Sorry But Iowa Is Not A Cup Track

With Iowa's first Xfinity-Truck series doubleheader of the season the calls for NASCAR to switch a Winston Cup race from an existing track to Iowa Speedway has renewed. And it remains wrong, because Iowa simply does not deserve a Cup date.








The reasons why are addressed by Nick Bromberg. But in essence the case against Iowa as a Cup track comes down to three simple facts -


The market for a track owned by the sanctioning body simply isn't that strong.   
Iowa's seating capacity is some 30,000, and as Andy Hillinberg's failed reopening of Rockingham showed that's not a sustainable model for major league racing, never mind Cup alone.

The racing is overrated.
Yes the battle between Justin Allgaier and Christopher Bell was spirited, but this season has seen terrific racing quite often; Iowa's racing was good but Michigan's racing the previous week was better. Short tracks have aeropush issues just as bigger tracks do and far too much of short track racing at the major league level is about lapped cars rather than a showdown between the leaders. The fact remains the most competitive racing in motorsports is not short tracks (never mind road racing which NASCAR first enters next week), it is superspeedway racing.


Dragging the sport back to the farm is regression.   It bears reminder the Truck Series began as a short track model and found out right away the short track model can't support major league racing between insufficient crowds, lack of sponsor interest, and overrated racing.   The 1995 "test" race at Homestead proved the superspeedways are better racing venues than short tracks, so the evolution away from short tracks began. 

And it bears reminder that the clamor for more short tracks is actually a desire on the part of some fans to lash out at the superspeedways because people are frustrated at the lack of passing on the bigger ovals - ignoring of course the consistently lower incidence of passing that defines short tracks - the number most telling there is the most competitive short track in NASCAR, Bristol, averages thirteen lead changes per race vs. 22 for Michigan, 24 for Pocono, etc. 



The real answer for Iowa and other short tracks is for NASCAR to start switching more of the TV money away from Cup - which takes some 90% of the TV money - and put more into the Xfinity, Truck, K&N/ARCA, and Modified tours.   This was supposedly part of the original goal of the Truck Series, to make it strong enough that it would stand on its own, some smaller tracks could replace their Cup races with Truck dates, and thus free up those dates for bigger tracks and bigger markets.   Making it worth Iowa's while to be a track for Xifnity and Truck races atop local and ARCA dates will stop the ridiculous lobby for Cup to be dragged there.


The sport has begun showing genuine change for the better in recent races and a better TV money distribution can shut up the people who want to sacrifice a better track to give a mid-western short track a Winston Cup date.