Feud: Bonus points for leading lap needs to be re-examined
CBSSports.com's Brian De Los Santos and Pete Pistone provide analysis on three weekly racing topics.
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| Pete Pistone | Brian De Los Santos |
| Do you have any problem with a driver slowing in order to let a teammate lead a lap for bonus points? Should NASCAR drop the five-point bonus for leading a lap? | |
| I cannot stand it when a driver moves over to "let" his teammate lead a lap and collect the five bonus points. It reminds me of the team orders in Formula One when the call comes for one team car to move aside and let another win a race. NASCAR needs to examine this situation. The Hendrick guys did it last Saturday at Bristol and were perfectly within the rules, but it leaves a bad taste in a lot of fans' mouths when it happens. I'm not sure taking away the five-point bonus for leading is the right thing to do; I like the idea of earning points for racing your way to the front. But getting a gift from a teammate or leading under caution is not in the spirit of that policy. Maybe there should be a judgment call from NASCAR officials in such cases and not award the bonus points in either. | Oh, you bet I have a problem with this practice. It's a travesty. It's a sham. It's a mockery. It's a traveshamockery! As I've stated many times over the years -- apparently I don't have much pull in the NASCAR front offices, however -- the whole NASCAR points system needs to be blown up and the five-point bonus for leading a lap is the first thing that needs to go. What made matters worse Saturday night, when Mark Martin slowed to let Jimmie Johnson by for a couple of laps, was that Johnson didn't even need those bonus points. His spot in the Chase is secure. It's just as bad when an also-ran stays out on the track under caution while everybody is making pit stops simply so he can lead a lap for the bonus points. It's not the spirit of the rule. NASCAR is better off without it. |
 COMMUNITY GUEST 'HardToBeat20': Maybe allowing for a While I don't like it very much, I also realize that as long as there are bonus points to be earned there's nothing going to stop it, until someone gets burned. When Martin let Johnson lead a, oops make that two laps, I was secretly hoping that the caution flag would wave, the field would be frozen, then it would start raining and the race would be called, all before he could give the position back to Martin, thus giving Johnson the win. I don't care much for earning five bonus points for leading one lap, especially if that lap is led under caution. I would like to see NASCAR change the five-point bonus for one lap to a five-point bonus for a percentage of laps. For years, I've thought that NASCAR should have a formula for all races that says a driver must lead x percent of the laps scheduled to be run to qualify for the five bonus points. So let's say x = 5 percent, then for the Daytona 500 a driver needs to lead (200 laps times .05 =) 10 laps to qualify for the five bonus points, for the July Daytona race (160 laps times .05 =) eight laps, for Watkins Glen (92 laps times .05 =) 4.6 or five laps, Phoenix (312 times .05 =) 15.6 or 16 laps, Atlanta (325 laps times .05 =) 16.25 or 16 laps. At least this way, drivers would have earned the bonus points rather then get them just because they were at the right place at the right time. | |
| Do you think the racing at Bristol has been better or worse since the track changes a couple of years ago? Is the race date's proximity to the Chase affecting aggressiveness at the track? | |
| The racing at Bristol is much better with the new configuration than with the old layout. Drivers can now actually pass each other without simply ramming someone out of their way for position. We saw side-by-side racing last weekend that even included three- and, at a time, four-wide action. The Truck Series battle between Jason White and Kyle Busch as well as the Busch-Mark Martin struggle in the closing laps of Saturday's Cup race would not have been possible at the old Bristol. The Chase, however, has affected things and maybe we don't see the aggressiveness from some drivers trying to protect their place in the points. But I still contend racing at Bristol is better than the majority of tracks on the schedule and not seeing 20 caution flags over 500 laps is a very good thing. | While it's interesting to see side-by-side racing all around the little 1/2-mile bullring, I'm sorry, the old magic isn't there for me like it used to be. I don't want to see side-by-side racing at Bristol -- I want to see a demolition derby where a driver has to scratch and claw and gouge his way for every position. I did think the action was its best since the changes to the track, but the new restart rules had a lot do with the perceived improvement. I do believe the proximity to the start of the Chase is also causing drivers to tune back their aggressiveness a bit. While it's true that all races count the same, by this time in the year drivers have a much better idea where they stand in points and there's the perception that they have a bit more control of their destiny. If a driver is eighth, ninth or 10th in points with three races to go before the start of the Chase, it's reasonable to believe they might try to tip-toe around Bristol just a bit more cautiously. |
| COMMUNITY GUEST 'HardToBeat20': I don't ever recall thinking after a Bristol race (before or after the track changes) that it was boring, unlike what I typically think after a race on a cookie-cutter track. If your driver gets caught up in something early and is out of the race then you may lose interest, but there has always been lots of action/passing taking place everywhere on the track. Being a Stewart fan, even Saturday night when he went down two laps early because of having radio issues, I was still entertained for the entire race. While the drivers may be a little more cautious making a pass, I don't think a driver can afford to not be aggressive, otherwise they are likely to get lapped pretty darn quickly and often, which will do little to help their Chase chances. | |
| Should the institution of fuel-injected systems in place of carburetors be a top priority for NASCAR? Is it really necessary? | |
| I don't see what the big deal is if NASCAR continues to use carburetors instead of fuel-injected engines. I realize it's nearly impossible to find a carburetor on any street vehicle these days and some fans want NASCAR vehicles to better represent what they drive every day. But these are specialized racing cars with very unique power plants. So what if they utilize a carburetor? I don't see any reason why NASCAR should hurry up and adopt fuel injection anytime soon. And although Toyota said the company could be ready for the 2010 season, if NASCAR did mandate the switch I imagine it would take at least a year or two to get every manufacturer up to speed. Personally I think it's highly unnecessary. | It's absolutely not necessary. The carburetor has been a dinosaur for nearly 30 years, and NASCAR has done quite well for itself. Most casual fans don't know and don't care what's going on under the hood. As long as their driver is competitive, they're quite happy. But just because it's not a necessity doesn't make it the right thing to do. Quite frankly, the manufacturers should have demanded it long ago as part of their factory support. With the carburetor they're spending millions on an engine that has no real world application outside of NASCAR. That's rather absurd. Policing this technology has been the big concern for NASCAR officials and it's legit, but they need to pull their heads out of the sand and join the 21st century at some point. |
| COMMUNITY GUEST 'HardToBeat20': Top priority? No. On the list of things to accomplish? Yes. There is a lot of learning, testing and policing that needs to be done before a points race can be run using fuel-injection systems. If just switching from a carb to a fuel-injection system will generate more horsepower, then what sort of impact will that bring to track? How much more horsepower will an 800-HP engine generate with the switch? If more horsepower is generated, would the current engine be able to withstand the weekend at longer races like the Daytona 500 or the Coca-Cola 600? Would there still be a restrictor plate need or would the plate need to be bigger? Necessary, but not at the expense of delivering another blow to the lower-budget teams that don't have the research and development dollars like the super-sized teams. I'm most concerned with NASCAR being able to police the technology so that super teams, having super budgets, don't get any more of an advantage than they already have. | |
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