Head2Head: Road race in the Chase schedule?

In five more races, NASCAR will begin its Chase for the Nextel Cup, a 10-race "playoff" to determine the best all-around driver on short tracks, intermediate tracks and superspeedways. Notice something missing?

There's a good reason why it's not called the Road to the Nextel Cup, more than just alliteration. There's no road racing involved. And that's too bad, especially with the bang-up finishes we've seen recently.

The reason is fairly simple. When NASCAR went to the Chase format, officials conveniently used the existing final 10 races. That means Talladega is in Chase -- and Sonoma and Watkins Glen are not.

Sure, you could argue that road racing requires a special skill set apart from the ovals that dominate the rest of the schedule. But wouldn't you agree that restrictor-plate racing, with its propensity for multi-car pileups, is much more random? So why not add a road race?

Obviously making wholesale changes to the current schedule is almost impossible. Tracks rely on having the same race weekends year-in and year-out to keep its core group of ticket holders. And in the case of Watkins Glen, it's hard to say what the weather might be like once the frost is on the pumpkin.

So here's an idea: Why not take the fall Atlanta Motor Speedway Nextel Cup race and move it to Road Atlanta? Instead of going an hour south of town, now you're an hour closer to Charlotte -- and right smack dab in the middle of NASCAR's vaunted target audience of upper-middle class folks with loads of expendable income.

Of course, Bruton Smith might not be too happy, so either split the revenue with SMI or pay him a flat fee that would cover the normal costs of hosting a race. It's not like AMS sells the fall race out -- but something unique like a road race might generate huge crowds, even in college football country.

Jeff Gordon talked about testing at Road Atlanta and how much fun he had driving that challenging circuit. A Nextel Cup race there -- in the middle of the Chase -- could be an instant classic.

Road courses are cute, and they deserve a couple Nextel Cup races a season. But do they belong in the Chase for the Nextel Cup? Absolutely not.

The final 10 races should be at tracks synonymous with NASCAR. This is a sport built on ovals and a sport known primarily for its ovals. Why should right-turns be involved when determining the season champion?

And save the e-mails you historians that NASCAR's first race in 1948 was run on the beach road-course at Daytona because I know. Listen, this is 2007 and when you think NASCAR, you think oval.

The current 10 tracks in the Chase offer up all kinds of different styles of racing and define what NASCAR is. There is no reason to eliminate one of these tracks to add a road course event, it doesn't make sense.

Road courses are different, that's for sure. They bring fans a different approach to racing two times a season, but the fact is they don't truly belong in the sport.

It's nice to mix things up a bit, but road courses are not stock cars. Ovals are.

This week's race at Watkins Glen, there are six full-time Cup guys who are sitting at home watching the race to allow "road-ringers" to drive their car. This is proof alone road courses are more like exhibitions than true races.

Sure, the usual suspects will contend for the victory and the points count just as much as they do at Bristol or Darlington. But in the final 10 races, I would rather see NEXTEL CUP drivers behind the wheels of their cars, not some road-race stud that is hired two weeks out of the year.

It's very simple. Road courses are fun, they're different, and can at times produce some exciting racing. But ask yourself, if they disappeared from the schedule, would you really care?

Let's leave road courses to the open-wheel guys and when NASCAR crowns a champion, know it was done the way stock-car racing was meant to be -- on an oval.