Arena Raise Hell, Praise Dale - NASCAR/North American Racing Series Discussion

Stage racing to me is just NASCARs institutionalization of field tightening phantom debris cautions. Sure you get points, but points are worthless in this current format, so basically all it amounts to are a pair of extra scheduled cautions per race.

I’m not a fan of an auto racing playoff in general, but I’d definitely prefer a return to the earlier chase format of a ten race season. I used to be engaged and rooting for my drivers to pick up every position possible, because every point matter. Now if Kyle Larson (My current favorite driver) doesn’t win the race, the fact that he was running in the top ten the whole race is entirely meaningless.

 

10 Race Chase Top 10 in points with 2 Wild Card spots for most Wins in the Top 20 is my preferred format.
Though prefer the whole Season format.
This isn't Stick and ball sports.

 

Why do you think that is?

The Chase was introduced in 2004. That was the beginning of the end. When they did that, the first 26 races became substantially less meaningful, and in the other 10 nobody cared about three-fourths of the field.

The Chase and its successor, the playoffs, have cost NASCAR far more money and far more fans than one or two meaningless races at the end of the season because somebody clinched early ever did (and clinching early was not an extremely common occurrence either).

 

I agree that there are definitely multiple factors, but I think the changes to the structure of the championship (Chase, playoffs, etc.) are the biggest factor.

If NASCAR were to suddenly drop the playoffs altogether and go back to simply giving the title to the driver with the most points after 36 races, I really think there would be a large increase in viewership and attendance compared to the current numbers. I don't expect it would happen immediately; it would be a progressive increase over the course of the first season or two of this "new" old format, but the fans would eventually come back in droves.

We might not hit the numbers of the 90s, because as you said there are more factors in play, but I think we would see tracks like Bristol consistently sold out and have waiting lists again.

 

Probably unpopular opinion: NASCAR should permanently end all superspeedway races at Daytona and Talladega. It's too much of a safety risk to both drivers and fans.

I remember an incident years ago at Talladega where a car flew into the tri-oval catch fence and flying debris injured spectators in the grandstands. There's been at least one car into the catch fence at Daytona as well in an Xfinity race (or whatever the series was called at the time) that forced them to patch the fence overnight for the Cup race (and I don't recall if there were fan injuries in that one as well; I'd be surprised if there wasn't). And then you have Newman's recent crash that shows the danger from a driver's perspective.

It's too dangerous to continue. Moving from restrictor plates to tapered spacers is pointless; the problem is speed and pack racing, and you can't fix both of those at once at these two tracks.

Put the February Daytona races, all of them, on the road course to at least keep the tradition of starting at Daytona, and the other three should either be replaced with other tracks or moved onto the facility's road course (does Talladega even have a road course?).

 

But nowhere are crashes as potentially dangerous than at Daytona and Talladega. Those two tracks are together unique in their danger. The odds of fan injury or driver death or severe injury are orders of magnitude higher at Daytona and Talladega than at any other track.

 

I don’t know what the solution is but every time I watch a plate race I get more and more tired of what basically amounts to a 200 mph demolition derby.

Essentially nobody finishing the clash was pretty ugly, and then what happened at the 500 happened.

 

For those interested NASCAR is going to be broadcasting an iraceing exhibition race on FS1 Sunday. Some big names will be competing like Kyle Busch and Brad Keslowski, along with some retired greats like Dale Jr and hall of Famer Bobby Labonte.

 

That was an awesome finish!

 

That was a lot of fun.

 

I would watch this for sure. Didn't hear about this until after it happened. All they need to do is invite the youtuber weregonnalose

 

Ugh, crap.

Guess Larson can join the Adrian Peterson club of people I used to root for but turned out to be awful.

 

Looks like I’m a full time Byron fan now.