CBSSports.com contributor Pete Pistone and staff writer Brian De Los Santos provide analysis on three racing topics.
| 1. NASCAR has floated some ideas about possible changes to the Busch -- soon to be Nationwide -- Series. What changes would you like to see? | |
| Pete Pistone | Brian De Los Santos |
 Whatever changes NASCAR makes it better do something in a hurry because its supposed No. 2 series has become a nonentity. What used to be a training ground for future stars is now a hodgepodge of Cup interlopers, young drivers with not enough experience and a few completely underfunded teams that simply cannot compete with the Cup operations using the series as a playground. First thing that needs to be done is to change the cars so they aren't replicas of the Cup Series. Pony cars -- Mustangs, Camaros, etc. -- would be a great way to differentiate the series. Next is to limit the number of starts Cup drivers can make. Forget about not giving them points as a way of helping the drivers who run the series full-time. The Nationwide-whackers don't care about points -- just money and track info to use the next day. And finally more stand-alone races at tracks that will never get a Cup race. All that needs to happen to make the circuit something interesting, which right now it isn't at all. |  I liked the suggestion of possibly turning it into a pony car series (Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro). It would give the series its own identity, rather than simply being Cup Series lite. I think it needs to go back to being a developmental series for new talent, so I'd limit the number of full-time Cup drivers allowed to participate in a given event to eight, though Cup rookies wouldn't count toward this number. Experiment with the points system. Institute a Chase-type format, but have the drivers within the Chase under their own points system, which many fans have suggested the Cup Series should adopt. It could be as simple as a 10, 9, 8, 7, etc., with maybe a five-point bonus for a Nationwide Chase driver winning the race. That's just one example. There's any number of ways the points could be fiddled with to ensure that in most cases the championship would go down to the wire instead of being the runaway it has been the past couple of seasons. |
| 2. Is Bruton Smith's purchase of New Hampshire International Speedway good news for future Cup schedules? | |
| Pete Pistone | Brian De Los Santos |
| The purchase is good and bad news. Bruton and SMI will renovate New Hampshire and make it on par with its other facilities around the country, which are by far some of the best in NASCAR. Look for more seats and amenities for fans, maybe even a change to the track's layout with some banking added and a wider racing surface. Those will all be good for the sport. But the days of two stops in Loudon will end in 2009 when SMI takes one of the dates and moves it to Las Vegas, which will start a domino effect in the Chase lineup with Texas taking over the lead spot and Vegas adding its second race in November. That means there will be too many 1.5-mile tracks in the Chase. And by stripping a date from New Hampshire, the rabid New England fans -- who have sold out the track for 26 straight races -- will be down to one visit a year from NASCAR's top division. Too bad SMI didn't buy Pocono, which should have one race a year at the most. | A lot of people are guessing that Smith bought the track for the sole purpose of moving one of that track's races to Las Vegas. Smith, though, is mum about his plans and NASCAR says no changes will be made to the schedule before 2009. It seems probable that a move of dates is his motivation, but maybe Smith will surprise us all. I like the fact that a shakeup of the schedule is inevitable as it has become rather stagnant, but not at the expense of New Hampshire, which has really come into its own in recent seasons. Las Vegas is a terrific destination, but I've never found the events at the speedway particularly enthralling. Also, does NASCAR really need another trip to a 1.5-mile track? |
| 3. Will anyone besides Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon win this weekend at Phoenix? | |
| Pete Pistone | Brian De Los Santos |
| The Hendrick Express stops in the Valley of the Sun. Gordon finally won in Phoenix in April, his first Cup victory there, and Johnson is 0 for 8. They haven't been terrible, but I see two other drivers who have a much better chance to win in my book. One is Kyle Busch, the lost member of the Hendrick team who has been pretty strong in his final starts before joining Joe Gibbs Racing next year. He has been good with the COT and has won at Phoenix before. Denny Hamlin is the other guy to watch. He has been strong in the past two races before getting knocked out in Atlanta and Texas, and he's a flat track specialist, so the No. 11 will definitely be a factor this Sunday at PIR. | Nope. I'll take Johnson and Gordon vs. the field. Though they have just one win between them at the track, that coming in April when Gordon finally broke through, they're 1-2 in average finish. Johnson has corralled three top fives and six top 10s in eight trips to the track for an average finish of 7.2, while Gordon has eight top fives and 14 top 10s in 17 visits for an average finish of 8.2. I'll go so far as to predict a 1-2 finish for the dynamic duo with Gordon completing a season sweep and setting up quite a battle for the championship at Homestead. The best of the rest? I'm going to say Kevin Harvick. He earned a track sweep last season and was 10th back in April. |
