Hopefully in the near future NASCAR will announce the end of the dismal Chase format and return to the days where a champion was determined on an entire season.
It’s easy to forget that Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt earned their seven championships at the Cup level by their performance for an entire year.
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Jimmie Johnson, also a seven-time Cup champion, earned four of his titles based on the Chase format.
Had there been no Chase format for Cup teams this year Christopher Bell would have won the crown and not Kyle Larson.
The Phoenix race for the championship came down to an overtime run to the finish. Denny Hamlin opted for four tires while Larson’s team changed two.
Hamlin led a majority of the race, but at the finish it all came down to track position.
I have never been a fan of the Chase format in NASCAR, which was extended to some local racing sanctioning bodies and the stage racing.
A champion should be determined on a team’s performance over a full season. Of course, the races early in the season was the basis for the setting of the Chase fields, but at the end it came to where you finished as compared to three other competitors.
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In other racing news: Bitnile Open Wheel Showdown is taking place this weekend with drivers competing for $50,000 in a winged sprint car event.
The Little 500 will be well represented in the field with former winners Tyler Roahrig, Kody Swanson, Bobby Santos III and Jake Trainor among the entrants.
Swanson is the defending race winner and Santos is a two-time winner of the event.
If I was a betting person, my money would be on Roahrig who was a master this year with the 500 Sprint Car Tour.
Anderson’s Greg VanAlst scored a career best NASCAR finish last weekend in the Craftsman Truck Series event at Phoenix Raceway.
VanAlst finished 18th and is preparing to make his Truck Series debut at Daytona International Speedway in February.
