Daytona Beach, Fla. — NASCAR announced earlier today that it was changing the way in which it determines the champion in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series. After the 26th race of the season, the Top 10 in points and any other drivers within 400 points of the lead, will be eligible to win the championship over the final 10 events.

Defending champion Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Tools Taurus, gave his opinion on the change this afternoon from Las Vegas, where he is making a sponsor appearance.

WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS NOW THAT THE NEW SYSTEM HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED?
“Honestly, it’s worse than I thought because I at least felt if you had a 300-point lead going into the final 10 races that they might knock that down to 100 going in, but five points isn’t really that big of a deal, so I’m really not in favor of the change. There was a lot of talk about putting more of an emphasis on winning races, but I don’t think this really does that. They didn’t do anything to take away consistency. In fact, it’s probably more about consistency now because you can just concentrate on having solid finishes and making sure you’re in that Top 10 for the final 10 races of the year.

“I feel this is entertainment driven and it definitely is nothing like what it was when racing started for most of us. I understand the need to keep people interested and understand there has to be entertainment value, but from my vantage point as a competitor I’m disappointed.

“The ironic thing to me is that I heard they wanted to emphasize winning races, and I feel this takes away from that. I think a lot of the guys will have the feeling of not wanting to make a mistake and just concentrating on getting a good finish to make sure they’re in the Top 10. I think it takes the emphasis away from winning.”