I’m getting really, really tired y’all.
Like, really and truly tired.
I am tired of NASCAR and this notion that their rulebook and changes cannot be made in the middle of the season.
This is a rulebook that has been open to interpretation and changes in the middle of the race. Look at Bristol Dirt in 2021.
The field could not stop tripping into each other on double-file restarts, so NASCAR made them switch to single-file restarts for the remainder of the race.
In addition to that, the sport split that entire race into five segments of 50 laps, but they didn’t award stage points for five stages.
With that in mind, can someone, anyone tell me why we aren’t switching to single-file restarts that fall under 10 to go?
I will be waiting, and while you formulate a reply, let me pitch this to you.
Let’s just talk honestly.
NASCAR finds itself in a bit of a predicament at the moment with the landscape of the sport and the conduct of the drivers.
The sport has long lacked the swift and powerful arm it once wielded. The early 2000s featured numerous incidents of NASCAR overreacting and punishing drivers for minute or inconsequential conduct.
For instance, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the inaugural Chase race at Talladega in 2004, and in his postrace interview, he said this in response to moving into second on the track’s all-time win list to his father:
Everybody knew what he meant, and I think we can all agree that, even in family-friendly NASCAR, that language wouldn’t cause many in the audience to clutch their dazzling pearls.
I certainly agree that, at the time, that was considered profane speech on national airwaves, so if you want to forward Dale Jr the FCC fine as punishment, that’s completely okay and within bounds.
But, they also fined him points. In the inaugural Chase. After a race that he won. A race that put him in the point lead with a few races left in the season.
NASCAR was a helicopter parent at the time and pulled the reigns back too much and too often, so in 2011, Brian France sent a verbal memo to the drivers that it was open season.
If you want the smoke on the track, we’re hardly ever going to step in. Y’all need to handle it yourselves, so Boys Have At It.
This paid immediate returns in entertainment value because the boys really had it for the next few seasons, featuring notable incidents between Kyle Busch and Richard Childress Racing as well as a feud between Joey Logano and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Unfortunately, the latter is where things truly got out of hand and took us to where we are today.
Y’all know the story. Matt Kenseth got dumped by Joey Logano at Kansas. Logano brake-checked him the following week at Talladega. Logano’s teammate Brad Keselowski ruined Matt’s race at Martinsville.
Matt brought his wounded car out on track and piledrove Logano’s Ford into the turn 1 wall to a chorus of applause and admiration.
He would be suspended for two races.
In a way, I agree and disagree with this penalty. NASCAR put Matt Kenseth in an impossible spot.
NASCAR CEO Brian France called Logano’s move at Kansas “quintessential NASCAR”, and we were in the throes of the Boys Have At It era.
Logano’s aggressive driving and following antics whittled away Kenseth’s patience, and after losing yet another dominant race because of a Penske car taking him out, Kenseth decided to settle the score himself.
What he did was dangerous and just plain over the line. It was ugly and grotesque. It was almost inexcusable. But, the previous season’s Playoffs got just as ugly.
Keselowski got into his own series of arguments in 2014, and this even included Kenseth surprising Brad between some haulers and practically jumping him.
It was very dramatic!
And not a soul was fined, penalized, or put on probation for even the most heinous actions on the track during the race and postrace chicanery throughout the Playoffs.
I don’t think the fans want to see the drivers at each other’s throats every single race. It makes it seem like a circus side show rather than someone being genuinely upset.
We don’t want the Cup Series to be Bowman-Grey where they may as well put a ring at the 50-yard line of the football field. That’s not NASCAR.
NASCAR shouldn’t want that either.
Slowly, NASCAR has been less hesitant to enforce driver penalties, even suspending Johnny Sauter for hunting down Austin Hill under caution at a 2019 Iowa Trucks race.
That said, there has been zero consistency in this enforcement.
The next truly egregious example that earned a substantial penalty since Sauter v Hill was last season in the Xfinity Series.
Noah Gragson hooked Sage Karam on the straightaway leading under the Sargento Bridge, causing a horrific chain reaction where cars were tossed around like chopped salad at Olive Garden.
It seemed clear to everyone in attendance that Gragson did this intentionally (I would know, I was there!) We were all really disappointed that Gragson got to continue the race without penalty.
Eventually, NASCAR docked him a race’s worth of points for his conduct. While a somewhat stiff penalty, it was still too light for a driver with a long history of reckless and overaggressive decisions, including a 2021 pit road incident in Atlanta.
The part of the track Gragson turned Karam could’ve sent him careening driver’s side into the loose concrete barriers that prevent cars from hitting the Sargento Bridge where many spectators watch the race.
Incidents like that should be swiftly and harshly punished. I would’ve sat him for the rest of the season if I had the authority. Things like that can’t be tolerated.
