NASCAR is good, but could be better (Yahoo! Sports)
February 8, 2010
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR isn’t perfect, but contrary to what some believe, the front-office brass do get some things right. Here’s a look at what they do well and what they could do to make the sport better:
NASCAR's move to go to double-file restarts impacted the action more than any other change in 2009.Getty
Three things NASCAR does right:
1. Willingness to change
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Race fans like to complain that NASCAR doesn’t listen to them. Well, let’s see, in just the last 12 months NASCAR has (take a deep breath): implemented double-file restarts – SHOOTOUT STYLE!, standardized start times, removed the ugly rear wing in favor of the more desirable spoiler, shortened a race at Auto Club Speedway, eliminated rules against bump drafting at Daytona and Talladega, increased the restrictor plate size which means more speed at the superspeedways, moved the year-end banquet from a stuffy hotel in New York City to the bright lights of Las Vegas and, maybe most notably, told drivers that in 2010 they’ll be expected to police themselves.
“I hope that everybody does get this, because we’re trying and we are listening and we have been for some time,” NASCAR president Mike Helton explained. “Some of the filtering process takes a while and qualifying what we do and how we get to the point of doing it takes us longer than even we would like and certainly fans or the other stakeholders would like. But I think the big message today is that NASCAR itself and the stakeholders – the race tracks and others – are listening and trying to adapt.”
There are still some areas where fans will complain, and some rightfully so (more on that later), but give NASCAR credit for attempting some very dramatic changes.
2. Produces the tightest racing in the world
One of the reasons Danica Patrick says she is giving NASCAR a try is because of how much tighter the racing is. While the IRL and Formula 1 certainly have the advantage technology-wise, neither does when it comes to bumper-to-bumper racing. NASCAR’s average margin of victory in 2009 was 2.0 seconds, with an average of 22 of 43 cars finishing on the lead lap. In comparison, the IRL’s margin of victory was 3.58 seconds with an average of 10 of 23 cars finishing on the lead lap. Formula 1’s average margin of victory in 2009 was 10.27 seconds.
“I’m excited to get out there and have passing and overtaking,” Patrick said. “I remember last year at Kentucky when [the IRL] finally got back to some oval racing, how excited everyone was to see some side-by-side action, and I like that, too.”
3. Take safety seriously
Yes, many of the safety initiatives came too late, especially for those who lost their lives in the early part of the 2000s. But NASCAR deserves credit for installing soft walls at all of its tracks, regulating that all drivers wear a head-and-neck restraint and redeveloping its Cup and Nationwide cars with safety as a central objective.
The results have been highly visible. Carl Edwards ran away, literally, from last year’s horrific crash at Talladega, while Kyle Busch, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano (just to mention a few) all walked away from spectacular crashes without even a broken bone.
These days, the more dangerous place for drivers appears to be off the track, evident by the injuries to Edwards (broken foot playing Frisbee), Jimmie Johnson (broken wrist surfing on top of a golf cart) and Denny Hamlin (torn ACL playing basketball).
Three changes NASCAR should consider
1. Shorten the schedule
The Sprint Cup schedule begins two months before opening day of the Major League Baseball season and ends three weeks after a World Series champion is crowned. The 36-race Cup schedule (which doesn’t include two exhibition races) has more events than the Formula 1 and IRL seasons – combined. Between Feb. 7 and Nov. 21 there are exactly three – three – off weekends.
Team owner Felix Sebates got it right – this is simply too much product to maintain the interest of the casual fan.
NASCAR won’t, but it needs to trim its schedule by six races, start the Chase in August when sports fans aren’t yet hooked into the NFL season and end the Chase no later than early October.
Until NASCAR does that, it doesn’t matter what they do, interest will wane once the calendar flips to September.
2. Limit organizations to four cars only
NASCAR did the right thing in putting a limit on the number of cars each organization could house, but the cap isn’t hard enough. To get around the four-car limit, organizations have begun setting up satellite teams, a practice that’s actually putting more cars under individual organization’s control.
Jack Roush had to jettison one of his Cup cars from his five-car organization because of the cap, yet in 2010 he will actually have a hand in more cars than ever. He still has four cars under the Roush Fenway umbrella, plus he has an affiliation with the two-car Front Row Motorsports and the three-car Richard Petty Motorsports for a total of nine cars.
Rick Hendrick has an affiliation with six cars.
Not only is the balance of power being centralized into just a few operations, but also it’s making everyone friends. While this may be good for a TV sitcom, NASCAR’s built on drama, not comedy.
NASCAR will point to the number of different winners every year as evidence of parity. But it’s not about the number of different drivers who win, but rather the number of different teams. In 2009, drivers supported by Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs combined to win 27 of 36 races. In 2008, three teams accounted for 30 of the 36 wins. And in the last 15 seasons, only four different teams have won championships; of those, 14 were won by Hendrick, Roush or Gibbs.
Super teams have eliminated any semblance of parity in NASCAR and have stripped the sport of virtually all rivalries. Further action needs to be taken, and now. The cap needs to be stiffened – four cars and none of this satellite shenanigans, period.
3. Give more incentive to win:
One thing that perplexes the non-racing community more than any other is how a driver who wins the most races can not win a championship. Race fans understand this, and sometimes for good reason. Consistency has to count for something.
Still, it’s hard to explain to anyone – race fans or not – how a driver with four wins can miss the playoffs, while four drivers who go winless get in.
Mike Helton can insist all he wants that drivers are there to win, as he did on Daytona 500 media day, but the reality is points racing, where drivers settle for a top-five or top-10 finish instead of racing hard for a win, is still very much alive. And it will be as long as finishing in the top 10 means taking only a little hit in the points standings to the driver who finishes first.
Right now, first pays just 15 more points than second, and the difference between first and 10th is only 51 points. For a driver trying to win a championship, racing on the edge to turn a 10th-place finish into a win isn’t always worth the potential hit they could take in the standings if they were to wreck.
But it would if first place paid 50 more points than second and 100 more than 10th. If you want to see drivers fighting for a win, NASCAR has to incentivize them where it counts, and where it counts are in the points.
Jay Hart is the NASCAR editor for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jay a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
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