NASCAR or demo derby?

I have never gotten into basketball. I always thought they should just have a 4 minute game starting at a 68 68 tie (or 80 80 tie for defense challenged NBA). Let the opposing team choose who has 4, 3, and 2 personal fouls. Think of all the time that would be saved....

NASCAR seems to be getting similar.everyone goes along smoothly for all but the last 20 laps. Then all h*** breaks loose and 15 cars leave on tow trucks.

How does NASCAR change that dynamic.... or is this exactly what sells the brand.

discuss.

From the NBA to every court in the land we should raise the hoop by a foot at least and the 3 point line should go.  Now that's solved.  NASCAR?  I dunno. Small tracks only perhaps.  Or very short tracks but wider if physically possible.  I'm pretty much over professional sports at this point. 

I flipped on the race just as the third "stage" was starting.  (side note: I still don't completely understand the whole "stage" concept and what it's supposed to accomplish) My 4 year old daughter was excited to watch race cars, but after about 5 minutes she said "I prefer watching Volvo race cars" (We have been you-tubing old rally videos from the 60's).  We flicked it off and went to have dinner.

After dinner, I happened to turn the race back on- right in the middle of the Red Flag that halted the race with 9 laps remaining.  Mrs. VCH, my daughter, and my 2 year old son all sat down to watch the ensuing debacle.  Mrs. VCH kept shaking her head in bemusement.  My daughter was now more interested, but kept asking me "Daddy, why are the cars hitting each other?".  I finally told her, 'Well, because they're bad drivers."

How many cars were on that last lap?  A dozen?  

Apparently 14 cars were left in the report I saw.

I think part of the problem is the desire to have as many cars on the lead lap as possible. I remember watching races with my Dad as a kid and it seems like a few drivers would take off and battle the whole race while everyone else turned into rolling chicanes. Some guys finished the race 10-20 laps down, but they FINISHED the race. Now they are all bunched up for the entire race.

Watch the 1990 Daytona 500 and see what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MXwTo67d9Q

volvoclearinghouse said:

My 4 year old daughter... said "I prefer watching Volvo race cars" 

Sorry, there is so much win here, it needed to be acknowledged. Carry on, sir.

My neighbors are NASCAR fans and have a big Daytona party.  I tried to watch for a bit, but it was just so dumb. Green flag, everyone crashes, wait 30 minutes, repeat. And its Camrys racing Mustangs and Camaros. Huh? 

We went--our first Daytona 500 in real life. (We also went to the truck race on Friday.) Totally exciting to see a few dozen drivers still capable of winning it with just a couple of laps to go. Two-by-two at nearly 200 mph? Yeah, that's cool. 

How to prevent the "big one" from occurring? I figure that NASCAR could slow down the cars (boring) or space them out (boring). 

I didn't mind the Stages as much as I thought I would. I know, they're artificial breaks. I kept watching the lap timer, though, wondering how teams would play their cards as the clock ticked. 

I can say this: Packed house and no complaints heard around us. We stayed until the checker and then made tracks for the shuttle bus. We got out just before the rush and easily cruised home. 

Also, props to NASCAR for (finally) adopting the pony cars. I know, they're tube-frame silhouette racers--kinda like SCCA GT1 and Trans-Am. But the Mustangs, especially, look good out there. 

pinchvalve said:

My neighbors are NASCAR fans and have a big Daytona party.  I tried to watch for a bit, but it was just so dumb. Green flag, everyone crashes, wait 30 minutes, repeat. And its Camrys racing Mustangs and Camaros. Huh? 

I thought that was weird, too.  Especially since a "Camry" won.  Sign of the times?  How soon before we have CUV racing?

What to do?  Give them what they want!  Wreckin’ Racing!!  You could do it like they do team racing in Oz land (might be Kiwi), basically a game of roller derby with cars.

Keep the road courses the same, but ovals are Thunderdome!  Heck they wreck a lot of the cars anyway. You would have to figure out how to pick the teams, but I would think more than two would be practical.

https://youtu.be/f6jAl6NkKBE

Are you not entertained!?

slefain said:

I think part of the problem is the desire to have as many cars on the lead lap as possible. I remember watching races with my Dad as a kid and it seems like a few drivers would take off and battle the whole race while everyone else turned into rolling chicanes. Some guys finished the race 10-20 laps down, but they FINISHED the race. Now they are all bunched up for the entire race.

Watch the 1990 Daytona 500 and see what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MXwTo67d9Q

Everyone wants close racing.  But there are two factors that have gotten into this.

First is the restrictor plate.  Which was an idea to keep the speeds down on a super speedway.  Was a great solution to the problem of keeping the same motor at every track, but keep speeds down on the super speedway.  Over time, I think making the engine smaller would have been better, as it would have allowed better acceleration.

Second- areo.  For some reason, drivers think they should be able to go WOT around the track.  This is the same at ovals for Indycar, too- which has caused some horrible wrecks.  

When you put those two together, and the idea that the super teams should be no better than the one car team- you end up with pack racing. At least the aero should be altered enough to let a 3-4 car pack be as fast as the 2 lane big pack.   So when a few cars found a way around, they could space themselves out a lot better.   

Last I heard they were running fuel injection on NASCARs now.  Would seem like the restrictor plate could be replaced by some sort of electronic engine governor.  

Make the track longer like the Nurburgring......

Then it's too long to bunch up and there are nice places to sit in the woods and picnic !

I always like the race where they raced 30 minutes , stopped and then reversed the order for the 2nd half.,....