Except they had been tolerated. Several times in fact.
Carl Edwards cleaned out Brad Keselowski coming to the finish line of a 2010 Xfinity race at Gateway in similar fashion, Keselowski’s car also being collided into by other cars much like Karam’s.
Edwards faced no punishment that I can readily think of for this. This is also after Edwards did the same thing to Keselowski at a Cup race in Atlanta, in a car he knew was prone to going airborne at high-speed tracks.
Edwards was never suspended or docked points. Not much of anything was done to him outside of a brief three-week probation.
So, as much as I disliked what Noah did, there’s an extensive history of this action going underlegislated by the sanctioning body.
When you see the Cup stars do this growing up as a fan of the sport, you think you can get away with it too when you’re rising through the ranks.
Now, we’re dealing with the consequences of letting the Boys have at it.
The Boys have become men who have no integrity or respect for their competition.
Joey Logano led the way at Martinsville that day Matt Kenseth wrecked him. He was going to punch his ticket to the Championship race three weeks early.
Matt Kenseth may have cost Joey that championship by intentionally wrecking him, but Matt took away what Joey took from him. I don’t think Matt was wrong for that.
But, it shouldn’t have gotten to that point.
Aric Almirola met the turn 3 wall on the final lap of the 2018 Daytona 500 off the fender of Austin Dillon as Dillon stole the win away before dabbing on him afterward.
Dillon faced no penalty or repercussions.
Alex Bowman dumped Bubba Wallace by right rearing him at the Charlotte Roval in 2019, and Wallace was the one who faced the heat for dumping a sports drink on Bowman and a safety worker. Oh, the agony.
Bowman faced no penalty or punishment.
Christian Eckes got turned in the quad-oval at Texas in 2020 by Ben Rhodes, hitting the exact same dogleg wall that took the life of Tony Roper in that same series 20 years before.
Ben Rhodes faced no penalty or punishment.
Bubba Wallace got ran into the turn 4 wall by Kyle Larson last year at Las Vegas, and Bubba charged down the track and hooked Larson into the outside wall.
Bubba Wallace was suspended for one race. He deserved it for sure because I think we can all agree that there is no place in the sport for that move.
What I don’t like is that we don’t have to choose a specific moment and single out one driver when this has been done ad nauseum by other drivers in the field.
What I thought would have been fitting was NASCAR fining Bubba $100,000 and docking him 100 driver points (no need to harm the team for a driver’s decision.)
Then, you talk to the media that week when announcing the penalty that you sent a memo to all of the teams saying that deliberately wrecking someone by pit maneuvering someone into the outside wall will result in a suspension next time.
You’re still setting the tone and establishing that racing boundary without singling a driver out, especially your most scrutinized driver. Your lone Black driver.
Let’s rewind a bit to a few weeks before that to Texas.
Amidst the tire mayhem on the track, a bit of rubbing on pit road nearly escalated into something truly horrifying.
Filling in for the injured Kurt Busch, Xfinity Series driver Ty Gibbs brutally doorslammed Ty Dillon on pit road during the Cup Series race.
The contact nearly sent Dillon’s Chevy into the active stall of Chris Buescher where his crew was making repairs to his car.
This could have injured several people, not one of whom was involved in making Ty Gibbs upset in that moment.
This was a layup opportunity for NASCAR to do the right thing and suspend Gibbs for a race for that reckless action. That cannot be tolerated at all, especially when pit road is active.
Gibbs was docked 25 Cup driver points and fined $75,000.
Ty Gibbs wasn’t racing for Cup points, so they took 25 away from 0 points.
Ty Gibbs is the grandson of Cup Series owner Joe Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing. Do you know what $75,000 looks like to that family? Pocket change. Sofa money.
This would’ve been widely regarded as a positive move by the fanbase far and wide, and it was supremely inconsequential.
Let’s not forget: Gibbs already put his fender through Sam Mayer’s car for an entire lap after the Martinsville spring Xfinity race before fighting Mayer with his helmet on and throwing cheap shots earlier that same season.
This Texas incident wasn’t the first time he put lives in jeopardy on pit road that calendar year, so again, this was a fastbreak layup for the sanctioning body.
And they docked him points he didn’t have and fined him money he has in droves.
Let’s not forget that other Texas incident NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports wanted to sweep under the rug.
In the same race his teammate would later reveal he sustained a concussion due to a rear impact, William Byron showed Denny Hamlin his displeasure under caution.
Hamlin ran Byron out of room on the narrow turn 2 exit, making Byron scuff the wall slightly and dropping him positions down the running order.
Byron raced Hamlin clean to that point, and after being run over by Logano earlier that season at Darlington*, Byron wasn’t going to be pushed around any longer.
