Let’s hear fresh ideas for the All-Star race

Let’s get interactive with this blog. NASCAR’s All-Star race: Do you like it? Is there a better way to do it? Should NASCAR move it around? Come on, we need ideas here.

Someone asked me this week how the all-star race worked and I honestly couldn’t tell them. There’s a lot of money to the winner, crashes are the norm and ... I have no idea what the format is this year. This thing changes every year, and I guess that’s not all bad. Keep it fresh, you know. Keep everyone guessing.

Lowe’s Motor Speedway president and resident marketing genius Humpy Wheeler and his staff want action. They want close racing and an all-or-nothing mentality, and that’s what they’ve got.

For the record, the main race has four 25-lap segments this year, the longest in event history. All the stoppages guarantee the racing will be close, and that’s what fans want. The night’s first race, the open, is often the better race since it has hungry drivers who haven’t won in a while trying to advance to the main event.

Still, is there a better way to do this? Remember, anything goes here. How about, after the main race, take the top 10 and put their car numbers in a hat and have each driver draw out a number (he can’t draw his own number). He would then race whichever car he just picked in the final event of the night — say a 20-lap, winner-take-all race.

Just imagine: Kyle Busch drawing Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car, or vice versa. Tony Stewart in the 24 or Carl Edwards in the 48. It’s not like the drivers will learn any secrets in 20 laps or that the cars aren’t expendable anyway. No one takes a car to the all-star race that they really want to keep.

OK, it’s your turn. Come up with an idea or two and we’ll pass it along to Humpy.