Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/31373
VIEWS FROM THE GRANDSTANDS KAY BELL What’s the Points? NASCAR’s revamped driver points system is better, but not good enough he 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup season is rolling right along, and so far I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. Trevor Bayne’s victory at Daytona was really cool, I was very pleased to see “old man” Jeff Gordon win again, and the spring race at Talla- dega was genuinely exciting. One thing I’m not sure about, though, is the new points system. I certainly agreed that NASCAR needed to overhaul its ridiculously confusing old system, but I think they went too far in trying to make this one simple. T The new system works like this: There are 43 cars in the field each LOOSE LUGNUTS You go, Joe I have a new hero, Joe Denette, who hit the lot- tery and used his winnings to start a race team. Denette was laid off his job in Fredericksburg, Va., in 2009, but continued to watch NASCAR and play the lottery. As fate would have it, the day he discovered he’d bought a Mega Millions lottery ticket worth $70 million was also the day he attended the spring Sprint Cup race at Richmond. Part of his prize package was a pace car ride around Richmond International Speedway with Mega Millions ambassador and fellow Virginian Hermie Sadler. A few months later, Denette got in touch with Sadler about starting up a Camping World Series truck team, and it made its debut earlier this season. Joe Denette Motorsports, as it is known, is running a Chev- rolet with a technical alliance with Kevin Harvick Inc., and the truck is being driven by Jason White. The truck proudly carries No. 23, also the number of lottery tickets Denette bought the year he won the big bucks. More for Texas Speak- ing of F1, the promoters of the new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, have announced a 10-year agreement to host the hugely 32 TRUCKERS NEWS JUNE 2011 popular Moto GP motorcycle series. Moto GP currently holds events in Indianapolis and Laguna Seca as part of its 18-race global schedule, and it remains unclear whether the Austin race will be a new one or, as rumored, will take Indianapolis’ slot on the calendar. Austin officials also plan to use the new facility for activities including concerts, ban- quets, corporate outings, and even as a training center for emergency care professionals and medical school students. Let’s get Rowdy Also new to the truck series this spring is former Formula 1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen who, in what has to be the year’s biggest eyebrow- raiser, has begun driving a limited schedule for Kyle Busch motor- sports. Raikkonen won the 2007 title for Ferrari, made more than $100 million driving in F1, and is still competing in the World Rally Cham- pionships. He’s a tough and aggres- sive driver, and should be quite fun to watch. And driving for Busch makes perfect sense — he was, in essence, the Kyle Busch of F1, and certainly won’t be afraid to push and shove with anyone, includ- ing his new boss. If he needs a NASCAR nickname, I think “Rowdy Raikkonen” would fit just fine. Jimmie Johnson climbs out of the No.48 Lowe’s Chevrolet in victory lane after winning the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. week, and the winner gets 43 points. The second-place finisher gets 42, third place gets 41, and so on down to the end in one-point increments, where the 43rd-place finisher gets 1 point. Nice and easy, right? Wrong. The winner doesn’t actu- ally get 43 points. Instead, he gets 43 plus an additional 3 points for the victory, and NASCAR still awards 1 point for leading a lap and 1 point for leading the most laps. So each winner actually gets 47 points — 43 for the win plus 1 for leading at least one lap (the last lap) — or 48 if he also leads the most laps. The point, pardon the pun, of this change was to make it easier for everyone to figure out exactly what each driver needed to do to improve his position in the stand- ings. For example, Joey Logano starts a race 10 points behind Carl Edwards, so he needs to beat Edwards by 11 spots to move ahead of him. Except, like I said, the bonus points make the on-the-fly calculations not as automatic as NASCAR hoped. My real problem, though, is that NASCAR is still rewarding consis- tency more than winning. I appre- ciate consistency, but no one watches a race to see who’s consis- tent. We watch to see who wins. JASON SMITH/GETTY IMAGES FOR NASCAR