Vegas Surge As NASCAR Enters Fontana

Strat 200 for the Gander Truck Series turned into a rip-roaring sidedraft fight on two separate occasions between Kyle Busch, the prohibitive favorite, and Sheldon Creed.

Winston Cup Las Vegas Pennzoil 400



After a week of controversy centered on Ryan Newman's crash NASCAR got some positive momentum at Las Vegas with a spirited pair of races in Winston Cup and the Gander Truck Series and an unplanned two-day affair for the Xfinity Series.   The big picture takeaways -



1 - Goodyear brought a softer left side tire for the Winston Cup cars and it seemed to be a substantially better for the high downforce-draft duct package.  We'd be surprised if this softer left side tire doesn't become a standard right now for Fontana next week and other tracks like it.


2 - Chevrolet's new car showed eye-opening improvement from the last two seasons.   Not only did Chevrolets lead 101 laps (mostly by Chase Elliott who spun on Lap 222 thus producing a typical underachievement finish for him of 20th) but six Chevrolets from six different teams finished in the top ten - Ricky Stenhouse in JTG-Daugherty's 47, Austin Dillon in the RCR 3, Jimmie Johnson with Hendrick, Bubba Wallace with Petty thanks to a gutsy non-pitstop call by his former JGR crew chief Jerry Baxter, Kyle Larson with Ganassi, and Ty Dillon with Germain Racing.   This is the kind of depth Chevrolet needs to strengthen and should have been pursuing from the beginning; it will be a key angle to watch at Fontana.


3 - Toyota's strength without numbers strategy backfired as no Toyota finished higher than Kyle Busch's 15th, this after three Camrys were busted in prerace tech and started in the back, including Busch.   With just five cars Toyota is grossly outnumbered with in essence just one team.


4 - The story everyone watched was Ross Chastain subbing for Ryan Newman.   Chastain, borriwed from Ganassi Racing, acquitted himself well enough - despite a late spin - that speculation soon began circulating on social media whether when Newman returns a third Roush car will have to be fielded to accommodate Newman while retaining Chastain.   We expect Chastain to run respectably at Fontana.

Steve O'Donnell's opening presser on Ryan Newman's crash



5 - There has been a growing controversy in angry exchanges in NASCAR media involving the Barstool Sports website.  While at least some of the controversy may be legitimate, having followed NASCAR media coverage all these decades what has always been striking is the groupthink mentality that has long existed there and the longstanding need for fresh and differing perspectives to be brought to the press room and to coverage in general, such as media that will challenge the opinions of drivers should the issue in question warrant it.   





So it proceeds as the series enters Fontana.

More Fontana Postmortems

The California 400 weekend is now past, but there remain some postmortems worth mentioning. 

The incident that had everyone talking was Danica Patrick's crash after tangling with Kasey Kahne. Kahne, not known for controversy on the racetrack, seemed surprised when Patrick swerved up toward him, while Patrick tore up yet another racecar in a career increasingly defined by torn-up racecars.

While she was wrecking again, her boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse led a surprising surge into the top-5 by edging out Chase Elliott.  Stenhouse and the moribund Roush fleet haven't had anything to be proud of, but lately have begun regaining some ground.

The young guns may have a new member in Brian Scott, whop quietly drove Richard Petty's #44 to a respectable 12th.

Contrast these young guns with Austin Dillon, who won the pole but never led, struggled all race, and finished 24th.   He's still ahead of the game from where he was last year, but progress still isn't coming at the pace a lot of people seem to expect.

Haven't we seen this movie before?  Kevin Harvick leads the most laps and at the end doesn't have what is needed to win the race. 

Speaking of faltering, Martin Truex Jr's season has plummeted the last few races even as he led over twenty laps at Fontana - this of course is no thanks to Joey Logano, as Joey did it again in a wreck at Fontana.


Before the race weekend Brian France stated that "there is some interest by a couple of manufacturers" to race in Cup - with Rumor Control Central indicating Audi. We'll believe that when we see it, though one certainly wants Dodge to return as well as Honda to enter.


So it goes as the Easter Bye Week hits.

Fontana and The Neverending Politics Of Competition Rule Packages

California Speedway's reputation for NASCAR racing was considered low for a long time due to undercompetitive races there from its beginning, but the 2013 California 400 changed all that with a stunning final ten lap battle for the lead ending in a hard Denny Hamlin crash, a spectacular highside three wide pass by Kyle Busch, and the thwarting of Joey Logano in his debut season with Penske Racing.  

