The NASCAR Sprint Cup All Star race from Charlotte is one of the most predictable races during the year. Predictable being that no matter how it gets twisted and changed up by NASCAR, a billion opinions are let loose the day after about how it can be changed.
Me, I stopped worrying about how it can be changed because NASCAR will do what it does to the rules for getting into the All Star race, and how the format goes. I'll just watch and see how it goes.
And how it goes was that in that final segment, Jimmie Johnson walked away with it, eliminating any and all drama to the race's end. I watched on Twitter as many fans elicited their "boring" opinions about the event as it was unfolding and I could not disagree with them. With one car pulling away, uncontested, for the prize, was anti-climatic, to say the least.
Though this win, in this new format, put Johnson tied with the most wins, three, in the All Star race. He's tied with the late, great Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon for most wins in this race... three.
And the new rules and such were played out rather well by the No. 48 team. Leave it to Chad to figure it out and beat the system.
And that's one thing a true fan can admire, and that's how Chad Knaus can take any game he's looking at and figure out how to get around, through and play by the rules just right to make things work out. I would really, really, really hate to be up against this man in a war game or other tactics based game. I'm more than willing to bet he'd be dangerous. Cripes, Chad would probably figure out how to stay ahead of the game in "Calvin Ball!" (A nod to fans of the Calvin and Hobbs fans out there.)
Come Monday, the calls came flying in to Sirius XM's NASCAR channel shows and I have to say, many folks are not shy about voicing their ideas about how the format for the All Star race can be changed.
To be honest, I think that no matter how you weight it or spice it up... sometimes there is going to be a run-away winner. But then one call came in that caught my attention. He was a very calm man who came along and rather than injecting any funny business, more or less, described his idea in a sentence or two.
A sentence or two is the magic formula that says if you have an idea and it takes more than a concise sentence or two to describe it, it's probably too complicated for the fans to pick up on.
This man proceeded to take very little time to suggest that if there has to be segments, to award finishing points per segment. The most points earned by the end of the night wins the prize.
And mandatory pit stops was the other thing I heard.
Apparently this method has been used by other racing series rather successfully over the years and the longer I dwelled on it, the more sense it started to make. No more holding back within the system, between the segments. No more NASCAR trying to get tricky in how it formats the night. Have a few short segments that award points. (I suggest short because that would force the drivers to race hard for those points.)
Pit stops, well, that could go either way, it's part of the strategy deployed, like when you toss out your pawns early in a good game of chess. You can't change that premise, no matter how old the game is. But points added up from segment to segment, well, that seems like it could actually make it interesting. But how the points are awarded, and how the the cars are lined up to fight for those points, well, that's another matter altogether.
For now, I think I have heard a good idea finally.
Does anyone else have a good idea for the format of the NASCAR Sprint Cup All Star race?
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