(Editor’s note: Byron precipitated the contact with Logano on the final restart, shepherding Logano into the wall on the exit of narrow turn 2. Quite ironic when the shoe is on the other foot.)
The next caution soon followed, and as drivers decelerated to pace car speed, Byron put the pedal to the metal, flooring it into the rear of Hamlin’s Camry.
The impact was caught by everyone in attendance and everyone at home, and it was replayed to death on the broadcast during an extensive 11-lap caution period.
Hamlin’s car spun out of harm’s way into the infield grass before pointing his car back in the right direction. Then, he attempted to reclaim his position that Byron unceremoniously removed him from when he ran the 11 over.
NASCAR denied Hamlin and sent him to the back of the longest line for not maintaining pace car speed during a caution period.
Yes, they penalized the guy who didn’t choose to go take a jaunt through the infield.
Hamlin faced the music for it by finishing outside the top-10 while Byron got to maintain his position and be free of any in-race punishment. NASCAR later said that nothing was done in the moment to Byron as they missed the incident.
They claim to have not seen it as their focus was on the crash clean up that brought out the yellow in the first place.
Except NASCAR must have a viewing of the broadcast on as they watch the race, right? They have access to the teams’ scanners and radio chatter just like the booth, so surely, they would’ve heard chatter from the 11 and 24 teams, right?
Better yet, NASCAR put an in-car camera in every single Cup Series car for the entirety of the Playoffs, and fans could even stream those in-car camera feeds for free on the NASCAR app.
With all of these resources at their disposal, they weren’t able to see this incident and review it one time during the 11 laps the field was under caution.
Best motorsports series in America, folks.
In deference to them, NASCAR did end up penalizing Byron the following week by docking him 25 points and fining him, but upon appeal, Byron’s punishment was carefully reimagined as a larger fine while removing the points component.
All of a sudden, Byron had 25 more points going into the Round of 12’s final race than he had the week before, causing a major points shake-up.
Hendrick won the appeal, but not the war.
Byron didn’t advance to the Championship Round, and his inclusion in the Round of 8 after successful appeal actually eliminated defending champion and teammate Kyle Larson from the title hunt.
Larson would then go onto win in the Round of 8 at Homestead where he would’ve clinched a spot in the Championship race, giving HMS two cars in the Final Four.
Funny how that works.
Let’s return to the current day by talking about this weekend’s Cup race because it featured genuinely amazing road course racing for the first 50 laps.
The strategy games being played were entertaining and engaging. The racing product improved with the new aero package. The lack of stage cautions accentuated the strategy calls. Fox’s booth was brilliant for the first time in years.
Everything was coming together.
Until Brad Keselowski stalled his car with about 12 laps left.
The two-wide, late-race restarts extended the race distance by 18 laps and time elapsed by almost an hour over the three Overtime attempts. That is purely and wholly unacceptable.
But, that begs the question: Why were the cautions flying?
Drivers have been sold on the idea of “win and you’re in the Playoffs” by the sanctioning body since the Playoffs’ implementation in 2014, and since then, drivers have pulled some of the dumbest moves to alter the outcome of the race.
This includes Chase Briscoe cleaning out Tyler Reddick at Bristol Dirt last year and Kyle Larson trying to rip the Darlington wall down in 2021 to catch Hamlin.
NASCAR has not legislated these moves in the slightest. The most glaring example is at road courses with wide entries into an ultra tight first corner. These include Indy and COTA where drivers are taking the durability of the NextGen for granted.
Diving into corners 7-wide, flying past cars four rows up from where you restarted because you know, especially at low speeds, your car can withstand the punishment.
As such, the most recent race at Indy joined the last two COTA races in being derailed by the monotony of late-race cautions and late-race restarts.
If I haven’t been clear enough to this point, the fans are tired of seeing it.
There is nothing gratifying or exciting watching a driver have a great run all day get derailed by the 23rd and 24th-place cars slamming into the first five rows and dumping the cars at the top of the stack.
There is nothing fun nor exciting to see a dominant driver lose a race because a car several laps down left a brake rotor on the track out of the groove.
That’s not racing. That’s not a quality product, and it’s bad on the drivers’ psyches.
If they didn’t have this hairbrained idea that they’ll make the Playoffs by plowing their way through a field of people to get there, then they will do it no matter how ill-fated and positively stupid it may be.
In a lot of cases, it’s their only chance. Their only hope.
Drivers should be incentivized to win outside of just bringing home a trophy, but they shouldn’t do that at the expense of their competitors that haven’t warranted being used as a brake.
The black flag exists; we must start using it again.
Drivers need to get parked with fully functional, race-winning cars before they get the damn point that these actions will not be tolerated.
