The Poole Rule
If the Chase started today, there would be four drivers in the Chase without a win: Rusty Wallace (4th in points), Mark Martin (5th), Ryan Newman (8th) and Jamie McMurray (10th). Four other drivers who did manage to take a checkered flag this season -- Jeff Gordon (3 wins), Kevin Harvick (1), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (1) and Kasey Kahne (1) -- would be on the outside looking in.
I can go either way on this. Sure, NASCAR should do more to reward wins, and it would be a shame for someone to win the season title without actually winning a race. (There will be at least one driver in the Chase without a victory so far this year, so it is possible that the 2005 champ won't have gotten to Victory Lane unless they'd gotten themselves on the guest list.) But while wins are nice, finishing toward the front each week is important, too. Just because Jeff Gordon has three wins, we shouldn't overlook the fact he's got eight finishes in the 30s. And don't start on Dale Jr., who has one win and three finishes in the 40s.
So call me Switzerland. I see both sides, and I'm not picking one, at least not this morning.
Charlotte's David Poole, however, jumps right in with ... wait for it ... the Poole Rule: Drivers should get 500 points for their first win during the first 26 races. You don't have to click the link to know that would put Jeff and Junior into Chase-eligible spots.
So what do you think? Does Poole have a point? Should NASCAR leave its points system alone? Or should we all just chill out and enjoy Saturday night's Bristol race?
P.S. Marc from Full Throttle's take on the topic is here. He's in the leave-it-alone camp.
Comments (3)
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The Poole Rule is utter nonsense! Winning in auto racing is often the result of a great team combined with a hearty helping of dumb luck. Getting your photo taken in a variety of hats while swigging champagne makes your sponsors, owner and checkbook happy, but it doesn't mean you had the best car that day. Now, finishing in the Top 10 week after week still has a smattering of luck involved, but more likely it's achieved because your team knows what it's doing. And that is what the Cup is for. The racing community and fan-base bows down in November to the team that showed everybody else how to keep the fenders on, run clean (well, almost) and generated the most horsepower. Rewarding teams for being lucky? The would be a Rule for the Fools.
Posted on August 27, 2005 11:02 AM
I would say we should find a pool( of the cess variety) big enough for Poole and his rule to fit in....
Posted on August 27, 2005 11:32 AM
I don't know how David Poole feels about Dale Jr., but note that the No. 8 car would make the Chase that way. Let the conspiracy theories begin ...
Personally, I like the way Formula One hands out points: 10 for first, 8 for second and on down to 1 for 8th. NASCAR could try something similar.
It would weight winning more. In F1, the winning driver gets 25 percent more points than the runner-up. In NASCAR, if you tease out the bonus points, the winner gets nearly 6 percent more points than the runner-up. (180-170=10; 10/170=0.0588*100=5.88%)
It also would give drivers exactly what they deserve for finishing outside the top 25 or 30: zip.
And because there would be no points difference between 35th and 32nd, it might keep some of those beaters off the track. Nothing sadder in racing than watching a car with its nose cut off trying to make laps late in the race.
Posted on August 28, 2005 9:11 PM