H2H: Should we add a road course to the Chase?

DeCola: Hey Jessica, I want to apologize in advance for disproving all of your points. You gave it a good effort, but it’s pretty clear — there should absolutely, positively, without a doubt be a road course race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Otherwise, what would be the point of having two during the regular season? It’s not like Major League Baseball plays 162 regular-season games on a big-league field, then decides to play the World Series at Williamsport when the Little Leaguers are done with it.

Ruffin: Tell me how you really feel, Pat! You make a valid point in that there are two road courses in the regular season, so putting one in the Chase is a fair suggestion. But I’m going to have to disagree. First of all, the 10 tracks in the Chase aren’t Little League-caliber, so I don’t believe it’s fair to say that the Sprint Cup Series downgrades by not throwing a road course into the championship mix — you’ve got tracks like Talladega, Martinsville and Dover and none of those are for the faint of heart. To add to that, which track would you take out to make room for a road course? Because to me, that would be the biggest problem. Unless you plan on adding another race to the championship schedule — or moving either Watkins Glen or Sonoma regular-season events to the championship run, I can’t imagine any of the Chase tracks would be happy about giving up their coveted slot on the schedule to another venue.

DeCola: Oh, no they definitely wouldn’t be happy. But you know who would be? Kyle Busch, if say, his annual postseason spoiler Kansas Speedway was magically removed from the Chase and replaced with Watkins Glen, where he has two wins and is among his best tracks. Eight out of the 10 races in the Chase are at venues that already held a Cup event earlier in the year (nine if you want to count Chicagoland’s XFINITY Series standalone). Meanwhile, Sonoma comes while people are gearing up for their big Fourth of July getaways and Watkins Glen lands in early August when people are either vacationing or spending their weekends going back-to-school shopping. (Suggestion for fans: Watch the race while you shop at the NASCAR Superstore!) Giving the added wrinkle of road course racing during the stretch of the season when more eyes are focused on NASCAR just seems like a smart move.

Ruffin: Don’t get me wrong — I would love an excuse to travel to the wine country of Sonoma in the fall! Having a road course race during the Chase would yield higher audiences than its regular-season slots, no doubt. But if we’re going to get specific with drivers, let’s talk the fan favorite: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior is well-known for having a dislike of road courses and would likely be unhappy with that Chase addition. Lucky for the No. 88, road courses only make up less than 10 percent of the of the 26-race regular season. This entails that road course races don’t really represent the Sprint Cup season as a whole, making their addition to the Chase questionable. In the past 50 races at road course tracks, there have only been seven instances where the future champion that year has taken the checkered. That’s because these events sometimes reward the best open-wheel racer — rather than the most skilled stock car wheelman — in Victory Lane.

DeCola: While I agree with you that in the past, adding a road course to the Chase — which is still only a decade old, mind you — may not have made the most sense given that they lent themselves to being more geared toward drivers with open-wheel backgrounds, that’s no longer the case. Drivers are becoming more well-rounded overall — including Earnhardt, who finished third at Sonoma last year — and it’d be cool to see every track configuration NASCAR races at represented in the Chase. Not only that, we’re no longer seeing the large amount of ‘ringers’ brought in for road course races because of the emphasis put on winning to get into the Chase, giving smaller teams a shot. What’s the point of having a driver like AJ Allmendinger race his heart out to get in with a win at Watkins Glen — arguably one of the top moments of the 2014 season — just to give him no shot at a title because the type of course he excels at isn’t included? One of the biggest appeals of the new Chase format is that any driver in the top 30 in points can get in with a win. It creates excitement and builds names. If they’re given a fighting chance in the postseason, it’s good for the sport.

Ruffin: Road courses are exciting — they’re tough and make for interesting playgrounds for the drivers during the regular season. But that’s where they need to stay. We already have one wild-card, crapshoot-style track with Talladega in the Chase and the nature of a road course has the potential to go that route. With the championship being divided into playoff-style rounds, a win for any eligible driver during that time solidifies their advancement to the next round. You’re right — AJ Allmendinger gave an impressive performance at Watkins Glen last season, gaining his first career Cup win in 242 starts and a Chase spot. But he fell out the first round because he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the championship contenders in the non-road-course races. Putting one in the Chase increases the odds that someone who primarily excels at road courses sneaks in — and takes the spot of someone who has proven they can race at a variety of tracks. Drivers like Jeff Gordon — the all-time road course leader — are able to perform at all types of venues and can win a championship with or without a Chase road course. A true Sprint Cup champion should be well-rounded and versatile enough that they don’t need a road course in the Chase to be given a fighting chance — they’ve got 10 chances on 10 other tracks to get it done. That being said, if NASCAR does put a road course in the Chase, I admit I’ll be tuning in — exciting nature of road courses, plus the Chase, equals plenty of racing thrills!