The Wide World of Dirt

Hello and welcome to my periodic segment that may or may not be a reoccurring feature depending on how much the races this year (and the broadcast) want to lend themselves to being controversial.

I will be briefly discussing my takes on a few matters from the weekend and trying to find a positive note to leave on because this is gonna get under some people’s skin, I guarantee it.

Race control is doing a fine job.

I watched all four races at Daytona this weekend, and I can say without a doubt race control hit all the right marks this weekend.

They handled the mist in the truck race as well as they could given the size of the facility and were quick to the gun so to speak to react to everything all weekend.

At the same time, they did not call things that were unnecessary like a car spinning entering pit road with no one being around. So props to them for the solid weekend in that regard.

The Daytona 500 (536) is losing its luster

It seems like every year or every other year we have a finish like we did this past week where there’s a caution with under 10 to go, and then all hell breaks loose.

This year a Suarez spin off the nose off Kyle Larson led to the longest Daytona 500 on record, running a whopping 36 miles over the scheduled distance.

Not only is this absolutely ridiculous and tears up millions of dollars worth of cars for next to no actual reason outside of “entertainment”; it’s also a disgrace to racing as a whole.

I swear it’s like a switch flips in these guys brains, and they forget how to respect the presence and safety of their fellow competitors on the track.

This makes our sport as a whole look like a joke and look like nothing more than the WWE of motorsports.

This is supposed to be our biggest, most prestigious race of the year. Instead we look like a laughing stock, and it’s gotten beyond pathetic.

Driver Safety > Anything

Two of the races Sunday ended after a caution flag for incident on the final lap, leading to NASCAR having to make the call that determined the winner of the race.

I saw some people get wrapped up in the race “needing” to end under green, and to that, I kindly say absolutely not.

We shouldn’t have to have a Ryan Newman 2020 or Myatt Snyder 2022 type crash for folks to realize these drivers aren’t invincible. There’s way more important things happening during a last-lap incident than who won or repacking the cars to wreck again.

It’s much more paramount that we tend to the drivers involved and make sure no one is seriously hurt.

Fox’s Broadcast = Abysmal at best

No, I’m not talking about commercials. We had less of those than it appears because it was so front-loaded on the broadcast.

Broadcasters have to pay bills, and it is what it is.

My problem is that they weren’t covering the race when the race was on. They’d hit a talking point or two, but it was mostly about nonsense.

We didn’t get to see the end of green flag pit stops to see how the field shook out. We missed several care center interviews (including the MPD) and showed Tony adjusting his tie instead for some reason.

The camera shots were good as always, yet the production quality overall was fucking abysmal and desperately needs work.

I love Mike Joy. Even he can only do so much to try to elevate a program that’s being produced so damn badly.

I’m struggling to end this on a positive note, so I’ll end with this: congrats to Greg Van Alst on winning the ARCA race at Daytona and doing it cleanly.

Always great to see the little guy show out, and you did it on the biggest stage this weekend. Congrats to you and your entire crew!