Schedule me this: How about a 72-race slate?

NASCAR's just gotten around to releasing its 2011 national series schedules -- but forget about that for a minute. I'm here to propose a design that will save the Sprint Cup Series, which appears to be lodged in a malaise that's affected both attendance and TV viewership.

Let's start with a 72-race schedule.

Now that got your attention, didn't it? But it's really pretty simple, wouldn't involve changing much with the schedule that's in place for 2011; and it could be implemented, either fully or in part, for 2012.

And the best part is, it would be an extremely attractive proposition for everyone: The fans, primarily, because they're floating this boat; the competitors, because without them there is no sport; the track operators, because a healthy sport keeps them at the same fiscal level; the media, because covering it drives their business models; and NASCAR -- because the success of all of the above puts money in its pockets, which ostensibly would keep everyone happy.

The crux of it would be this -- and this came after sitting through the 50-lap Camping World Truck Series event at Pocono Raceway. Not coincidentally, the first appearance of the Truck Series at Pocono, with a wham-bam action-packed format, brought with it the best Saturday crowd a number of veteran Pocono observers had seen in years.

Moving forward, each Cup weekend on the schedule would consist of two complete races that each would award full points -- thus, a 72-race schedule if you used the whole current 36-race schedule as a model.

But wait a minute. There are a few events that would be considered sacred and untouchable -- but not many of them, no matter what anyone thinks of "500 miles" being the stuff of which legends are made. Honestly, so many legends have been thrown aside or trampled you hardly know what constitutes one anymore.

The Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Brickyard 400 -- which despite its relatively young age has earned the right to be held at close to the same level -- wouldn't change. But beyond those three, I can't think of anything I'd place off-limits.

So, I guess that leaves us with a 69-race schedule. No problem.

Under the new format, each pair of races, depending on the venue, would be held over 200 miles or 200 laps, ballpark. Road course, of course, would require some extra thought. But competitors in the Pocono Truck race said they were just getting started when their 50-lap event ended. They said they needed another pit stop.

So that's the key. Under this new format, each Cup race would be designed as a two-stop event, if there were no caution flags. The pit crews need to be a big part of a team's success in this format -- but two stops are enough to keep the excitement level at its peak, and allow a variety of strategies to come into play. Road courses might need to maintain that one-stop sprint format.

The best part for everyone might be this: Each event weekend would cover two days, and this would be the schedule, no matter if the races were designed as day or night events. Competitors would have 90 minutes to prepare for a normal qualifying session, which would then set the field of 43 starters. After that there would be a one-hour Happy Hour final practice.

This format would allow for whatever support divisions that were on the calendar to also complete their main events on Cup's opening day. Support divisions could also have two-day shows or even a single-day format with a single race/qualifying practice, a qualifying session and then the main event. (Continued)