Motorsports

Three to get ready now go, cats, go!

Final race for Nextel this Saturday night

By BRANT JAMES
Published September 4, 2007

NASCAR has wrenched and tweaked and prodded its system for crowning a champion since 2004, attempting to create the kind of fervor befitting a sport that sees the NFL as its template and the Super Bowl as the grandest of coronations. ¶ But as the Nextel Cup "regular season" meanders to its final race Saturday night at Richmond, there is little drama surrounding who will qualify for the 12-driver, 10-race championship, and if the past three seasons are indicative, there will be no last battle to decide the champion in the finale Nov.18 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. ¶ The Indy Racing League, meanwhile, has staged a virtual melee the past two weeks leading up to its ultimate race Sunday in Chicago. Dario Franchitti leads Scott Dixon by three points after yet another controversial finish at Detroit, with the contenders colliding in the final moments.

There has been spirited racing, rotating points leaders, and team tactics at Sonoma, Calif., where Tony Kanaan protected Franchitti, his Andretti Green Racing teammate, and his points finish. How did the IRL do this? By leaving the system alone and letting the drivers sort it out.

NASCAR's inaugural Chase season seemed to foretell high drama, with Jeremy Mayfield winning - for the first time in four years - at Richmond to jump from 14th in the standings to ninth and in the playoffs. Kurt Busch, despite losing a wheel during the final race, held off Jimmie Johnson by eight points to win his first championship. But the subsequent seasons were not as compelling at Richmond or Homestead, and NASCAR tinkered with the Chase format this season to award bonus points for winning races, reseed the standings by victories after Richmond and expand the driver field by two.

Though only eight drivers have mathematically locked Chase spots, the field is virtually set. At 128 points away from 12th-place driver Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt would have to far surpass Mayfield's dramatics - he was 55 out of 10th place in 2004 - to propel himself into the Chase. A driver can make up a maximum 161 points against another in one race (assuming all show up).

The IRL had runaways in 2004 (Tony Kanaan) and 2005 (Dan Wheldon) but last season crowned Sam Hornish champion by virtue of total victories after he and Wheldon - who won the final race at Chicago - tied for the points lead. Helio Castroneves, who finished two points behind Hornish and Wheldon, would have won his first title had he finished one position higher - third - at Chicago. Had he tied for the points lead, Hornish would have won anyway, but on the fifth tiebreaker, third-place finishes.

That's uncontrived drama.

Pitching in

Arizona Diamondbacks executives Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel are the latest with "major league" connections to venture on a NASCAR team, buying a controlling interest in Hall of Fame Racing, whose principals include former Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach.

Aikman, the type of new-money owner NASCAR covets, lamented the difficulty of starting and running a viable NASCAR team - "Car of Tomorrow" or not - in an interview with the Times in the fall.

"It's obviously a popular sport right now," Aikman said. "Where it's all going down the road, we'll see, but I'm curious to see if the interest NASCAR has, as far as attracting new ownership, really prevails. I don't know if under the current system if it's going to pan out."

A testing monument

Penske Racing has officially filed permitting paperwork with the Iredell County (N.C.) Planning Board for a proposed test track adjacent to its Mooresville race shop, according to the Charlotte Observer. The facility, which could spark another arms race within NASCAR, would include quarter-mile and half-mile ovals and a 1.8-mile road course within a three-quarter-mile main oval.

Team owner Chip Ganassi, a Penske rival in NASCAR and the IRL, quipped about the copycat nature of motorsports in the preseason when Penske made his intentions for a test track known.

"You have a lot of car owners who feel the need to build big monuments to themselves," he grinned. "That was a joke for all of you."

Splash and go

- Zephyrhills native and Nextel Cup rookie David Reutimann led his first lap in a Nextel Cup race on Sunday night, but with 70 left and running 16th, he was involved in a wreck started by Jeff Gordon and finished 32nd.

- Bill Davis Racing general manager Mike Brown said Formula One convert Jacques Villeneuve could drive the No.23 Toyota next season because it is the team's "second-most favorite number." Villeneuve is replacing Jeremy Mayfield, who drives the No.36.

1

IRL The top 3

DarioFranchitti

Points: 587

2

ScottDixon

Points: 584

3

Tony Kanaan

Points: 548

[Last modified September 3, 2007, 23:36:46]