There are typically plenty of fireworks over the course of the summertime race at Daytona International Speedway, and the events of last weekend certainly did not disappoint. Sparks flying as wrecked race cars dragged crumpled pieces of sheet metal along the asphalt. Drivers fuming at one another. Big boomers exploding across the sky Saturday night as Kevin Harvick celebrated in Victory Lane.

But the biggest bang of old Firecracker 400 weekend was set off Friday, and not by Dale Earnhardt Jr. winning in his retro No. 3 car. It came from NASCAR chairman Brian France, who used his midseason state-of-the-sport address to announce that the sanctioning body is mulling over changes -- possibly "dramatic" ones, he said -- to the Chase, the now seven-year-old system of determining the Cup Series champion. The current 12-driver, 10-race arrangement could move into a kind of elimination format, or something else as yet undetermined, in an effort to try and augment the playoff-like atmosphere that the Chase was designed to create.

Reading France's words from last week -- the phrase "if we can enhance it in a pretty significant way, we may do that" says it all -- a major overhaul wouldn't be a surprise. A number of options, it appears, are on the table. But if NASCAR wants to add more of a spark to its autumn race weekends, it's not the Cup tour that that the brass in Daytona Beach should be tinkering with. There's only one change that absolutely needs to be made to the Chase -- and that's adding it to the series that needs it the most.

That would be the Nationwide Series, where blowouts are more common than on a rocky interstate highway. The season is just halfway over, and already the championship race seems terribly lopsided in favor of Penske Racing driver Brad Keselowski, who owns a 277-point edge over his closest pursuer heading into this week's event at Chicagoland Speedway. If history is any indication, that gap isn't going to close, it's only going to get wider, and drain the Nationwide tour of the drama it desperately needs to wrest some of the spotlight from its big brother over the latter half of the year.

Let's be honest -- Chase or no Chase, the Cup tour is going to dominate race fans' attention in the late summer and fall, simply because that's where the sport's biggest stars compete. That's where Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart are on a regular basis. Now, if you're talking about trying to capture a wider audience, trying to steal some of those casual sports fans from football broadcasts, then you're talking about a completely different approach. But if you want to build the Nationwide Series, want to kick away the crutch that is the over-dependency on moonlighting Cup drivers, then one way to do it is to reset the points, tighten the championship race, and allow the drivers to generate some intrigue on their own. (Continued)