Full Throttle

In his March to the Sea General Sherman ordered that the city of Atlanta be burned to the ground.

In looking over NASCAR headlines since the checkered flew over Jimmie Johnson Sunday you would think Johnson did a re-enactment of Sherman’s drive through the city and his quest for a third Cup was all but awarded.

Two points:

1. After race 26 everyone thought Kyle Busch was a lock for his first Cup, that hasn’t happened.
2. Johnson’s first Cup (2006) wasn’t exactly a cake walk. He started the 2006 Chase a mere 5 points from then leader Matt Kenseth. After the first Chase event he fell to 139 points behind and was 165 points behind after the third event in Kansas.

My point being anything can, and often does, happen. The proverbial 25¢ part can cause his point advantage to evaporate quicker than a politicians policy stand.

The second most read headline since Sunday have been missives in various quarters proclaiming the need to “tweak” the Chase again, ’cause, well it’s borrrring!

Well welcome to the real world folks, boring Cup races have been part of NASCAR since the beginning and unless something drastic happens, like a one race 12 driver shootout, there will always be years when the excitement level reaches the level of drying paint tournaments.

On that note, Matt Humphrey points out the latest by Jack Roush. Jack in the Hat seems to think adding a Mulligan to the Chase format would be an improvement.

Of course he would think that with his driver Carl Edwards not gaining a lick after his Sunday win, and having two chances (Talladega & Lowes) to use one this year.

Sorry Jack, that’s a band-aid that’s not needed and one that would cut both ways. If Johnson had a Mulligan to use in 2006 he wouldn’t have fallen as far back as he did and eventually would have won by an even larger margin.

Jack, go back to the engine shop and find more horsepower, or at least more for those on the team besides Edwards. The #99 doesn’t seem to lack anything aside from luck, but the rest of the team could use both more HP - and luck.

There will never be a “perfect” Chase, nor will there ever be a “perfect” solution to tweak it.

Well, let me restate that, there’s one solution, call it the Full throttle Solution if you will.

Just let’em race, with no points awarded, only cash for each Chase win based on a sliding scale going from one million for race 27, to ten million dollars awarded to the winner at Homestead.

Who would be the champ? I haven’t figured that out yet.

But Rock/Paper/Scissors is an option for Homestead and played by the 12 Chase eligible drivers.

Rock/Paper/Scissors would have the added advantage of a readily accessible rulebook online.

You damn sure can’t say that about NASCAR’s Mythical Rulebook.