I’d prefer a system only awarding the top ten or twelve for all the reasons George explained, however some of the other commenters make good points about rewarding entrants who stick by the series rather than running a few races. Hence why I’m willing to acquiesce on the half point. Mind you I always respected Sarah Fisher’s old approach of running a well-presented car for half the races as opposed to some other teams running scruffy near-sponsorless cars for a full season.

F1 now rewards the top ten and a win is worth 25 to 18 for 2nd. The difference in that series is that every team MUST enter two cars at every race, by regulations, so there’s no requirement to keep the bottom end happy with throwaway points.

I’d drop all bonuses. Your reward for qualifying on pole is that you start on the pole.

1. Bonus points for Indy 500 qualifying – that is just totally cheesy in my mind.

2. Half points for failing to start a race – it should be 0. While I can see the argument for starts being rewarded, DNSes should NOT.

I don’t see very many cars returning to the track after a crash in IndyCar (Power’s incident at Fontana was generally considered a rarity), and while I find NASCAR’s points system dreadful, I’m perfectly fine with either a system that awards lower positions the same number of points, whether that number is 0 or not.

In this day and age, I think the entire field should probably score points to encourage greater car counts and because it’s necessary to rank the lower teams with regard to owner’s points and the TEAM program, but the CART system was certainly fine too. The key is having the bottom positions score essentially the same points with 2nd place scoring 75%-80% of the winner’s score.

NASCAR’s problem has been awarding the top positions far too little and the bottom positions far too much, so that mid-pack finishes score substantially more points than DNFs, leading to comical outcomes such as:

1. Terry Labonte – 31 – 2 – 21 – 24
2. Jeff Gordon – 31 – 10 – 21 – 24

IndyCar doesn’t have that, so it’s fine. NASCAR’s obvious other problems are insisting that its fans couldn’t understand a points system that wasn’t dumbed down, and also the whole chase concept.

I would also like to see cars that stop out on track get a DNF like they do in F1. Why should anyone get the benefit of help from the marshalls? Get anti-stall working on these engines and lets get more serious about our racing.

An interesting idea to make oval races a larger factor in the championship, go back to AAA/USAC’s 1946-1977 12-position points system that awards more points for longer race distances (largely ovals these days). A 200 mile road race would pay 400 points to the winner vs. a 500 mile oval race would pay 1000. Not entirely fair, sure, but certainly interesting.

The 2012 top 5 using this system would be:
Scott Dixon…………..3175
Ryan Hunter-Reay…2990
Helio Castroneves….2735
Dario Franchitti………2620
Will Power……………..2565

And it is worth noting that heading into Fontana, Power’s 2565 points would have topped the standings, with Dixon in second, 90 points behind.

Power wins the championship 147-146 over Hunter-Reay using the 12 position CART points system. There is a little bit of shuffling through the rest of the field, no one gains or loses more than a couple of positions in the standings.