Sprint Cup championship race missing big names

Kevin Harvick tried his best to tweak Joey Logano during a press conference Wednesday night and get something stirred up.

Logano didn’t take the bait, instead responding with a shrug followed by a pat on the back and a simple “nice.”

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That about sums up the intensity and rivalry between the four championship contenders.

Nice. A nice little championship battle.

Maybe Harvick was trying to rattle young Logano and get inside his head before the four championship drivers hit the track at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Or maybe he was trying to generate some controversy or spark interest in a championship race that seems to need a jump start in terms of excitement and anticipation.

Imagine what would have happened had Harvick taken a jab at Brad Keselowski.

Or Kyle Busch.

Or Jeff Gordon.

Would he have even dared make a snide remark toward Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Smack talk among any of those former Chase drivers would have stirred things up, made big headlines and given fans something to talk about entering the championship race this weekend.

Instead, so far, we’ve gotten … blah.

Not much spark, not much emotion and not much to be overly excited about.

Though four drivers will square off in one of the closest championship battles in history, there seems to be little buzz only subdued interest in the season finale. There seems to be very little tension and drama surrounding NASCAR’s biggest race of the season.

Why?

Because it’s lacking star power. Because it’s devoid of the big names that fans really care about, drivers who spark their passion and pique their interest.

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Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson was eliminated in Round 2. So were Earnhardt, the sport’s most popular driver, and Kyle Busch, its most polarizing figure. (Though many fans don’t want to see Johnson win another title, imagine the buzz if he were trying to win a record-tying seventh against, say, Gordon, Earnhardt and Keselowski.)

Gordon, a popular four-time champion, was eliminated last week, as was Keselowski, the fiery 2012 champion who is a lightning rod for controversy.

Of the four drivers in the championship race, none seem to strike a real chord with fans. Harvick seems to have a modest fan base, some left over from his Richard Childress Racing days, plus some new ones from his association with Tony Stewart. He’s at least interesting because he speaks his mind and doesn’t shy from controversy.

The other three — Logano, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman — have never boasted big followings and don’t stir much passion among fans. Though each is interesting in his own way, none fires up fans the way Earnhardt, Busch, Gordon or Keselowski can.

The elimination of the sport’s biggest names seems to have sucked the life out of the Chase and given it a bit of an anticlimactic feel.

Though NASCAR chairman Brian France pledged his love for the new Chase on Friday, you have to wonder if fans feel the same way.

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Fan interest has been up and down throughout the Chase, ebbing and flowing depending on the action on the track and, more often, the action on pit road and in the garage after the race.

The two highest-rated races of the Chase (excluding the Charlotte race, which was on network TV) were the last two, at Texas and Phoenix. The Texas race featured the Gordon-Keselowski confrontation and ended with a brawl on pit road, an incident that fueled interest heading to Phoenix last week.  

Based on web traffic, social media, talk radio and general conversation, it seems that fans so far have been more interested in the two big fights at Charlotte and Texas than the Chase as a whole or the championship battle.

Of the nine Chase races, only three have generated higher TV races than last year — the opener at Chicago, and the races at Phoenix and Texas.

Will the season finale generate a ratings spike? It hasn’t the past three years, with the past three championship races seeing a steady decline.

NASCAR, of course, has no control over who winds up in the championship round. It devised an intriguing system and has watched it generate excitement and drama throughout the first three rounds. It’s not NASCAR’s fault or the fault of the system that all of the big names were eliminated. That’s simply the luck of the draw.

Maybe Harvick, Logano and the rest will deliver at Homestead and produce a door-banging battle for the ages. Maybe they will race to a dramatic, championship-deciding conclusion, like Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards in 2011.

If not, NASCAR and its fans will have to hope for better luck — and more big names — next year.

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