Chase? What Chase?

They call it the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

I call it the end of any excitement in NASCAR.

By now most of you know that Jimmie Johnson just wrapped up his third consecutive Sprint Cup championship. While three titles in a row is a huge feat in any sport, Johnson has been an exception to the rule. The NASCAR championship is determined by a 10-race playoff, basically rendering the season's first 26 races useless. The last three years, Johnson and his Chad Knaus have gotten hot at the right time and rode the momentum to their titles.

Now, did Cale Yarborough have to do that when he won his three straight titles back in the 1970's? No way, no how. Yarborough did it the hard way - racing his way through an entire season and fighting off the likes of Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, David Pearson and others. Racing was much tougher then and the cars didn't drive themselves much like they do today and the guys who drove them were true warriors out there on the track.

Fast-forward to today. Do you really think any of those guys would race under a system like that? They would for the love of the sport, if nothing else.

Take this season for example. Kyle Busch set the world on fire for the early part of the year, winning 8 of the season's first 26 races. After the August Bristol race, Bush had a 200+ point lead over Carl Edwards and Johnson, but saw that reduced to a scant 40 points at the start of the chase. That's a whole bunch of domination for nothing! Busch's season fell completely apart after the start of the chase, and even under the old points system his lead would have completely eroded enroute to a third place finish.

Your champion under the old system? It would have been Edwards by a scant 13 points over Johnson. Sure, Edwards got a couple of cheap wins at the end of the season thanks to fuel mileage, but wins are wins and he finished the season with 9 to Johnon's 7. Johnson, by the way, would have lost the title last year too to Jeff Gordon under the old system.

Now am I crying over spilled milk? No way, but let's make the entire season count for something instead of it being 10-race championship. Johnson has been and will continue to be an excellent champion for the sport. But to be mentioned in the same context as Yarborough as a triple-champion? Don't think so.