What Daniel Suarez did to his teammate Ross Chastain as well as Alex Bowman after Sunday’s race was dangerous to some pit officials and was just generally not a good or smart thing to do in an attempt to retaliate.
Some have called for Suarez to be suspended, and I don’t disagree with them, with special consideration for the rule brought about in the offseason labeling deliberate pit road contact as a suspension-level offense if deemed too egregious.
Suarez is known to race fairly and respectfully, and because of Bowman’s car being lodged into his Camaro, Suarez got caught up in a mess not of his making.
It ruined his race.
It wasn’t Bowman’s fault, and the two talked about it briefly postrace to clear the air. That said, that’s no excuse to put lives at risk for revenge.
Since Gibbs wasn’t suspended last season for something far more egregious in my eyes, I don’t feel comfortable suspending a first-time offender for being rightfully frustrated after getting deliberately taken out by drivers behind him.
I also wouldn’t do it because, much like Bubba’s Vegas incident last season, we’d be setting another new precedent with a driver of color, and frankly, that makes me uncomfortable when White drivers have gotten away with much worse as of recent.
Granted, some of these people are respectable and honest people like @DreamyZackGP that have been consistent on this issue with wanting Gibbs and Byron suspended for their Texas tirades.
I respect where that side is coming from because, in a perfect world, those drivers would’ve been suspended, and I would’ve been more frustrated with Daniel for putting himself in a position to be suspended.
However, we don’t live in a perfect world, and we most certainly do not live in a perfect NASCAR world at this point in time.
Earlier in this piece, I referred to NASCAR as the overbearing helicopter parent that harshly punishes their child for small infractions.
Contrast that to now, and it’s almost as if the helicopter parent landed and became the “cool parent” with no ability to educate their child.
The worst part of all of this is that the sport of NASCAR is in a solid place right now.
They are receiving global attention and fanfare again; Sunday’s race featured the return of 7x Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, F1 champions Kimi Raikkonen and Jenson Button, IndyCar driver Conor Daly, and IMSA champion Jordan Taylor.
The sport has taken huge strides in their Drive 4 Diversity initiative with one of its alums becoming a Cup champion when Kyle Larson won in 2021. Bubba and Suarez are also finding their footing, winning their first races in the last two years.
It’s extremely embarrassing to hear F1 champions interested in our sport criticizing the racing quality and etiquette, but it’s embarrassing because it’s true.
It’s also really embarrassing that two of the Cup Series’ few drivers of color might be setting an aggressive driving precedent for an act that’s gone relatively unpunished when executed by White drivers in the past.
A change, probably many changes, must be made, and soon.
If I had to recommend a few quick tweaks to make life easier for everyone, they would be:
- Single-file restarts with less than 10 to go at road courses and superspeedways. This prevents unnecessary carnage and saves the teams money.
- Reducing the amount of Overtime attempts to one. This prevents unnecessary carnage and saves the teams money.
- Using the black flag to penalize drivers for going over the line. We almost always know what going over the line looks like, so let’s pull aggressive drivers out of the cars when they go too far.
- Not setting the precedent with actions. Drivers don’t need to be singled out more when they do something stupid, and setting a precedent with them only gives the driver a scarlet letter for the rest of their career when others did the same.
- Suspending drivers or parking them for divebombing and not intending on making the corner at any track. Deliberately wrecking opponents should not be tolerated in most circumstances.
- Make avoidable postrace contact on pit road completely outlawed, meaning that after the Suarez penalty (which only ended up being a fine), the field will know they will be suspended if they play bumper tag on pit road hereafter.
If NASCAR is looking to reclaim the leverage in these revenue split conversations with the teams, then they should institute these rule changes.
This will lead to less accidents and naturally, less torn-up equipment. Drivers won’t be able to use their cars as weapons without riding the bench for it.
The teams saving money will promote the illusion that they are earning more money over time, so you might be able to haggle them down a few million in negotiations.
The field will be happier because there will be stiff boundaries for what you can and can’t do compared to right now where everything is up in the air.
The decision-making doesn’t need to be in the hands of the guys driving in 140 degree heat for 400 and 500 miles at a time.
If something looks wrong, then punish people. It is usually wrong!
We cannot have the Cup Series garage be a hunt or be hunted environment.
That isn’t welcoming for international talent. That isn’t welcoming to prospective team owners. That isn’t welcoming for new and old fans. That isn’t welcoming to sponsors, and it’s certainly not a good image for the sport to have.
NASCAR, I know y’all rarely do the right thing, and even when you do, it’s typically way, way overdue when you do finally get to it. Then, it’s usually half-baked.
But, you need to drop the hammer here and now because the Boys have had at it.
And, the Fans have had enough.
The Wide World of Dirt 
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