NASCAR tomorrow night will announce format changes to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in the latest move to make races more appealing. Sources said that the format changes involve segmenting a race into different portions, with points awarded after each segment. The thought is drivers will be incentivized to drive harder earlier in races. Currently, points are only awarded after a race is finished, which has led to the school of thought that drivers sometimes take it easy earlier in the race, thereby making it less exciting for fans. The move appears to be a sort of middle ground between keeping the same format of one race without breaks (save for cautions), and undergoing a more radical shift to heat races.
Industry-wide negotiations for the changes, which were first reported by THE DAILY earlier this month, have been going on since at least December. Parties involved have included NASCAR, teams, drivers, media partners and tracks. NASCAR has tweaked the formats of its three national series a number of times since the turn of the millennium including introducing its playoff format in '04 (Adam Stern, Staff Writer). The way a driver qualifies to get into NASCAR's version of its playoffs is "not expected to change" (ESPN.com, 1/21).
