further more why go from 43 car to a 12 car fight for the cup if nas car changes things when they want to then why don't they go back to the way when all 43 drivers ran till the end for the champian ship.not just the top 10 or12 what ever nascar wants it to be
all43 acrs are in the chace till the end not just the the top 12 cars no matter if past or pres champ.are in the chace or not

1. Wrong category

2. I agree, there should be a road course in the Chase

3. All 43 cars still race for the win each week during the Chase, but only the top 12 are in contention for the championship, with ten to go this number is usually actually lower without the Chase. Not saying I like the Chase, but it does widen the field.

They don't have a road course in the chase because of the schedule. They aren't going to be racing in places like Sonoma or Glen Falls races in October. To put a road course in would require a new race venue like Mexico City (and to bump some other track off the schedule.)

They had too many seasons where the last race or two were irrelevant to the championship. Where there were only 3 or 4 drivers that even had a chance for the last month or two. By creating the chase it gave more teams a shot to win, and made it much more likely that the last races at of the season might mean something.

In 2004 NASCAR set the cutoff at the top 10 or 400 points since no one had ever recovered from being 400 points down with 10 races left. Without the chase you could just about hand Jeff Gordon the trophy now (lest he misses some races due to severe injury as happened to Sterling Marlin a few years back.) By the way Gordon would have won his fifth in 2004 without the chase.

They are not going to make the first 26 races essentially a "preseason" by keeping all teams in it AND resetting the points with 10 left. (And it's not 43 but really 35 teams ... since only the top 35 are guaranteed to start every week. 64 drivers have raced in at least one race so far.)

Personally I think it is dumb to make it SO important for teams to fix their broken cars to ride around and get a few extra points. I think a point system like F1 or Indy that gave points only to the top of field would make much more sense. With a point system like that they could black flag any team 10 laps or more down and tell them to put it on the trailer, better luck next time. With TV those drivers would surely get an in race driver interview and get to do their the sponsor plugs live on air, so no great loss not limping around the track being in the way of the drivers that actually are competative.

With a much steeper and exclusive point system they wouldn't need the chase, since any number of drivers could get hot at the end and win it all. There is also no reason that all races have to worth the same points either. They could increase the point value for certain races like the Daytona 500 (helping apease those who bemoan the fact that the Superbowl of racing is at the wrong end of the season.) and especially the races at the end so as to increase the number of drivers with a chance to win.

Don't expect such a radical change to happen. Baby steps. Unless of course the TV rating continue to go into the dumper.