Drivers weigh in on changing the Chase, more news and notes

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants NASCAR to wait seven or eight years before changing the Chase format. Getty Images

FORT WORTH -- Jimmie Johnson can't help but laugh when he considers how obsessed people have become trying to find a way to revise the Chase as he moves closer to his third-straight championship.

It's almost as if NASCAR is being urged to once again revise the rules just to make sure another driver other than Johnson wins the title in the future.

"At the end of the day, we all know we didn't get off to a good start. And we had to work very hard to be in this position," says Johnson, whose lead over Carl Edwards is 106 points with two races remaining. "We're here and we're proud of it. So, it is interesting to hear the comments, and it makes me laugh that our sport can be susceptible to that whole reality TV buzz that's coming along, and if you don't like it, let's have a fan vote and let's change it. And it seems like it's kind of going that way."

Johnson believes public opinion would have him "voted off the island." But this is racing and the championship is earned on the race track, not through a fan vote of text messaging.

"If nobody likes it, let's just have Sprint run an ad on TV and [fans] can text who they want to qualify on the pole and who they want to win the race and all these crazy things," Johnson said. "I mean it's really crazy. Racing is about earning your points and earning wins. We made an adjustment to the points system a few years back to make it more competitive. What else are we going to change?"

Think about it -- when the Chicago Bulls were winning six NBA championships in the 1990s, the NBA wasn't considering changing the way an NBA champion was decided. Moreover, the best team in the regular season doesn't always win the Super Bowl and the best college basketball team doesn't always make it to the Final Four, just as the best driver during NASCAR's regular season isn't going to win the Chase.

I agree with those who believe the best way to get a proper read on how the Chase plays out is over a five- to seven-year period. If after that time it appears broken, then make the necessary adjustments.

"How do we understand what to change and how to make it better if we can't watch it and look at it for seven years or eight years and see how it's working and really get a good look at how it is working and not working?" asks Dale Earnhardt Jr. "How can we really know what to change and make the right change? We shouldn't keep changing and changing until we stumble on the right spot and the right options and the right ways to have things."

Adds Jeff Burton, "Every time we have a point championship that's not as compelling as one of the greatest, I think we have to caution against making changes. This year's World Series was just won in five games. It was not a seven-game series. Not every championship is going to be a five-point swing or a five-point difference, it's just not.

"And by the way, this one is not over. I mean, I understand it looks like it's an undoable thing for everybody. I mean, how long have ya'll been hanging around this thing? Anything can happen. So let's don't write it off just yet."

Jeff Gordon won four NASCAR Cup titles under the old points system that kept the same points for the entire season and rewarded the driver at the end of the year who had the most points. Gordon has never won a title with the current Chase format but doesn't believe it needs to be changed just because Johnson has found a way to capitalize on the current system.

"Why do you have to tweak it when a guy does good? That's what I don't understand," Gordon said. "I don't think that has anything to do with it. Here's a guy who didn't win the most races and wasn't leading it going into the Chase, and they've outperformed everybody."

Mark Martin has had an outstanding career that dates to 1981, but he never won a championship. He finished second in the championship four times, so he can appreciate the level of success Johnson is enjoying.

"I'm a little ashamed of myself that I didn't know this already, but Jimmie Johnson makes it look so easy that we don't realize that he's not just a lucky guy who gets to drive Chad's car that's the best car on the race track," Martin said. "That's a little bit shallow of me to have thought that. The more I find out about Jimmie Johnson, the more I understand why he is experiencing the success that he does and that's kind of cool.

"Jimmie Johnson is incredibly committed. Jimmie is willing to do whatever it takes to gain an advantage on the competition, whether it's mental or physical or mechanical. I think that's really cool."

After two years of running a limited schedule, Martin will return to his own Chase for the Championship next season when he joins Johnson, Gordon and Earnhardt, Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports. But even if Martin never wins a Cup championship and Johnson wins three more, Martin believes way too much focus is put on the Chase instead of the Race.

"One of the things that I take some issue with about this whole thing is to me, the points thing has been overplayed for 15 years," Martin said. "It is about the race. It's nothing about points to me. I don't race points. And I still come with every ounce of enthusiasm and I still have some fans out there that pull for me.

"So, I think the fans that go to Homestead are interested in seeing a race in person, honestly. I think the strategy to make more out of the racing series by making the points more important and paying more money and building more momentum and more media has worked; but at the end of the day, to many of us, it's more about the race than it is about the points."

So when Johnson wins his third straight title this season of if he should falter and Edwards wins the championship over the final two races of the year, just leave the Chase alone for a while before making any more changes.