FORT WORTH, Texas -- You're up, Talladega.

In what's becoming a weekly game of "how to change the Chase," it's now the big Alabama racetrack's turn to sit squarely on the hot seat. One week after car owner Jack Roush floated the idea of a mulligan -- allowing a championship-contending driver to throw out his worst finish -- driver Greg Biffle proposed giving everyone a reprieve, and removing the big, bad, often calamitous 2.66-mile superspeedway from the Chase field altogether. Of course, he may be a little biased, given that it was a crash-induced 24th-place finish there that set him back in his pursuit of Sprint Cup leader Jimmie Johnson.

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When Matt Kenseth won the championship [in 2003] ... I don't remember Jack [Roush] saying, 'Oh, it wasn't very good, and the other team should have been allowed a mulligan because the 17 did better than anybody else.' The rules are the rules, and you have to make them work for you.

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-- JEFF BURTON

"I'd rather say take Talladega out of the Chase and not worry about trying to get rid of your worst race, because it's happened every year. The same thing has happened every year at Talladega," said Biffle, third in the standings and 185 behind Johnson entering Sunday's event at Texas Motor Speedway. "When you go in there and you penalize a team that's worked as hard as all of us have, and it was none of our doing, we're involved in a wreck because something happened -- a guy cut a tire or whatever -- put Bristol in there or something else versus throwing out one of your bad finishes. That's my opinion about what they should do with the Chase."

Johnson's relentless march toward a record-tying third consecutive title -- which, depending on what happens at Texas, could become official as soon as next week -- has fostered a perception that something needs to be changed to ensure the hand-wringing, down-to-Homestead drama that defined the Chase playoff system in its first few years. There are plenty of proposals, both in the garage area and in the grandstand, some of them more realistic than others. But there's also a fear of guarding against any knee-jerk reactions stemming from a dominant season from one driver who'd be well in front of the field regardless of which points system is being used.

"We all want to change the rules when the rules don't work for us," said Jeff Burton, 218 points out in fourth place. "When Matt Kenseth won the championship [in 2003], everybody said, 'Oh, it's a boring championship race,' and I don't remember Jack [Roush] saying, 'Oh, it wasn't very good, and the other team should have been allowed a mulligan because the 17 did better than anybody else.' The rules are the rules, and you have to make them work for you. I think there are always ways to look at our sport to make improvements, I just think we have to be careful every time we have a points championship that's not as compelling, that's not the greatest, we have to be cautions against making changes. Not every championship is going to be a five-point difference. It's just not going to be." (Continued)