Can you feel the buzz coast to coast? Can you feel the mounting excitement that is gripping race fans across the country with a fever that keeps them awake at night? Race fans are gripped with anticipation leading up to the Richmond race that will decide the Chase field, right? Can you feel it?

No? Me either.

I hang out in all the wrong places, the sort of places where stock car racing discussion was once a staple of debate. But in the taprooms, the garages and the back streets enlivened by the sound of street racers warming their big block engines, NASCAR racing has long since become an asterisk to the big picture. The Car of Tomorrow, McRaces at cookie cutter McTracks waged between vanilla ice cream drivers with all the soul of Barney the Dinosaur and the dying hype have long since relegated NASCAR coverage to the local dump outside of the town of Relevance in the common culture.

The Chase was supposed to help the NASCAR championship drag itself back into the mainstream kicking and screaming. Although hailed as contemporary, it has failed in a fashion so spectacular that someone ought to tether a hundred-foot high New Coke helium balloon over NASCAR’s corporate headquarters to remind the brass that there’s still time to change the road they’re on.

Some would argue the Chase was an experiment worth trying, but given its colossal failure to grab the public’s attention, only the most obstinate ignoramuses could cling to their ugly puppy of a points system (little known fact: “obstinate ignoramus” is Greek for “Brian France”). Sure, ESPN is going to tout this “Battle Royale” on Sportscenter as if it was the greatest thing to happen since pop-top beer cans, but it has a vested interest in this fight and lost any relevance in popular culture when it tried to convince us that “Lumber-sports,” retriever dogs diving into deep pools and spaced-out stoners falling off their skateboards in empty swimming pools were events akin to the Olympics. Likewise, the Worldwide Leader is touting the Chase as if Jesus himself may just be at New Hampshire to kick the Chase off between the sweet, low riding, chariots that carry the Chosen Ones.

He won’t be. They aren’t. And few people give a damn. One can almost envision Jerry Punch starting off the Loudon race broadcast with the tagline, “I hope you’re all as excited as I’m pretending to be …”

If there’s any interest left in the Chase with one week to go in the regular season, it comes down to two drivers and the “will they or won’t?” storyline. Does Kyle Busch deserve to make the playoffs? He surely does, having won four Cup races thus far. Do most fans want him to? No, they do not. Busch’s childish and petulant antics (starting with smashing the guitar and continuing through a long series of sarcastic and whiny post-race interviews) have left him a few rungs on the ladder below Michael Vick, whose only transgression was torturing a few house pets to death — and who has become a folk hero here in ill-mannered Philly, where fans by and large would applaud Idi Amin onto the field if he could throw a few touchdowns after Donovan McNabb goes down like a broken China-doll early in the season again.

The other driver is, of course, Mark Martin. The sport’s Charlie Brown, Martin has chased so many titles that even his long time fans — and they are as numerous as Busch’s detractors — will quietly admit they are watching transfixed like witnesses to a week-long train wreck to see how Martin will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time.

The Chase was designed to thrust NASCAR back into the limelight once the start of the regular NFL season and the playoff drive to the World Series in MLB had sent stock car racing not only onto the back burner, but out of the kitchen, out of the house, off the property and into the next county. Instead, it has been embraced by the remaining traditional stock car racing fans the way they might hug a rabid porcupine. Count me as among the diehards still clinging to the memories of the 1992 Atlanta classic between Alan Kulwicki, Bill Elliott and Davey Allison, which in my estimation, remains the greatest and most honest title fight ever.

No, the Chase’s sole remaining purpose is to offer up Brian France as poster child for the dangers of congenital idiocy and nepotism. Surely an arena full of such types, force fed quarts of cheap liquor with no appreciation for our sport’s history, could come up with a more farcical way of determining a champion — but it might take them a few decades.

So how does stock car racing find a way to keep itself relevant once steroid-crazed lefties keep launching balls into the cheap seats on a march to the Series? Or once the NFL’s ravenous fans in their body-painted splendor begin eating, drinking and sleeping football while impertinent collegiate football-game losers begin punching out members of the winning team? I don’t know. I don’t get paid enough to solve this problem, though I will almost certainly take a few stabs at it in the coming weeks as all NASCAR columnists will, given the dearth of newsworthy items and desire to hear the sounds of our own voices.

Here’s what I can say with absolute certainty: the current Chase isn’t working. It needs to be replaced and replaced quickly with a new points system. That system will likely offer huge points-bonuses for race wins (and even top-5 finishes) to avoid drivers cruising in reverse into playoff contention, backing their way into the playoffs instead of driving hell-bent. Because as it stands, the current method could hardly be less captivating than a spirited game of Tiddlywinks broadcast at 3:00 a.m. on the Dominican Cooking Channel.

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