2018 Season's Dumbest Quote Illustrates Racing Disconnection

The Miami 400 weekend saw a lot of news conferences and also saw the usual online exchanges involving NASCAR writers.    Matt Weaver of Autoweek has emerged as one of the most upfront writers in racing and also among the most belligerent advocates of "shaking up the schedule."  

On his Twitter account Weaver answered a respondent with what is singularly the dumbest quote of the season -

It's almost like faster cars are faster. This is how CART ended up with the Hanford Device. I think so much of what drags NASCAR down even marginally would be cured with the schedule. You can't sail away at Martinsville or Sonoma. Slow cars get in the way.

First, he's wrong about cars not being able to sail away on short tracks or road courses.   It happens very often and has throughout history.

Second, that he's citing lapped cars getting in the way as some kind of competitive positive only illustrates the net negative of short track and road racing - it's less nose-to-nose competition than surviving lapped traffic or staying out of the sticks in the case of road races.

Third, what sparked CART's Hanford wing was the success of IRL's bulkier racecar bodies in making the draft stronger and thus opening up passing.   This led to a renaissance for Indycars with both bodies producing superior competition with both approaches.

Finally, what has dragged down NASCAR is not curable by changing the schedule.   Short tracks and road courses are by any objective definition weaker competition to superspeedways, weaker competition often in weaker markets, and with most short tracks there are weaker crowds - overlooked by those who advocate more short tracks for NASCAR's major league series is that the short tracks the Winston Cup, Busch-Xfinity, and Truck series already have do not draw any better than the superspeedways and actually draw noticeably less.

Iowa Speedway is repeatedly cited as a track that deserves Winston Cup races, and yet NASCAR which owns the track has found it can't justify having Cup there.   Like all the tracks it doesn't sell out the dates it has and has never drawn enough to seriously consider Cup.

The entire issue illustrates the disconnection that exists in NASCAR.   The advocates for more short tracks do not genuinely think they are better racing because there is no objective measure supporting such an opinion.   On the contrary, the eighty most competitive races in Winston Cup history involve seventy-seven at Daytona, Talladega, Charlotte, Pocono, and Michigan, one each at Darlington and Atlanta (both in 1982) - and one at Bristol (1991).   Most short track races cannot approach the big ovals in competitive depth and road courses will never be much in the way of competitive racing.

The reason for this misguided advocacy is myopic frustration at the lack of passing on the bigger ovals and a ridiculous sense the "cookie cutter tracks" must somehow be punished.   The real issue - lack of downforce, excessive power, and no drafting effect - for twenty years was addressed the wrong away and now is finally being addressed the right way.  

Cross-promotion between the big tracks and local bullrings appears to be coming and is welcome.   Dumbing down the major leagues with more short tracks will never be the answer, and fans and writers need to start embracing big tracks again - especially after a Miami 400 fundamentally better than any short track.