July 27, 2009
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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It is always kind of nice when the old guys show they still have what it takes to get it done in sports. Mark Martin has been showing it all season in NASCAR, and Tom Watson showed it last weekend in golf.
Yes folks, I admit it, I like golf. I have been a golf fan longer than I have been a NASCAR fan…by about 30 years. So I have to take the time, when it is offered, to be able to do a little comparing and contrasting between two of my favorite sports (the third being football….).
How can you compare the art of chasing a little ball over 18 links of grass to racing at 180 miles an hour for 500 miles?
Well, for starters, take a look at Watson and Martin. Both are in their 50’s, and both are showing that age is often as much a state of mind as it is a physical ailment. Martin has showed patience and years of knowledge in his racing, and both of those have led to more wins than anyone else on the circuit this season. Watson showed that golf can indeed be a thinking man’s game as much as it can be a hard hitter’s game, as he was able to think out a plan of attack on the long links of Turnberry instead of just hammer the ball down the course and hope it landed in the fairway. He didn’t out-hit all but one man last weekend, he outsmarted them. Unfortunately, but the time the last putts of the 18th hole came around, the brain and the body were just a little tuckered out.
Another comparison that I think can be made between these two sports is their ability to survive with or without the big names there week in and week out. These are two sports where teams are not involved, except in certain rare instances, and it is instead every man for himself. A golfer doesn’t have another golfer out there to help him win, and neither does a driver (except maybe at Daytona and Talladega…). Youthful power and energy can come in and take the sport by storm, but sometimes, it is the education of a long time of experience that can actually pay better dividends at the end of the day.
And then there is the fact that in golf, you don’t always have the top player on the course. Sometimes, it is because he has something else to deal with away from the tournament, as has been the case with Phil Mickelson and the fact his wife and mother are both fighting breast cancer.
And sometimes, as was the case last weekend, the biggest name in the sport just stinks up the show and fails to make the cut. (I wonder how Tiger liked being a spectator instead of on top of the leader board?)
Amazingly, just because Mr. Woods and Mr. Mickelson were not on the course, the tournament did not grind to a halt. Play carried on, and was actually quite excellent. You saw players who might not otherwise been covered play very well, and some of the old familiar guys come along and show they still had what they needed to be near the top of their game.
Now just think…it COULD also work this way with NASCAR. If not for the top 35 rule, that is.
Back in the day…and I really don’t like using that statement, because in most cases, things weren’t as great as most think they were back in those days…but before the top 35 rule and the Chase, you used to have to qualify on time. It didn’t matter if you were Dale Earnhardt or Morgan Shepherd…you got the same chance to get in the race as everyone else. At one point, you even had two chances to make it into the field, not just one. (But even I will admit the days of 2-day qualifying are too cost prohibitive these days to bring back.)
Sometimes, all the big names would be right where most folks expected they’d be….right at the front of the pack. Every once in a while, however, the big name would be sitting on the sidelines….or sitting on his couch at home.
And the sport never once appeared to be facing collapse because that person wasn’t there!
The top 35 rule was implemented in an era of big money and high team counts. We’d show up at Martinsville and have 55 cars on hand to qualify, and there was a chance that one of those top drivers might actually be out-run by one of the small, start and park teams. Even with what was then called the “Champion’s Provisional”, you might have a top driver who didn’t make the race because someone with a more recent provisional needed his too.
Fans complained that their drivers were being shown the door by a car and driver who had no intention of actually running the race.
So NASCAR made a change, and it was called the Top 35 rule. If you were in the top 35 in points, you made the race, no matter what happened to you in qualifying. Everyone else had to take a crack at the field on speed. The Champion’s Provisional remained, but because all past champions for the last decade were almost always in the top 35, it was rarely used.
Fast forward 6 years. The big money era of NASCAR appears to be over, and we are now looking at 45 teams showing up to qualify each weekend instead of 55. With the race field still sitting at 43 cars, we have only been sending home 2 or 3 cars per weekend.
So, I ask, do we still really need the top 35 rule today?
I would say no, we don’t.
“But Jeff Gordon might blow a tire and crash in qualifying!” “Tony Stewart might blow an engine during qualifying and not make a lap!”
Both of those scenarios are true…but also, both of those drivers are past Champions, and would have the provisional at their disposal.
Also, consider this: when was the last time we had TWO of the top drivers have an incident in qualifying that prevented them from completing at least one lap? It has been a while.
“Why am I going to pay all that money for a ticket if I’m not sure my driver is going to race???”
What did you do back in the day before the top 35 rule? There was never a guarantee that Dale Earnhardt or Buddy Baker or Richard Petty or David Pearson or Cale Yarborough was going to race when they took the track. Sometimes…they didn’t race. But it was a rare occurrence, because they had great teams, and those teams knew how to make pretty darned sure that car was going to make those required laps.
“Those go or go home cars are faster in qualifying than my diver because they set up for it!”
Well sure they do…they HAVE to in this day and age. But if EVERYONE has to qualify for the race, they will all set up their cars to qualify for the race, not just to do two laps and be ready in race trim. THAT would actually even out the playing field even more, because instead of having the top 35 in race set up and the go or go homers in qualifying set up…everyone would start the race in the same set up…or take their chances that whichever way they were set to go would work either on qualifying or race day.
And if Tony or Jeff or Dale Earnhardt Junior don’t make the race?
Well, Tiger didn’t make the cut last weekend in the biggest golf tournament in the world, and they still played on.
If those guys don’t, for whatever reason, don’t make the race…well, the green flag will still drop, and so will the checkers.
In an era when the big teams are losing their big sponsors, and the little teams can’t even get sponsors, we need to go back to having everyone have an equal chance to get in and race. The big teams will still be the big dogs, because they will still have the money and the resources at their disposal. But the little teams just might have a better chance of taking a bit out of one of those big teams, and in the process, make a little bigger name for themselves, allowing them a chance to shine a bit in the spotlight and get their even chance on the track.
It is time to say good bye to the Top 35 rule. Let’s just go out and race the fastest 43 cars each weekend, and let the chips fall where they may.
And if one of those big names happens to be watching it all unfold from the sidelines…well, next weekend, he and his team will just have to be a little bit better, won’t they?
On a side note, one last comment I want to make. I have been fairly vocal about my dislike of the way Kyle Busch comports himself after what he considers to be a "bad race". However, I am also willing to give kudo's where they are deserved...and I want to give them to Kyle for the way he handled himself after having tire issues at Indy this weekend. He climbed out of the car as his team worked on it in the garage and came to the media to talk about the issue. He did it a composed and professional manner, and left me thinking "He DOES know how to do it!" So thumbs up to Kyle and his "adult" interview this week.
Hopefully, he'll be able to keep it up as he works his way to the end of the season.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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