NASCAR rant: Not drinking the Daytona 500 Kool-Aid

And if he can't get a caution, he'll spin himself out on purpose to bring out the yellow. Isn't that right, Dale Jr. fans?

Come on, of course they have rules. NASCAR will tell you all about them as soon as they're finishing rewriting them.

I can improve it slightly -- bring back North Wilkesboro Speedway, you bastards!! Guaranteed, you'll have authentic, All-American, Southern-fried, good-ole-boy racing that thrives on close competition and close finishes.

 

Crimsonace wrote:
NASCAR's "management" of races to ensure a photo finish every week (with the bogus late-race cautions to enliven a dull race -- last year's Brickyard 400, where half the media center broke out in sarcastic laughter as soon as the light started flashing -- being Exhibit A) makes everything seem contrived.
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I looked this one up. In last year's Brickyard 400, the caution came out for laps 143-146 (of 160), said to be debris in turn 3 (can't remember if there was or not). Leader Jimmie Johnson dropped from first to eighth on a pit shuffle, but came back to win. The final lap had two accidents behind the leaders. The checkered and yellow flags waved simultaneously.
Did a yellow actually wave with the checker at Daytona? It appeared from one angle the yellow was on after Harvick and Martin crossed the stripe.

 

I agree with this whole-heartedly. Anyone who has covered or followed NASCAR knows that the original (and loyal) fan base has been alienated by NASCAR's attempt to homogenize the product to the mainstream, because the down-and-dirty elements were what made it so appealing in the first place. I've talked to a lot of racing fans who've said: I'd rather go see a dirt-car race Saturday night. It's cheaper, and the racing is better.

I see NASCAR at a crossroads, no pun intended. A post like Alma's (and thousands of empty seats during the Chase last year, plus lackluster TV ratings) leads me to believe I don't think they have the product that is can appeal to much more of America. They're "expanding" to other countries, I think, because they can't take it much farther here. Their attempt to spin Montoya's arrival, as has already been pointed out here, was lame: Montoya was not exactly looking at a lot of options.

I'm old enough to remember when NASCAR was truly filled with "stock cars." A Ford Fusion on a racetrack is nothing like a Ford Fusion in a showroom. We haven't even touched here on the whole Car of Tomorrow angle. Drivers and owners are pissed about this. It takes away another element of old-style NASCAR racing: the cars used to be different. Now, they're all going to look more the same, and less like street cars.

In answer to your question, Clerk Typist, Harvick said he didn't see a yellow as he crossed the line. I don't think Fox showed the flagstand at the finish, maybe even on purpose.

 

I'm also a hockey fan.

The NHL killed itself when it turned its back on its mainstream fans (Canadians/northerners) in an effort to "grow the product" by, well, moving all of the Canadian/northern franchies to Dixie.

The NHL just assumed the core fanbase would be there, and it isn't.

NASCAR is going down the same road. They want to get New York and Los Angeles to notice them so much, the Frances have turned their backs on Atlanta, Rockingham and Darlington.

 

God damn.

I've come up with 3,728 replies to this post -- and none of them stand a chance of refuting it.

I'm a diehard NHL fan -- just like MLB, where the '94 strike wasn't enough to turn me off; the '05 lockout wasn't enough to turn me off to hockey -- and nothing ever will.

I like NASCAR, too. I just hope they don't shoot themselves in the same foot as the NHL has. God damn, I hope you're wrong. But I know you're not.

 

You guys are right. The cautions are dumb. Who wants to see a close ending? I'd rather see Biffle win by 20 seconds at Fontana this weekend.

For that matter, I don't think the NFL should have playoffs anymore. That's so contrived. Just let the team with the best regular season record win the whole thing -- don't put everyone back even for the postseason. That's so contrived. Congrats, San Diego Chargers!

 

If NASCAR wants to have a real playoff system, take the top drivers, put 'em on a track, and tell everybody else to stay home. After all, once the postseason begins, the weak teams are on the sidelines, right?

 

I'm not even sure I'd give them the benefit of the doubt on that. Last time I asked anyone (and yes, it's been years), you had to pay a team sponsorship fee to be allowed to have a rule book. Like it's a fucking state secret or something. Any other major-league sport, you can get a copy of the rulebook. Because I can't for NASCAR, I'm viewing it as one small step removed from professional rasslin'.

 

You keep missing the point, Jeff, to the point that I'm wondering if you're on the NASCAR payroll. The debris cautions, and the Lucky Dog rule, are like an umpire saying at the end of the seventh or eighth inning of a 9-5 ballgame: Time out. Let's change the score to 9-8.

If Biffle won a race by 20 seconds, maybe he deserved to win it by that much. You sound as if you're in favor of using artificial means to trick up the end of races. That sounds like pro wrestling to me. How about this: Maybe the players on the Miami Heat should have played Game 6 of the NBA Finals last year with their shoelaces tied together, just to kind of even it out.

Your analogy to the NFL playoffs is specious. The NFL does have a separate regular season and postseason -- it's not as if they shouldn't have one. Bob Cook is right. If NASCAR really wanted to have a playoff, they'd race the playoff cars separately -- not as part of 43-car races that already existed. But they're not going to do that because the sponsors would bitch, and sponsors are everything in that sport.

 

I would have no problem if NASCAR used this very system for the last 10 races.

 

I would prefer that over the current system, though I think it totally ruins the intregrity of what makes a seasonal auto racing champion great -- excellence over the long haul. Not to mention it would suck for the ticket-buyers, 10-car race fields would suck at $100 or more a pop.

But even if they did cut the field to 10 for the Chase, the fine folks at Budweiser, Dupont, etc., would scream bloody murder if their investment was thrown at the wrong team. Because that's really a lot of what NASCAR is — an investment opportunity. It's a rolling commercial that would not exist without sponsor subsidies. (To be fair, other series are too, but since stock cars are easier to see on TV and NASCAR is so relentlessly sponsor-driven at the expense of anything else, NASCAR seems worse)

So NASCAR tries to please everyone and creates the dumbest domestic "playoff" system in existence.

I mean, it takes a special kind of stupid to trump college football for the worst postseason system.