Should the Top-35 Rule Be Modified? Maybe Top-25?

I'm watching the Gatorade Duels and Gatorade's new stupid ad.  The recap ad sucks the most as everything is out of context, so it makes even less sense.  The G ads make me need my B.  As in Budweiser or Amp!!  Who the H*** do they think they are marketing to?  Have NASCAR fans become bee-bop dance fans?  I think Gatorade has seriously goofed in who ever or what ever yahoo they hired to spin their product.

Anyway,

While I was watching the Duels, I came across an interesting article on how NASCAR is reevaluating the Top-35 owners points rule.

The article goes on to mention how the 35th spot in owners points has become a marketable commodity.  The bubble spot gives a team a guaranteed starting spot in the next race, or the first 6 races of the next season.  The spot has a lot of focus from the media, including myself so it has some notoriety in the coverage.  IE:  How often would we have read about Kyle Petty or Sam Hornish Jr. without the bubble spot?

As far as the top-35 rule goes, it's based on owners points for the car.  But owners points can differ a bit from drivers points.  A team can get a minimal number of points for just trying to qualify but I don't think these meager scraps make a car competitive in the owner points standings.

So what do they have in mind for rule changes?  Not sure yet.  They have vowed to look it over.

Me?  I don't know what to say.  Don't change the owners points.  Let that just keep on rolling along so we can have the owners standings race for the year end owners championship.

Car points are fine, but it's the driver that got the car there.  Do we keep the top-35 points with the car / owner, or give it to the driver and let the driver position in standings determine the top-35.  But then if a driver switches teams, then what?  If the top-35 points start "guarantee" stays with the driver, this would make the driver himself more marketable to the teams.  It would give them pause in the idea of letting a driver go. 

It could minimize the musical cars that starts up, unless the driver drops out of the top 35.  But if their driver falls out of the top 35, who would be available to actually get themselves back into the top-35?  This process I am tossing around would actually force a team to dig in and get more behind their driver than just up and toss him because of some bad luck or a few bad days.

Yes, teams are the ones that get the drivers there, but it is a team sport and if they are behind their driver, then the rewards are going to be the same.

Heck, you know what?  Let's make this whole process even more interesting.  Let's make the guaranteed starting spot go with the driver points.  Then, let's raise it from the top-35 to the top-25.  Now qualifying will be more interesting!

Yes, the top-35 rule gets a name driver in the field no matter what.  But they're going to have the points to support themselves in the process, so I'm not sure that would be a valid concern any more.  If a driver doesn't make it, guess what?  Who ever doesn't make it, the entire team HAS to be required to stick it out during the whole weekend in an autograph or fan event tent.  So no matter what happens, the fans still win.
 
Right now, 81% of the 43 car field has got it on easy street for getting into the next race.  How's that a competition?

Anyone else have any ideas we can pitch to the NASCAR CEO's?