NASCAR took a "huge swing at shaking up its model with a new format" this week, but ultimately, the "only thing that matters is whether fans embrace the new model," according to Jenna Fryer of the AP. There was "little surprise to the drivers when the final product was unveiled, but Jamie McMurray was taken aback by the immediate fan reaction." McMurray said, "When I read Twitter, I got angry as I read the negativity around it from the fans because I think it’s so hard to criticize something before you see it." He added, "I like everything about it. To me, it’s what we needed" (AP, 1/24). In San Diego, Bill Center notes for the fourth time in 13 years, NASCAR has "changed the way it will decide a season champion." Center: "If you thought Chase versions I, II and III were confusing, this new system is mind-bogglingly convoluted." Race attendance has "collapsed the past decade and television ratings are in a free-fall." But rather than "address the real problems facing the sport, let’s create another scoring system that none of your fans asked for and few will understand." What NASCAR is "giving the fans is a fourth version of an unwanted fabrication." NASCAR "took a good thing and broke it." Center: "Then they broke it again ... and then for a third time" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 1/25). MOTORSPORT.com's Jim Utter wrote more than any time in NASCAR’s history, the sport’s stakeholders are all "playing a larger role in shaping the direction of the sport." What is "striking about the new format changes is that enough members from all of those different groups came together over the past several months and found enough common ground to advance a singular agenda" (MOTORSPORT.com, 1/24).
