During the one hour and 17 minute delay while they were patching the pothole at Martinsville, FOX apparently ran short of commercials, which allowed lots of time for the announcers to chat. (Guess they had to save plenty of ads for green flag racing.) After interviewing several drivers, Larry, Darrell, and their other brother Darrell, spent a lot of time “selling” the new “Chase for the Championship!” format. Once again, lots of time was spent explaining it, since they still think the fans should LOVE IT …once we understand it.

Hey, guys, WE UNDERSTAND IT! We know that Nascar will pretend the first 26 races didn't happen, and artificially put the top 10 cars within 50 points of each other so they can all pretend they “earned” a shot at the Championship. WE UNDERSTAND the eventual “winner” will be, in reality, a 10 race “champion”. WE UNDERSTAND that Nascar thinks watering down what it takes to be a Cup champion will appeal to people who don't know racing. WE UNDERSTAND this is what TV wants to compete with football. (Can't Brian France just buy an NFL team and leave Nascar alone?) WE UNDERSTAND that the decision was made for the bottom line, and TV and Nascar don't care if it's good for racing or not.

So, to Nascar, FOX, and everyone else who thinks that race fans are too stupid to understand a format that was made simple enough that even fans of “traditional” sports can comprehend it: Stop telling fans a 10 race “champion” is more impressive than a 36 race champ. Stop telling us the change was made for any reason other than to pacify the networks and entice NBC to pick up their option on the TV contract. And PLEASE, stop telling us we'll love it.

WE UNDERSTAND a lot more than you give us credit for. We're not a bunch of ignorant redn… oops! Can't say that, can I?

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