At Least He's Honest

Responding to driver critics of NASCAR's new "playoff" championship system, chairman Brian France displayed an admirable honesty. He admitted that ''[w]e are in the entertainment business." To anyone who still believed otherwise, this is proof positive that NASCAR moved well beyond a true sporting contest years ago. I know that any sport needs butts in seats and in front of the TV to survive and that it is important to entertain fans. It just seems that the entertainment should come from the on track competition, without too much external monkeying around.

F1 had a resurgence of interest last season not because of rule changes (although that probably helped), but because Williams, McClaren, and Renault stepped up their game and made Ferrari work for the title. The entertainment of last season was seeing the likes of Alonso and Montoya battling it out up top with Schumacher. Had the on-track product suffered, all the rule changes in the world would not have saved it.

Such is NASCAR right now, relying on fiddling with the points system to bring more "entertainment value" to a series that has apparently lost it on the track.