my opinion

[Michael Beard]

It's difficult to read emotion in typed words... take this post as inquisitive, not accusatory.

Originally Posted by Jeff Lee

Good question. Don't know.

Tough when you have to make a decision that will make everybody happy, isn't it?

However, myself and others I know, if we did well in our division, we would travel to any location in the USA for a chance at a national championship. That's one big trip and a lot of little trips that can lead to a championship as opposed to a LOT of BIG trips criss-crossing the country.

This is basically what IHRA has now with its Tournament of Champions. There are people who love the new system who hated the old system, and people who loved the old system and hate the new system. There's certainly been plenty of discussion about it.

How different is this from the Jeg's Allstars series?

Are you ready to declare the Allstars winner the National Champion? If you did so, would more or less people chase points, and would it get the people that do chase to attend more events? Really, that format isn't so different from the Bracket Finals, where you have to qualify at your home track, and then a single event determines the champions.

Just my opinion, but I don't think that it's *supposed* to be easy to win the World Championship. Is it really unreasonable to expect your Champ to attend 14 races? The shorter the season, the more luck involved. Would you rather not have any dropped events? While many will choose to max out their claims, they don't *have* to. As soon as you start eliminating dropped races, racers start losing their options, and if you "fix" that by reducing the number of races a racer can claim, then you probably hurt attendance at events. Catch 22. I think everyone would agree that National events put more of a time & travel strain on people -- would it be beneficial to reduce National claims to 3/5 instead of 3/6? ...and would it really make a difference?

I do agree that they should give the extra "little points" for In-Division claims, and not for Outs.

Short version: "What Toby said."