As of today, the top six spots in the Busch Series drivers standings are occupied by full-time Nextel Cup drivers, and even though Carl Edwards, the current runaway points leader, is committed to running the full Busch schedule including the races that are not occurring at Cup tracks, some people would like to see that changed. However, one of the big problems I have with the idea of changing the Busch Series is that, to me, there really isn't a good way to determine what could differentiate between a guy who should and should not be eligible for the Busch Series championship.
If you believe that the Busch Series should be for drivers who are trying to gain experience, then that would naturally lead to the thought that you should exclude guys who are running for the Nextel Cup. The problem *I* have with that thinking is that there are plenty of guys who don't have much experience at either level, like David Gilliland and David Ragan, and even Juan Pablo Montoya, so why shouldn't they be eligible to win the Busch title? There are also other guys like Bobby Hamilton Jr. and Mike Wallace, who have run at the Cup level in the past (Wallace actually has 185 Cup starts) and are now running the full Busch schedule, but could be seen as a viable fill-in for a Cup ride if a driver got hurt or released. Do you potentially punish them for having a Cup ride offered to them in the middle of a successful Busch season by making them ineligible for the Busch championship? That doesn't seem fair to me, either.
I was doing some research the other day to make a comprehensive list of total victories per driver in all of three of the NASCAR elite divisions, and it occurred to me that guys like Tommy Houston and Tommy Ellis are the guys that are missing from the current Busch climate, and they are the ones that some NASCAR fans are missing. Given that, I think I have a solution that could make everyone happy:
Declare that any driver that has won a Nextel Cup race in their career is ineligible for the Busch Series championship.
Why do I think this would work? There are several reasons.
It creates a definitive divider between who is "too good" for Busch and who isn't.
You wouldn't have to have an arbitrary set of criteria based on Nextel Cup starts or age or anything similar. Casey Mears has 154 career Cup starts and zero wins, so he is eligible until he gets a win. Clint Bowyer hasn't won at the Cup level yet, and neither have guys like Gilliland, Ragan, and Montoya, so let them be eligible for the Busch title. On the other hand, younger guys like Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Brian Vickers are established Cup guys (like Mears) who have won a Nextel Cup race (unlike Mears), so they would be ineligible for a Busch title.
Drivers could take lower-level Cup rides or move up to Cup while racing for a Busch title.
Bobby Hamilton Jr. raced the full 2005 schedule in Nextel Cup, but it was for Cal Wells' single-car team, one that wasn't going to get anywhere near a race win unless some crazy things took place, and his best finish was 11th. He would likely jump into a Cup ride if one was offered to him, so he shouldn't have to do so at the the expense of a run at the Busch title if he is eligible. However, if he was fortunate enough to land a ride on a big-time team and get a win, then I'm sure he would take the Cup win over the Busch title, don't you think?
Drivers don't get fluky Nextel Cup wins.
Would I be concerned that a guy could ace himself out of a Busch championship down the road by getting a lucky Nextel Cup win? Maybe a tiny bit, but not really. If fact, here is the ENTIRE list of current Nextel Cup drivers with one career Cup win:
Brian Vickers Jamie McMurray
That is IT, and Vickers surely would have gotten more wins had he stayed at Hendrick Motorsports (and clearly still may anyway) and McMurray at least have an excellent chance driving for Jack Roush.
There is a place former Cup race winners can go to run for a championship other than the Busch Series.
It's called the Craftsman Truck Series. Fewer, shorter races. Smaller schedule. It sounds like the perfect place for a guy like Ken Schrader to go if he wants to keep racing for championships.
Here is what I would propose. Let the Cup guys run Busch if they want, and let them win and get prize money, because that is the point of the race, but have them be exempt from the championship. For points purposes, remove them from the running order and only give points to the drivers who are eligible. For example, the last Busch race at Richmond had the following actual top ten finishers.
1 Clint Bowyer 2 Matt Kenseth 3 Jeff Burton 4 Kevin Harvick 5 Kyle Busch 6 Greg Biffle 7 Casey Mears 8 Reed Sorenson 9 David Reutimann 10 Scott Wimmer
If you eliminate guys who have won Cup races from the running order, the adjusted top ten looks like this:
1 Clint Bowyer 2 Casey Mears 3 Reed Sorenson 4 David Reutimann 5 Scott Wimmer 6 Juan Pablo Montoya 7 J.J. Yeley 8 David Ragan 9 Regan Smith 10 Dave Blaney
That looks a lot less than "Cup Lite", doesn't it? There are guys running the Cup Series, of course, but except for Bowyer, Mears, and possibly Montoya, does any one of those guys look like they are going to be winning Cup races any time soon? And all of those guys except Mears and Blaney can legitimately say they are running for experience, not just as a glorified Cup-testing session.
Now, if you eliminate the Cup winners from all of the Busch races so far, you would end up with the following top-ten in points.
