iNSIDE SCOOP: 10 Years Already

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – It’s hard to believe, but it’s the eve of 10th Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Mike Helton can’t believe it either. 

“I don’t know what’s happened that has moved us along so fast, but celebrating the 10th Chase…I would tell you from NASCAR’s perspective, the Chase has delivered on what we had hoped it would do,” he said Friday here at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Te create extraordinary moments and a conclusion to our season, and develop what we feel like is the most competitive and challenging championship, certainly in motorsports, but I think we could sustain an argument that it’s one of the most challenging championships in all of sports.”

OK, I can buy that. The Gen-6 car did what it was supposed to do, to a point, and there were 16 different winners in 35 races. Of course, there were seven victories each by Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, but David Ragan won at Talladega and Brian Vickers won at New Hampshire. 

It certainly has created some moments. By far the biggest of those was the Richmond race in September, where the face of the Chase underwent a change amid controversy. 

“I think it was a defining moment,” Helton said. “I suspect that moment will be reflected on for many years to come, but the decisions we made, the reaction in the industry that self-polices itself is indicative of our environment and we’ve kind of moved on from there.”

Maybe Mike has, and the rest of the NASCAR hierarchy, but there are a bunch of fans that haven’t yet. The addition of Jeff Gordon made a lot of Gordon fans happy, but it ticked off a large contingent of fans that follow Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer and others.

The only institutional memory longer than that of the IRS is race fans, and they will indeed talk about it for years to come, especially if something like this happens again and NASCAR makes another judgment call that goes against their grain.

“They are loyal and they’re very opinionated, and that’s a good thing,” Helton remarked on the fans. He’s right on both counts, but one wonders of the loyalty is being stretched a bit by certain things.

Among them are prices, hotel room gouging and the cost of going to a race. Some of that is the price of doing business, some of that is business owners making the best of a bad economy, and some of that is the economy bottoming out.

It will have to be addressed at some point, and there’s not a lot NASCAR can do about the economy, so it will continue to be a bone of contention.

Schedules for 2015 are in the works, and you look down the road at what NASCAR is thinking, and you’re going to see some changes in the Chase schedule. 10 years in, it’s time. I think NASCAR will revamp the Chase tracks and it will turn out to be a good thing all around.

In the meantime, let’s reflect on what 10 years of Chasing has brought us. Be happy, and watch every lap this weekend. You won’t see this again until February.