New format fails to reward wins

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Ryan Newman won a series-high eight races in 2003, yet never contended for the NASCAR championship.

He finished a distant sixth in the standings -- seven DNF's that year probably contributed to Newman never challenging Matt Kenseth for the title -- but found little fault with a points system that failed to reward his numerous visits to Victory Lane.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with the structure of the points system right now," Newman said late that season. "The champion should be a champion in all respects, and consistency is a big part of being a Cup champion."

That hasn't changed three seasons later, even under NASCAR's new Chase for the championship format.

Kasey Kahne scored his series-best fifth victory Sunday night in California, but the dominating run failed to push him into the top 10 in the standings. He's still 30 points out with only one more chance to race his way into Nextel Cup title contention.

Kahne will need a flawless run next weekend at Richmond International Raceway to make it, coupled with one of the drivers ahead of him faltering just a little. Among those mathematically eligible to fall out of Chase contention are Jeff Burton and Mark Martin, who both sit inside the top 10 despite not having a single win this season.

Yes, Burton and Martin have earned their rankings through both attrition and consistency -- the exact same gameplan NASCAR frowned upon when it changed its title-deciding format.

The Chase was launched the season after Kenseth won his title, when he handily wrapped it up a week before the season finale. He did it through nondescript consistency, with just one win that entire year.

Newman, meanwhile, was winning poles (11 of them) and races but couldn't come close to catching Kenseth because the aggressive driving that put him into Victory Lane also kept him out of it. Newman balanced almost all of his wins with a harrowing accident -- from flipping his car, to catching on fire to finding himself stuck on his side while he impatiently waited to be rescued.

It's hard to argue that Newman's erratic season was championship-worthy, but it had to be better than a sixth-place finish in the final standings.

Now Kahne finds himself in the same situation. Only instead of claiming sixth-place prize money as Newman did, the Chase might relegate Kahne to 11th -- or worse -- if he fails to make the postseason.

There's something fundamentally wrong with that.

Purists believe otherwise, and argue that the season-long consistency-based system was perfectly fine from NASCAR's inception all the way up until the Chase was born at the start of 2004. But in devising a new format, NASCAR itself was admitting that its leaders believed the old way was no longer the best way.

But in "fixing" it, NASCAR failed to place a premium on winning.

It hurt Jeff Gordon last year, who had three wins -- including the daddy of them all Daytona 500 -- when he failed to make the Chase, and it might do the same to Kahne this year. He could win again Saturday night in Richmond, but unless he gains 30 points on Burton, he won't make it.

So six wins in 26 races might not be championship-worthy under this system, and that's ridiculous.

A poor stretch

Of course, Kahne has only himself to blame for this, with only one top 10 during a seven-week summer swoon. It dropped him from third in the standings to his current predicament, where he's put himself in the desperate, must-win mode he took to California.

"I came here telling myself 'You gotta win. You gotta win. You gotta lead laps. That's all you can do if you want to make this Chase,"' he said. "Those other guys we're going against, they're in the top 10, top 12 for a reason. You're not just going to score 80 more points than them on a weekend. It's not going to happen."

For the third-straight season, Kahne now heads into the final qualifier on the Chase bubble. Although he didn't deserve to make it the last two years, he most certainly has this year.

NASCAR chairman Brian France wants to make adjustments to the Chase after this year, and rewarding winners is an excellent start.

Under the old system, Kahne would have had 10 more races to try to win the title and a run of wins would have likely thrust him back into contention. But under France's Chase, he has just one more race to make it in. If he fails, he could win the last 10 races of the year and still wind up no better than 11th in the points.

Some argue that rewarding winners won't make a difference, but the math proves otherwise. If Kahne got just a 25-point bonus for each of his five wins, he'd be ahead of two-time champion Tony Stewart and the winless Burton and Martin right now.

The time is now for NASCAR to put the emphasis back on winning.

After all, isn't that the point of racing each week?