1 Dave Blaney 1538 2 David Reutimann 1529 3 Bobby Hamilton Jr. 1399 4 David Ragan 1397 5 Regan Smith 1380 6 Juan Pablo Montoya 1364 7 Marcos Ambrose 1362 8 Mike Wallace 1312 9 Stephen Leicht 1296 10 Shane Huffman 1292
"Dave Blaney?" He's only got 59 more Cup starts than Mike Wallace (and about 100 less than Kenny Wallace), and he's also driving a Toyota so he is basically in a new car, so it's hardly like he driving for a Cup superteam.
Of course, that is using the NASCAR "show up and don't be terrible"-points system, and I think I've made it pretty clear how I feel about *that*. Here is the points table using *my* points-system, and I will continue updating this for the rest of the season. In fact, I've already got a catchy name for the trophy: how does the "Jack Ingram Cup" sound?
(Note: Jack Ingram won 31 Busch races, currently the second-most behind Mark Martin all-time, and won zero Cup races.)
1 Casey Mears 118 2 Clint Bowyer 107 3 David Reutimann 79 4 Dave Blaney 78 5 Juan Pablo Montoya 71 6 David Stremme 63 7 David Ragan 59 8 Regan Smith 51 9 Scott Wimmer 47 10 Jason Leffler 44
Casey Mears has run seven Busch races in 2007. Eliminating the Cup winners from the Busch races would give him four "wins" and two seconds. Clint Bowyer has three "wins" and next four drivers have one each. There are still the top-seven drivers running the Cup series full-time, but none of them are established stars like the guys who are leading the Busch points currently, and if they were to get their first win they would become immediately ineligible for the Jack Ingram Cup and I would reshuffle the points.
It is also worth pointing out that after Dover six of the next eight Busch races are not companion-races to a Cup race, so if guys like Mears and Bowyer, who really are Buschwacking, should drop from the top of the order as we go through that stretch.
I think this could ultimately prove very beneficial for the soon-to-be-not-called-the-Busch Series, because it would redefine it as a lower-level series and discourage the drivers who have won at the Cup level from driving the full Busch schedule, insuring that the Busch champion is what it seems NASCAR intended, an up-and-coming young driver or a full-time Busch-only competitor.
I feel that once you move to the Nextel Cup you shouldn't be eligable for Busch Title. If Nascar needs to have two winners or what, I don't know the answer to this. But it's like when my 12 year old daughter was a fast runner in school and she did relay races against high school boys...it wasn't fair!
I also understand the seasoned drivers wanting to race a Busch race before the Cup race...BUT how fair would it be for say like Matt Kenneth to go back to Go Carts and win all the little trophys! :)
Those are very interesting thoughts Jay. Here is what I would like to see happen.
Let's see NASCAR put a group together to sit down in a room, figure out what the goal of Busch racing is and then tell us what it is when they figure it out. Then they can tell us what they are doing to meet that goal. If we like it, fine. If we don't, fine.
Don't you think Jay, that you and I and some others could sit down at a table and agree do something to address the problems we see while still allowing Cup regulars and winners to run the races and fill the stands? I do. So why shouldn't we expect NASCAR to do it.
Here is one thing your solution does not address and it is Bobby's biggest beef. He doesn't like the fact that Cup regulars get to practice on the track right before the race and then go jump in a Busch car and race. He feels this puts him at a huge disadvantage, because the Cup regulars now know the track condition on raceday and the Busch drivers do not know it. I am thinking the Busch race needs to be at noon or so and then Cup practice needs to follow that. What do you think about that?
Interesting arguments here.. Excellent points from either side of the fence. I can't personally say what idea is best. I do think the wackers need to stay in Cup and out of Busch. That is my opinion. But then again, the wackers do bring the cup crowd down to Busch to watch their favorite drivers.
So there you have it. Plenty of good ideas but the ultimate resolution will depend on what NASCAR wants to do and ya'all know what that is..
I think NASCAR wants to have their cake and eat it too. I don't blame them, because "two-time Busch Series champion Martin Truex Jr." has a lot cooler ring to it than "former Busch Series driver Martin Truex Jr." I think if you could find a way to separate who should be running full Busch seasons and who shouldn't, then everything would balance itself out. Taking out the Cup race winners seemed the fairest way to me, and I'd think the sponsor situation would balance itself out, plus you would have more drivers able to get into Busch when the Cup drivers didn't need to pull double-duty. It seems to me like a win-win situation, because nobody really complained about Buschwacking until Harvick won the title last year.
I don't know what they can do about the Busch/Cup practice schedules. I suppose they could run all of Cup practice, then do Busch practice, then qualifying, then race, but maybe it is sturctured that way in case a bad wreck or weather causes a delay? I wonder if the COT will make that a non-issue, since the cars appear to drive much differently. How much info could a Cup driver get for his Busch car by driving the COT, really?
I'd rather the Nextel Cup champion be decided over the entire season, but I think if you are going to have a Chase for the Nextel Cup, you should break out the twelve guys and have them scored separately, so I'm tracking the points both ways.
I also strongly advocate a NCAA football playoff, so there will be some posts about that showing up here, although I have written this blog for over a year and haven't gone there yet.
I can be reached via e-mail or AIM at jayjaydean at gmail dot com.
