You want drama? Check out the Truck Series notes from NASCAR Media:

• Johnny Benson leads Ron Hornaday by six points after 23 races, the smallest margin in series history with two races remaining. (The previous closest was seven points, Bobby Hamilton over Dennis Setzer, in 2004.)

Hornaday trailed Mike Skinner by 51 points after 23 races in 2007 but recovered to win the championship, and overcame the second-largest deficit in series history. Only Travis Kvapil, in 2003, came from further back after 23 races -- 69 points.

• In head-to-head competition at Phoenix over the past three seasons, Benson tops Hornaday in Driver Rating (118.7 vs. 112.0) and Average Finish (3.7 vs. 5.7).

Benson won the race in 2006; Hornaday finished second in 2005 and 2007 and won in 1998 and 1999.

• Top-10 positions in final 2008 championship standings are anything but decided. Twenty-three points is the difference between fourth-place Erik Darnell and seventh-place Rick Crawford. Seven drivers remain mathematically in contention for the 2008 championship.

“

We're driven by the ability to go make another dollar and make more money.

”

-- DALE EARNHARDT JR.

All that on-track excitement ... in less races ... and without the benefit of the Chase.

Maybe Dale Earnhardt Jr., the driver, is on to something:

"What's happened is we have saturated the market with race after race after race," Earnhardt said at Texas. "The NFL, they do such a great job. I hate to keep comparing to them and using them as examples but they do the best job. They give you just enough to keep you wanting more. The season ends before you want it to. You get just enough to get excited and then it's all over and there's such a long wait. The model works."

Yes, it does. And then reality set in for Dale Jr., the team owner:

"We're driven by the ability to go make another dollar and make more money and there's no way we would ever trim it down," he continued. "But when we were a 28-race schedule, some of you here were around at that time, the sport was giving you just enough to get really excited about the next season.

"When we were racing at 12 o'clock people were racing home from church to get to see the start of the race. We've just made it too easy and too much. We sort of lost a lot of the substance that we really had before and the character the sport, I think, has waned a little bit but it's part of the times, too."

Love him or loathe him, Earnhardt is a straight-thinker.

"I don't think it's all our fault, I think it has a lot to do with a lot of other things going on," he added. "The temperature of the world out there and the economy. I think the model that the NFL has is the perfect one and I feel like that's really our best bet for the most amount of success and to maintain it, I think, also that's the best way.

"We've already passed the point of no return. No way we would ever trim the schedule back. There's no way we would change what we really already have here."

And that includes the Chase, which became a hot-button issue last week after it was suggested a change to the point system wouldn't be a bad thing. And despite a lot of cyberink being wasted on the topic, the Chase is here to stay. But what if this system were in place:

• Trim the season to 30 races (only one race at Fontana, Pocono, Michigan, Atlanta, Loudon and Martinsville).
• Starting field of 43 cars.
• No top-35 guaranteed starting position.
• Qualify in race trim -- "run what you brung," as they say.
• Rain on qualifying day? Top 43 in points have random draw for starting position. (Yes, the fans' best solution is "just qualify the next day," but track schedules are tight as a tick on a coon dog, so not feasible.)
• OK, so if it rains during Speedweeks at Daytona before the top 43 is set? The top 43 from the previous season take the green. ... Yep, that means no past champion provisional.
• Green flag is at 1 p.m. ET. TV / radio can get all its yammering out of the way while fans are coming home from church.
• Race winner receives 43 points, second place gets 42, third place 41, etc.
• No Lucky Dog. The field is frozen at yellow so there's no racing back to the stripe (safety, safety, safety!) -- and restarts are single-file with lap-down cars at the rear of the field.

That's as simple as I can make it, but if there is to be any change it would be bonus points for only the top five drivers -- 50 for first, 20 for second, 15 for third, 10 for fourth, five for fifth.

But what do I know? I'm just a fan with time on his hands ... (Continued)