-stone starting times. Often a NASCAR race will be listed as starting at 1pm, but the cars won’t take the green flag until after 1:30pm. With Formula 1 (here we go again), it’s a safe bet that any of the European races will start at 8am (Eastern Time Zone). The Asian races and the Canadian, Brazilian, and United States grand prix races have different times, of course, but otherwise the race start is set. You can wake up at 7:55am and have enough time to get the TV on and watch the race.

With NASCAR, you never really know.

POINTS

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Formula 1 taking on a NASCAR style scoring system, so now let’s turn the tables.

I keep going back to the well of Formula 1, but they seem to have developed a really good system. In Formula 1, you don’t get bonus points for leading a lap, you don’t get a bonus for winning the race, you get points based only on where you finish. First place is awarded a greater point total than second place. Only the top ten get points, and the structure looks like this: 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. In Formula 1, second place gets about 72% of first place’s points. Currently, in NASCAR, second place gets nearly 86% of first place’s points.

Under my revised system, which is simply co-opting Formula 1’s points system for NASCAR, we get some interesting results.

CURRENT POINTS				REVISED F1 POINTS
1	Jimmie Johnson	821		1	Jimmie Johnson	205
2	Clint Bowyer	-18		2	Kyle Busch	-17
3	Carl Edwards	-53		3	Kasey Kahne	-40
4	Kevin Harvick	-61		4	Matt Kenseth	-46
5	Kyle Busch	-82		5	Clint Bowyer	-68
6	Matt Kenseth	-85		6	Carl Edwards	-78
7	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	-107		7	Kevin Harvick	-78
8	Kasey Kahne	-120		8	Joey Logano	-97
9	Greg Biffle	-123		9	Brad Keselowski	-99
10	Joey Logano	-136		10	Kurt Busch	-100

You can see already that, under the F1 system, the points spread is much closer than under the current NASCAR system. In fact, further analysis shows that, in the F1 system, there are currently 17 drivers within six races of the points lead, and it is much easier under the F1 points to make up ground, as any driver has a less than 25% chance of finishing in the Top Ten.

Looking back, in 2012, Brad Keselowski won the points championship by 39 over Clint Bowyer and 40 over Jimmie Johnson. Applying the F1 points system shows that Jimmie Johnson would’ve taken the points title by 57 over Keselowski.

In 2011, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart finished tied atop the standings, but Stewart won the title by virtue of more wins during the Chase for the Cup. Under the F1 points, Edwards would’ve been champion and Stewart would have finished 78 points off the lead in fifth place.

Applying the Formula 1 points system to NASCAR would undoubtedly increase the incentive to win, but would also simplify the points for fans. It would also get the backmarkers off the track once they find themselves 20 or 30 laps down. If you’re 20 laps down and still in the Top Ten…well, let’s just say I’d like to know what happened in that race.

QUALIFYING

I would explore making NASCAR’s qualifying a similar event to Formula 1. In F1, qualifying can sometimes be more exciting than the actual race. Establish a series of knock-out segments working down to the fastest ten drivers battling it out for pole position.

TEAMS

Hendrick Motorsports has four cars. Roush has had as many as five, but currently has three. I would consider capping the number of team-cars at three, perhaps even two. To go along with this idea, I would also institute a “salary cap” of sorts that would preclude a top tier team like Hendrick from massively outspending a smaller team like BK Racing or Phoenix Racing.