Dropping the Top 35 rule would be welcome change

CONCORD, N.C. -- Only hours after NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France stated that it was time to hold the line on changes in the Sprint Cup Series on Monday, driver Jeff Burton of Richard Childress Racing had another idea.

Burton insisted that it's time for the Top 35 rule to go. The rule, which was put in place in 2005, is designed to provide guaranteed spots in races for the teams residing in the top 35 in the owner point standings.

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"I don't know if franchising is the right word. But I believe the Top 35 rule should be a Top 43 rule," said Burton during a stop on the NASCAR Sprint media tour hosted by Lowe's Motor Speedway. "If you want to call that franchising, then call it franchising. Ultimately, we don't ask NFL teams, we don't ask Major League Baseball teams, we don't ask any other major-league form of sport that requires the kind of money that this requires to do what we ask these teams to do, where you have to come every single week and earn your way into the show. I don't think that's good for business; I don't think that's good for sponsors; I don't think that's good for fans.

"I see no negative in having 43 teams who knew they were coming to a race and knew they were going to be in the race."

Franchising is an old argument. As Burton said, call it what you will and maybe that's not the right word, but what he is saying makes sense.

Each week, the Top 35 rule leaves a dozen or more full-time teams scrambling for what usually amounts to seven open spots. The one remaining spot on the starting grid in the weekly 43-car field usually goes to a past points champion, each of whom is guaranteed six provisional starts (but only one per race).

Already 'franchising?'

Even though the governing body of NASCAR always seems to frown on the franchising concept, former points champion and current television analyst Darrell Waltrip said the Top 35 rule, in his mind, already promotes a form of it.

Asked whether he was in favor of the Top 35 rule or against it, Waltrip replied: "You know, I can go either way on that. I see the value in it. In my mind, it's a form of franchising. It's NASCAR's way of not calling it franchising, but it's franchising.

"They don't like that word; it's always been taboo. I talked about franchising when I had my own team in '95, and I got more nasty phone calls saying, 'Hey, we don't want to hear that in our sport.' But I think in my mind, the top 35 is just like having 35 franchise teams. You can sell that. We've seen that; [Bobby] Ginn sold that [last year when he "merged" Ginn Racing with Dale Earnhardt Inc.]. You can sell something when you're guaranteed a spot in the race."

Yet Waltrip said he could go the other way against having the Top 35 rule remain intact, too.

"I'm a firm believer -- and I felt this way when I was a former champion using a champion's provisional -- that it should be the fastest 43 cars. That's what racing is about; that's what competition is about; that's what this sport is about," Waltrip said.

"Back in the day we didn't get that many road-course ringers; we didn't get that many guys just showing up at Daytona or Indy. But now you do. And that's what they're trying to protect guys who run every week from -- the one-offs coming in and trying to knock off guys who race every week. So I understand the top 35 and I understand provisionals -- but I really think it would be more exciting and put more emphasis on qualifying, and make that a bigger event than it is, if you start the fastest 43."

A little history

Scott Riggs understands why the Top 35 rule for Cup Series qualifying was put into place in 2005. But now that he's been on both sides of it, he's not sure it is serving the purpose for which it was intended.

"I was with the team at MB2 [Motorsports] -- a team that was pretty strong and up-and-coming -- and we missed a race [in the fall at Atlanta in 2004] because all of these guys came in just for a one-race shootout. That helped develop this whole protected top-35," said Riggs, who will be driving the No. 66 Chevrolet for Haas/CNC Racing this year after struggling to make races in a No. 10 Dodge for Gillet Evernham Motorsports last season.

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"And then last year I was out of the top 35 all year. It makes it tough being out of the top 35 and trying to get into the show. But at the same time, you've got to protect those guys that are there and have earned the right to be in the top 35 in points.

"The only thing I've ever questioned was the way we've qualified. Something that was so critical to our whole entire weekend, and something we didn't have a say-so in was the order in which we went out. The track conditions and temperatures can make such a difference. ... You should always have those guys together, where you have the smallest amount of difference in track conditions."

