The 2021 Running NASCAR/IMSA/other racing things thread

That’s been true for a couple of years now, and I still call them the Twins.

 

Aside from NASCAR's stupidity, what has killed the Clash and the All-Star Race is the overall money involved in the sport. When these races were conceived, there was a huge money incentive to throw caution to the wind. Checkers or Wreckers.
There is so much money involved, it would be almost impossible to write a single check to make it worthwhile.
It's the same with the Winston Million. When Bill did it, that was huge. Today, it's chicken feed to these mega teams.

 

They’ll be running the road course again in a points race Feb. 21, so I guess the Busch Clash could be seen as a warm-up for that.

I’d have done something different with the road course for Tuesday, though — maybe run the modified road course that was set up for the Superbikes (before Wayne Rainey pulled MotoAmerica out of the Daytona 200 because 200 miles is too long and not enough like European sprint-race weekends) with the addition of the front-stretch chicane (not pictured).



This is also the course that Indycar used when it had preseason testing at DIS in 2007 or thereabouts. The Clash just needs some sort of shenanigans to separate it from what they’ll be doing in 13 days, in my opinion. There’s also a turn inside the International Horseshoe that the IRL insisted on to provide some separation from the fence down there; maybe use it as a one-time-only Joker lane to shorten up the turn like RallyCross did when it ran the modified infield course.

 

I can’t believe UCI banned forearms on the handlebars. And while the aero advantage is suspect and the supertuck is just plain weird, but I’ve not seen anybody crash from it.

Oh ... “other racing things” doesn’t cover bicycle racing!?! Sorry!

 

I heard DW on Junior’s podcast a couple months ago, and he said that in 1980 he was making $100k (~$315k in 2021) and 40 percent of the purse. He was a star but not the best guy in the sport. If that’s true, I’m surprised. Apparently there was more money in the sport then than I thought there was.

 

Not U.S. stock cars, but I found this pretty fascinating. I thought the U.S. was the only place with an oval racing scene. Rockingham UK has already come and gone. Of course things are a bit different on ovals across the pond. These cars seem more like amusement park go-karts.

Old NI Oval Racing Photos

 

DiGard and Junior Johnson were not exactly hurting back in the day.

 

For every DW, Petty, and Cale, there were many more Slick Johnsons, DK Ulrichs, and Connie Saylors.

 

Expenses were a lot less back in the day — not everyone had the fancy hauler and nobody had an over-the-wall gang that only worked on Sunday. Forty percent of the purse for DW in 1980 came out to $162,284.40. As I recall, that 40 percent was a pretty handsome deal for a driver.

Things started changing after Days of Thunder.

The teams in the Clash used to send their haulers down for the first weekend and flew the crews down on Friday, then flew back Sunday and wouldn’t come back until Wednesday morning. I’m not sure this week’s schedule is any less relatively expensive.

 

Whhhhhhhaat?

 

No Lennie Pond, Buddy Arrington or J.D. McDuffie?