But it didn’t, and Busch finished fifth in the race to lock up the first Chase championship to start a string where the points leader headed into Homestead has won the title in every year of this format.

The 2007 Chase version was decent in that Johnson and teammate Jeff Gordon battled for the title with two near-flawless performances. But when Johnson started his string of four-straight victories late last season, the title was his a week before they rolled into Florida.

The results have had so little mystery, that the last three season-finales were an exercise of the eventual champion simply staying out of trouble and making it to the finish. Stewart won the 2005 title by finishing 15th at Homestead, while Johnson was ninth and seventh the past two years.

So maybe it’s time to revisit a separate scoring system. Not for the sake of fairness, but to pump some life into the Chase and truly create an all-of-nothing finish to the year.

If you scored the contenders on a 1-12 system — 12 points to the highest-finishing Chase driver, one point to the lowest — the current standings actually wouldn’t look that much different. Johnson would still be on top, Biffle would be in second, and Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch would still be bringing up the rear.

But Johnson’s lead would be just 10 points over Biffle, while Busch would be within striking distance at 38 points out. Busch is currently 445 points out of the lead and dismissed his title hopes after mechanical failures in the first two Chase races.

That system would still have the bottom drivers in mathematical contention, at least for another week or so, and send at minimum three drivers into the finale with a chance to pull off an upset.

Alas, NASCAR argues that creating a separate points system makes the Chase too contrived, adds too much manipulation to crowning a champion. But isn’t that what the creators did simply in inventing the Chase?

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