Well, they'll be together now. That was one of the few -- and very subtle -- rules changes that France allowed in the offseason. All the "go or go-home guys" now will go off together at the end of qualifying each week. (read more)

It's an improvement. But Riggs said it's almost too little, too late.

"They're going to have the best-case scenarios at most places," said Riggs, who inherited a top-35 car in the No. 66 and won't have to worry about it for at least the first five races in 2008. "They'll have the coolest, best track conditions for those guys to have. I just think they should have enforced that sometime last year."

Pressure snowballs

Riggs and his new teammate at CNC/Haas Racing, Jeremy Mayfield, know all about the pressure of trying to make races week after week when you're lodged outside the top 35. Both of them lived that treacherous racing life a year ago, when Riggs missed nine races and Mayfield missed more than half -- a total of 19 -- while driving a Toyota for Bill Davis Racing.

"The pressure was keeping yourself focused on something so pure as what the racecar was doing when it comes time to make those two qualifying laps," Riggs said. "It's so easy to get caught up in thinking, 'Well, did the car slip a little there and how much is that going to cost me?' You start to overthink too much.

"Even if you did get into the show, then you had to play catch-up the rest of the weekend to try to get your car to run better in race trim, so you could be more competitive when it came to race day. You sacrificed that time in race trim [during practice], which ends up hurting your finishing order, which hurts your chances of getting in the top 35. So it's a pretty quicksand, sinkhole kind of situation to be in."

Mayfield

Mayfield added: "Here's what happens: when you're not in the top 35, it's hard to ever get in there. You've got five races to try to do it [at the beginning of the season]; but you're not in the top 35 in those five, so you're missing races along the way on that and so it's hard to ever get to where you need to be. Then your whole year is qualifying. Then you can't race good. You use all your tires up. It's one thing after another.

"I feel like if we went to this much trouble to build the Car of Tomorrow and make the cars even, as you go through all these changes and then have a rule that's so unfair, it makes no sense. There's no way a guy that's not in the top 35 can compete on a weekly basis with someone who is -- because you show up in a different mode. You're worried about qualifying; you'll be down because you've missed a race before. So that's about as unfair as any template I've ever seen on any car. I think it would be cool to have 43 or 45 teams and just be done with it. Let them let us go race, and the sponsors would stay on board.

"You've got sponsors out there who go with these teams that all the sudden are out of the top 35 and now they're a go or go-home car. These people are spending millions of dollars to be called a go or go-home car on qualifying day. That's just not right, I don't think. And that can hurt the sport sponsor-wise because if two or three of them get burned, that's two or three more that we don't have involved with us -- and we all know what it takes to run the deal."

In the end, it's always about the sponsorship dollars. In an environment where it has become increasingly more difficult for teams to line them up, the Top 35 rule has outlived any usefulness it may have once had.

"I don't see where it's healthy for as big as our sport is for our owners to have to make the investment that they have to make without being able to 100 percent assure the sponsors of what they can do," Burton said. "There are very few situations where teams could afford to miss races regularly. It just doesn't work. The investment is so large today. The only thing that does is scare sponsors away.

"If you're a sponsor who wants to come into this sport and you watch that top-35 thing, and you're not in that top 35 and that's the only team you can get involved with, you may not get involved. You may say, 'Well, let me go do something else.' If we had 43 teams, I think there would be much more corporate involvement -- and the investment that the car owners make would be much safer, which ultimately would allow more car owners to be involved. That may or may not be a good thing, I don't know. But it would protect their investment -- and how would it harm racing? You still would have 43 teams going out and doing the very best that they can do.

"This isn't about me. This has nothing to do with me as a driver. This has to do with what's healthy for the sport."

Brian France may be standing pat for now, but let's hope he's listening for the future. Dropping the Top 35 rule is one change that seemingly would be welcomed by everyone.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.