Head2Head: Is it too soon to have an off week?

Sprint Cup teams don't need an off week five weeks into the season. They certainly don't need two within a month.

NASCAR doesn't need off weeks when its trying to gather momentum for its season, especially this season -- when the league appears to be doing everything within its power to regain a fan base that at times looks to be shrinking by the week.

Last week's fracas in Atlanta would be a perfect building block to re-grow that base, especially with the temperate half-mile at Bristol next up on the schedule, but now NASCAR has to hope that casual fans have two-week long memories.

Not all off weeks are bad. Placed properly, they could grow the fan base. For example, I've long wondered why NASCAR doesn't take a week off between the end of the regular season at Richmond and the start of the Chase at New Hampshire, much like the NFL does between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.

Under the current schedule, the Cup Series finishes its season with 16 consecutive races, a scenario that is both exhausting and potentially dangerous to everyone involved with the sport, when drivers and teams are not at their best due to fatigue.

When you consider that ESPN is airing most of the Chase, and the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader" never seems to miss an opportunity to overhype an event on its own air, that idea of a pre-Chase off week seems even more natural.

As in life, timing is everything.

Four races in, I see no problem letting everyone -- drivers, teams, the fans -- catch their breath and take a weekend off.

The sport spent two weeks in Daytona for four Cup events. Then it moved cross-country for two weeks to Fontana, Calif. and Las Vegas. Finally it headed cross-country again, back to the Southeast and Atlanta. A brief pause will do everyone some good.

This weekend, conference basketball tournaments are in full swing and the NCAA will release its 65-team bracket. NASCAR is making the right decision and not competing against something most of its fan base will want to watch.

Instead, teams get an extra week to get ready for the short-track part of the schedule, drivers get to hit the reset button and analyze their progress four races in, and fans won't have to choose between a regular-season NASCAR event and the berth of March Madness.

Sure, some momentum will be lost. Atlanta gave us Edwards vs. Keselowski and an early points battle. But trust me when I say, all that will still be there in two weeks at Bristol -- where tempers are short, memories are long and the racing is some of the best on the schedule.

We aren't going to suffer from amnesia and forget everything that has happened in the first four races. Instead, we get to clamor for two weeks and wait with baited breath for the intense bumpin' and bangin' at the world's fastest half-mile.

I know I'll be pumped on March 21 -- after my bracket is filled out.