By Dan Beaver, Special to NASCAR.COM
January 25, 2007
03:31 PM EST (20:31 GMT)

After three years, it's time to tweak the Chase for the Nextel Cup, and NASCAR's plans may just help fantasy owners earn more wins.

NASCAR CEO Brian France has always said that the Chase format was a work in progress, and after three years it was apparently time for a change. In 2007, the Chase field will widen to 12 drivers, more points will be added for winning a race, and a seeding system will be put into place to reward drivers who win one of the first 26 regular-season races.

Winning a race will now be worth 185 points -- five more than in 2006 and 15 points more than is currently rewarded to second place. In addition, should a winning driver lead the most laps while the second-place finisher fails to lead a single lap, winning could conceivably reward a driver with 25 points more than any other competitor. That is an advantage of about 14 percent over the field, which marks a sizeable benefit.

In addition to earning more points for winning, regular-season victories will carry over their rewards into the playoffs. For each race a driver wins, he will receive 10 extra points to start the Chase. Each driver's point total will be reset to 5,000 -- regardless of where that driver is ranked in terms the current standings at the end of Race 26 -- however, each victory will add 10 points to that total.
Under the old system last season, points leader Matt Kenseth had his point total reset to 5,050 points, while Kasey Kahne started the playoffs at 5,005.

Under the new system, Kahne would have received 50 points for his five wins, and would have started the playoffs in first place -- 10 markers ahead of Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, who had four victories each. Mark Martin and Jeff Burton -- who had no victories to that point of the season -- would have started the Chase with only 5,000 points.

The new system is designed to encourage drivers to race hard for victories, and the added bonus for fantasy owners will be that the top-ranked drivers are more likely to battle for the lead instead of settling for a solid top-10 finish.

Pay closer attention to your marquee drivers, and if they have playoff hopes, they should be valued higher than drivers without a shot at making the Chase.

NASCAR will also expand the Chase to 12 drivers in 2007, regardless of their point differential to the leader. From 2004--2006, the top 10 drivers and any other team within 400 points of the leader made the Chase. In the first three years, the 400-point differential never came into play, and during the last two years luminaries such as Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart failed to make the show.
Increasing the field to 12 is designed to keep more drivers in play and ensure that every strong team has a chance to win the championship.

For fantasy owners, the benefit is that because more drivers have a chance to make the show, these drivers will be highly motivated to win, and that further expands your pool of potential favorites.

Find this article at:
http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/head...ges/index.html