You gotta love Dale Jr. Although I am not fully invested as a card-carrying member of the JR Nation, I admire his honesty. If you don't want to know what Dale thinks, don't ask him a question. While the rest of the NASCAR circuit seems to be ready with politically-correct answers that neither inform nor infuriate the fans, sponsors, owners, other drivers, etc., Junior just tells it like it is. A couple of weeks ago when he was driving the AMP Juice car for the first time, he explained to the interviewer that AMP Juice is essentially a high-energy orange juice. Then he said that he couldn't wait to get home to make it into a screwdriver. Priceless. You just can't help but to love the guy.

Yesterday, during the post-race interviews at Texas, Dale had another great observation that put the whole of the current strategy of Sprint Cup racing into perfect perspective. Discussing the giant pile-up with 17 laps to go, Junior said that everyone races each other great for 450 miles then sprints the last 50 to get into a great big mess. He ended with: "It's stupid." Indeed it is. Not only do we have the new green-white-checker rule to contend with, now we have to realize that the first three-quarters of the race is no indication of how the last one-quarter is going to go. This does make for an exciting finish, but it sort of makes racing like basketball in that only the last 10 minutes are what really matter.

Now I'm not saying that I have the answers to how to solve this, or if NASCAR really has any intention of trying to solve it. It seems that "giving the fans a great show" is what is behind the whole thing. Of course, NASCAR wouldn't even exist if the fans weren't there, so this is a legitimate consideration. But it seems to me that if a team is able to get a two or three second lead over the rest of the field, it is mostly all for nothing when the caution comes out because that dominating car is now back with everyone else on the restart. Perhaps a change could made to the points system that actually rewards this kind of lead. Maybe instead of rewarding the driver that leads the most laps with 5 points, points could be given to cars that are obviously dominant.

If something like this would be instituted, it would allow a team like the 24 or the 14 to salvage a tragic end to the day like the one they had at Texas. Jeff Gordon had the fastest car in the field by far, but the huge pile-up near the end of the race made a trip to victory lane an impossibility. Now I know some of you will say that this is what racing is all about, but I think that the sport would actually become much more competitive and exciting with a few changes to the points system.

The double-file restart has been a great improvement, but the overall strategy is still focused on winning the race. If a team that knows it has no chance of winning the race could instead focus on snagging some points in other ways—like pasing the most cars, having the fastest lap time, being the fastest pit crew, using the fewest number of tires, etc.—I really believe the fans would begin to view NASCAR as truly being a team sport. Strategy would then really become a part of the sport rather than strategy being defined only as whether a team takes two or four tires on the final pit stop. I'm just thinking out loud here and I haven't thought of everything to be sure, but I think it could work. And who knows, it might even cut down on some of the end-of-the-race stupidity.