One of the first things the 10 drivers who qualified for the new Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship format did seemed simple enough.

They were in New York to promote the 10-race run for this year’s title, and in appearing on “Live with Regis and Kelly” were asked to model clothes in a fall fashion show.

The ensembles were arranged in the dressing rooms, but as soon as the drivers got their hands on them, they began bargaining with each other as to who really was going to wear what.

The good-natured razzing carried over into the weekend of the first Chase race at New Hampshire. In the end, it was no big deal. But it illustrated how difficult it is to get 10 Nextel Cup drivers to agree on anything.

If they’ll squabble about who’s going to wear a cardigan sweater nobody liked, imagine what a mess it would be if NASCAR had asked drivers to help pick the 10 tracks that would host the races in which they’ll battle for the championship.

Well, NASCAR didn’t, but That’s Racin’ did.

And, as you might expect, there were some diverse opinions.

“Everybody looks at that from a selfish standpoint, but from the standpoint of what’s best for the sport and what’s fair, I think it should be fairly representative of what we do year-round,” said Jeff Burton. “That’s why I don’t think there should be a road course on there, since we only do two out of 36 races on road courses.”

Elliott Sadler sees that a bit differently, but somewhat the same.

Many NASCAR drivers believe that future Nextel Cup championship series could conclude at Daytona International Speedway.

“We’d all pick tracks where we run well,” he said. “I am horrible on a road course, so I don’t want one in there. But to make it fair, I do think there should be a road course in the Chase.”

Jeff Gordon, the all-time winningest road-course driver in Cup history, said he’d prefer to see a road course in the final 10, too. But which one: Infineon Raceway in California or Watkins Glen in upstate New York?

“Mexico City,” said Brendan Gaughan, referring to a road course where the Busch Series will race in 2005. “Watkins Glen and Infineon are great road courses, and I like them. But NASCAR has changed those road courses to fit their style. … Add Laguna Seca (Calif.), Elkhart Lake (Wisc.) or Mexico City — one of the fun, real technical, difficult road courses — and let’s see who can get it done.”

NASCAR officials have said they are happy with the mix of tracks in the current makeup of the Chase. Saturday night’s UAW-GM 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway will be the fifth of this year’s final l0. New Hampshire, Dover, Talladega and Kansas already have taken their turns, with Martinsville, Atlanta, Phoenix, Darlington and Homestead to come.

NASCAR officials also say they will look at the lineup as they do future Cup schedules on a year-to-year basis and make adjustments as they see fit. One change will be made next year, as Texas joins the Chase tracks with Darlington coming out. That means the 2005 Chase will have five of its final seven races on tracks falling in the family of approximately 1.5-mile ovals.

“If you ask me, five 1.5-mile tracks seems a little more than it should be,” Burton said. “But then again, what isn’t a 1.5-mile track anymore?”

Martinsville’s .526-mile oval is the only track officially designated as a short track on the Chase roster for this year or next. While Burton said Dover, Phoenix and New Hampshire all have short-track characteristics as well, one idea would be to swap Richmond’s fall date with New Hampshire’s. That would make New Hampshire the final “regular-season” race and Richmond the first on in the Chase.

Aside from the issue of adding a road course, the other most frequently discussed topic is whether the Chase should include at least one restrictor-plate race. Most of the drivers interviewed think there should be, but some would prefer it to be at Daytona and not Talladega.

“You could go around and get all the drivers’ personal preferences for racetracks and I will bet nobody would say Talladega — except maybe Junior,” Jeremy Mayfield said, referring to five-time Talladega race-winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. “If we could go where we all wanted, he’d be the only one there and we’d all be somewhere else.”

Gordon said he’d prefer Daytona to Talladega because how a car handles plays more of a role at the Florida superspeedway than it does in Alabama, where cars tend to stay bunched in big packs closer for longer amounts of time.

The idea of starting the season with the Daytona 500 and ending it at the same track has some appeal to the sport’s network television partners, who say privately they’d love to see that happen so that the July 4th weekend date now occupied by Daytona’s Pepsi 400 could become the date for the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. In any given year, then, one network would have the Daytona 500 and the other would have the Brickyard 400.

“Ending the year at Daytona would definitely throw a wild card into it as far as not having any idea what was going to happen until the end,” Dale Jarrett said. “Homestead is a great place to finish, but Daytona would be a pretty interesting scenario. I think it would be a pretty good idea to start and finish the season at Daytona.”