This is hopefully the one and only time that I will talk Nascar in this blog. I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss their championship format. Basically, Nascar has 36 races a year. After 26 races, the top twelve drivers, with respect to points, are eligible for something called the Chase for the Cup. Points are reset and the eligible driver with the most points after the final 10 races wins the championship.
Ok, so Jimmie Johnson (not the penis enhancer, one time football coach) has now won an unprecedented 5 straight championships. I read somewhere the other day that some people think this years victory was controversial because second place finisher Denny Hamlin won more races (8) than Johnson (6).
Car racing is a little different than other sports. Yes winning is important, but results are not binary. The season is 36 weeks long and the rules are set up to reward consistency; to reward the best drivers over the course of the season. If the championship was simply about who won the most races, then a driver who wins 5 races but finishes in the bottom 5 in every other race would be rewarded compared to a driver who finishes in the top 10 consistently, but only won 2 races. Drivers would go for broke - they would take more chances which would result in more crashes simply to get a win. Not only do the current rules reward consistent driving, but they take away any incentive to race recklessly.
The underlying sentiment is that Johnson is on top and there are tons of haters out there. They are looking for a reason to dismiss his greatness. The thing is that he played within the rules. He did what so many great teams do in other sports - coast through the regular season and turn it on in the playoffs. He played within in the rules and won. Period. End of paragraph. Haters get over it.
Editors Note: Here are the stats for the two. Johnson: 6 wins, 17 top-5, 23 top-10. Hamlin 8 wins, 14 top-5, 18 top-10. Over the course of the year, Johnson was more consistent. Period.
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