Daytona is waiting for the Big One , otherwise it's even more boring .

I spoke with a few NASCAR fans this past week, as the Daytona area was infested with them.

Each time I remarked about the "big one" they said they LOVED the wrecks---- one guy even said it was his favorite part of the race.   This was just after he had done a shot of whiskey, and "iced" himself by slamming a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.   He then went into the bathroom to throw up.   Sophisticated crowd......   and of course, he wasn't wearing sleeves.  NASCAR fans hate sleeves.....

Give em what they want.......until another car goes flying into the stands....then it's bad for all of us.  The general public doesn't differentiate between NASCAR , Indycar or IMSA.  It's all racing, and when "racing" kills innocent spectators, it's bad.     

As a child I watched a lot of NASCAR on tv, until I discovered stage rally. I have to assume attending a NASCAR race is entertaining since I haven't heard complaints, but I have no interest watching it from afar. I've wondered if television time is one of the reasons the races aren't cut shorter. Other than endurance racing, which NASCAR does not claim to be, shorter races are always more exciting to watch. The "play it safe" strategy doesn't work well in a 5 minute race, and not at all in a time trial.

Remove the rear view mirrors and the spotters

Well, in terms of the fans, we do have to remember that WWE is entertaining to a lot of people, too.  

I'm NOT saying NASCAR is WWE, BTW, what I am saying is that racing fans all have different things they are entertained by.

And there is NOTHING wrong with that what so ever.  If this is what the fans really want, well, good for NASCAR for providing that to them.

One note- I do take issue with the idea that these drivers suck.  They don't.  Those beasts are really hard to drive.  When you see top drivers from one series go there, you rarely ever see them do well.  And given the money and work, I doubt you will ever see an honest attempt for a top level NASCAR driver take on F1 or even a long term Indy program.  You may see them do one offs, including endurance races- and they generally do better than most expect.

That being said, however much skill it takes to do that, it's just not for me.

the huge crashes are the main draw for 80% of the fan base.  nascar will stop the big crashes around the same time it stops sales of crappy beer.  whenever the field gets spaced out and has room to drive they throw some cautions for invisible debris on the track. 

The crash was unfortunate, looked like the race was shaping up for a pretty exciting finish - and then like half the drivers in contention got knocked out in the proverbial "big one." Unfortunately, as stated in the first post, this is pretty much par for the course, it's like watching interstate traffic until the last 20 or so laps when everyone starts getting aggressive and inevitably a pileup ensues. I should have just turned it off at that point instead of waiting another 1.5 hours to complete the last ten laps 

I'm an extremely casual NASCAR fan, but I do enjoy watching when I have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon. I used to be a big time F1 fan in my teenage years, but watching Shumy/Lewis/Vettle start from the poll and immediately get out to a 30s plus lead and then run parade laps the rest of the way got old after a while. Nowadays, I probably catch more stock car racing than anything. For better or for worse, the parity in NASCAR at least leads to some close finishes more often then not, even if you have situations like yesterday's as a side effect. I highly doubt it gets fixed, as I'd bet NASCAR view it as more of a feature than a bug.

Let's pump the brakes here.  I'm a NASCAR fan and not ashamed to admit it.  I don't like restrictor plate racing either, but I'm not going to just blindly bad mouth it.  The challenge with the current format is it forces the cars to run in packs where the drivers have little ability to make moves, and leads to one of two outcomes.  A: total wreckfest - that's what happened in the truck race and the end of the 500 on Sunday (before that, it was actually decent).  B: Single file parade, which is what happened in Saturdays' race....that was pretty boring.    If the answer to fixing it were easy, I'd have to believe it would have been done years ago.

But this is just Daytona and Talladega where they have this issue.  Yesterday was also the last time they're using the restrictor plate in it's current format, they're going to a tapered spacer (similar I know, but not the exact same). I applaud them for recognizing the need for change and trying something new.  We'll see how it works out. 

They're running new packages for the rest of the tracks too, and we'll see how that goes. 

Not ever NASCAR race can be 3 wide every lap from start to finish...but IMO it still allows for more exciting racing than Indy or F1. 

In reply to Klayfish :

It's my understanding that tapered spacer is going to be used at multiple track in different degrees of restrictions. In fact next weekend in Atlanta they're using the restrictor. As they should because Atlanta is extremely fast and the cars were bumping over 200 miles per hour on a relatively short but Bank mile and a half oval.

Is the aero packages on Nascar , F1 and Indy racing a big part of the problem.

All these cars run faster in packs , so you race that way , 

How many times in Nascar has some car 3 or 4  back tried to make a run , lost the slipstream and is now 8-10 cars back ?

Not sure if there is a way around this ,  

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

Yes, from what I understand the tapered spacer is being used on pretty much every track that's a mile or larger (or something like that).  I agree that it's needed for tracks like Atlanta, Texas and California because they're going even faster than they do at Daytona. 

They ran this concept last year in the All-Star race at Charlotte.  The race was one of the best races NASCAR has had in years...it was spectacular.  Obviously, they're hoping to recreate that everywhere.  Hope it works.

I think they should run unrestricted at Daytona - using the 24 hr. road course.  Now THAT would be interesting.

Edit: Just watched the wreck, which was caused by "one bump draft too many".  This is common practice with Spec Miatas, but they're going half the speed.

In reply to Joe Gearin :

I live and work in the area. When I tell someone (that is obviously not a race fan) I autocross a Miata, it's not unusual for them to reply, "NASCAR?"