I am a known hater of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
I know how the rest of this article might sound, so let’s get ahead of it. Ricky Stenhouse Jr won the Daytona 500, fair and square. I won’t hate the player because he absolutely earned that win on Sunday.
This is not a Ricky Stenhouse hit piece. I am legitimately concerned about the health of our sport and its biggest event.
This weekend of racing was mostly good across the top 3 national series. The Craftsman Truck race (feels good to say) was good when trucks were on track and under green, but once the rain started threatening, it all went to Hell.
The Xfinity race featured good racing and a major crash at the end, and the Cup race again featured great racing until the very end.
The good racing wasn’t the only thing these races had in common: they all ended under caution.
A race is not good or bad based on how it finishes or who finishes first. Certainly makes races more memorable, but it doesn’t change the quality of competition.
What does decrease the quality of competition is the competitors.
Overtime racing at superspeedway tracks is asinine and untenable. Its impact on the product at that form of race track is negative, simple and plain.
Because the reality is, an Overtime restart is triggered by what?
A) A racist flying his airplane over the race track
B) Halftime for the troops
OR
C) A late-race caution
I’ll give you a moment for consideration.
If you selected C) A late-race restart, you would be correct, and you win an exclusive prize: my warm admiration for this accomplishment. Way to go, pal!
My point is that a late-race caution with five laps or fewer to go has to trigger a cleanup long enough that pushes the race into Overtime, which means we are going over the advertised distance of the race.
The thing is, in football, overtime was invented because it assumes that teams will inevitably tie in a game, so they get some extra time to try to settle it.
In motorsports, someone crosses the line first at the end of the scheduled distance, the leader at the end of 500 miles whether it’s under green or yellow.
That doesn’t indicate a tie then, does it?
So, in effect, we’re doing this purely for the entertainment value of the sport and hopefully enhancing the product? Got it.
Quiet as it’s kept, not all decisions based in a purely entertainment aspect are that bad, including Overtime in some instances.
Having a single Green-White-Checkered at tracks of 1mi or under is a brilliant idea and adds to the bare-knuckle brawl trait that is so prominent in short track racing.
We don’t need that shit at Darlington or anything bigger though.
Overtime racing will always bring an inflated risk to safety, but that’s a balloon at short tracks if you limit it to one restart.
Superspeedways inflate that risk to blimp-sized proportions.
Drivers meet the wall at higher speeds and at harsher angles because the turns are so wide and sloped. Not only that, it has been alleged by several drivers that the hits in these cars didn’t get much better compared to last year.
The drivers are the lifeblood of the sport, and it thrives on their success and ability behind the wheel. If the severity of these crashes cause more key drivers to miss races and affect their performance, that will affect the health of the series.
Not just at the individual level for the driver and team, but it’ll affect the public perception of the sport in the worst way possible.
NASCAR as come a long way since Blaise Alexander’s death at Charlotte in a 2001 ARCA race by divorcing itself from the label of being dangerous.
I believe that’s a good thing because racing doesn’t have to be mortally dangerous to be amazing and fun, and I believe the fact that NASCAR uses its more wicked wrecks as part of highlight reels is actually rather twisted.
Enough about that!
My point is that Overtime at bigger race tracks and even road courses is a horrible idea because the danger along with negative affects on race quality and the bottom line for team owners isn’t worth the reward of survival.
And what exactly is survival at these tracks? What does that look like?
You still might’ve wasted a car just to finish 17th, nine laps down, but hey, at least you made it across the finish line with four wheels still screwed onto it.
Your best case scenario is having the thing beat all to hell and still win with it, but even that will become rare with the composite body on the NextGen car.
Even if you so much as look at a tow link with a raised eyebrow, it’ll warp and fracture itself leaving your favorite driver crab walking down pit lane.
Your chances of finishing these races is already low as it is. Wouldn’t you rather end the race early and go home with a car in one piece than risk it all and finish 32nd?
Personally, I would, but hey, they do not pay me the big bucks.
Maybe it is against the racer’s mentality of always having a chance, and to that I say: If you wanted a chance, you should’ve been there at the end of the scheduled distance.
I don’t see the point in wadding up millions more in equipment, pushing our TV slot back, and potentially injuring drivers when we could just end under yellow.
Maybe we could save the time in that TV window to actually have a post-race show that’s more than talking to three top-10 finishers! Wouldn’t that be something?
Instead I had to worry if all of the drivers involved in the wreck will be okay because we need to hurry out of the TV window to show a Simpsons rerun.
All race narratives should begin and end at the track outside of rivalries. Post-race inspection should be completed before the TV window closes. Post-race penalties should be levied in the moment. All drivers’ health should be updated if necessary at the conclusion of the program.
These should be basic, moral principles for any racing entity, but it’s hard to embody those principles when your product lacks any respect or dignity by design.
The Wide World of Dirt 
Leave a comment