2013's 400 was amazing, and 2014's running also saw spirited racing for the lead, which made 2016's running with NASCAR's neo-5&5 Rule and a softer tire from Goodyear among the more anticipated events of the racing calendar.   But as Jimmie Johnson enters the Easter weekend with a late restart win over Kevin Harvick, the sport has to reexamine quite a bit after this weekend.

The weekend began with the Cal 300 for the Xfinity Series and the most bizarre finish in decades as Kyle Busch blew a tire, but several contenders ran out of gas, except Austin Dillon as he sqeezed through a hole around a Busch blocking attempt for the win.   The Cal 300 also saw something Fontana and other tracks have long needed - push-drafting, as the JGR Toyotas and Kyle Larson engaged in at least two efforts at push-drafting down Fontana's sweeping trioval, Larson even getting the lead for a moment thanks to a strong push-draft.

Come the 400 the racing up front in spots was good as well, but the issue that plagued the race, having also popped up in the Saturday event, was a very high incidence of tire failure throughout the field;  Kyle Busch's late tire failure set up the GWC-restart that won the race for Johnson when it appeared Kevin Harvick would waltz away while Kyle Larson blasted the inside SAFR barrier after a tire failure.

The incidence of tire failures - coming a week after numerous tire failures at Phoenix - was such that Goodyear actually had to address it during the race in the media; we got the usual "aggressive setup" cliché from varied analysts, but it begged the question that is seemingly never asked - why cannot Goodyear engineer these tires to where the teams don't have to put in "aggressive" setups?

Not that Goodyear hasn't gotten it right as far as forgiving, raceable tires go - in the radial era spirited battles such as the World 600s of 1993, 1995, and 1998, and the National 500 of 2000 that saw 47 official lead changes despite Goodyear incompetence that led to a tire shortage that weekend, not to mention memorable Pocono races in 1993, '95, '96, 2001, and 2009-10, Atlanta in the 1999-2002 period where four of its races combined to average 32 official lead changes a race, and the 1999 Yankee 400 at Michigan contested with a higher-stagger tire and thus witnessing a spirited fight for the lead in the final twenty-two laps, have all indicated a tire that racers were able to race hard on - and shown more recently with the Truck Series and several memorable races on intermediate speedways the last five years.

But the radial era has seen much incidence of "aggressive setups" and trouble as a result; the first famous such incident was the 1992 Virginia 500 at Martinsville where broken axles knocked out numerous contenders - the result of rearend cambering to get a bigger tire footprint onto the surface; NASCAR had banned parts to make the cambered rearend work, citing costs, to where team owner Larry McClure commented "If NASCAR keeps trying to save money we'll be out of business." 

The incident has been repeated, albeit in different form, at numerous races ever since, and it has been especially pointed during NASCAR's frequent campaigns to cut downforce, the 2004-7 period most notably seeing multiple spoiler reductions, tire changes, and swaybar changes, and no improvement in passing, to go with several bouts of "aggressive setup" fiascos.   It of course continued with the ill-fated Car Of Tomorrow.  

So we ask again -  can not Goodyear engineer a tire that is forgiving and raceable enough where teams do not need to run "aggressive" setups?   The Erik Jones-Kasey Kahne sidedraft epic at Charlotte in the Trucks in 2015 - that tire clearly allowed them to fight for the lead; can not Goodyear engineer a tire so the Xfinity and Cup drivers can race likewise, and do so with some significant frequency?


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That seemingly no NASCAR journalist asks such questions speaks of the decline of journalism that is covering the sport.   Veteran NASCAR scribe Mike Mulhern addresses the tire issue recently in advocating that teams be given three or four different compounds - soft, hard, intermediate, etc.   Not only that, give teams different staggers - as longtime crewman Scott Cluka recently noted, the art of staggering tires was taken out with the switch to radials.


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But the issue goes a lot further.   Part of the issue for Fontana is the worn-out surface, worn to the point it seems to be getting less safe to race on.   Drivers have long liked this worn out surface because of the surge in multiple grooves, but Fontana racing in the past on much fresher asphalt has seen some spirited competition, and a better tire would certainly open up more grooves on fresh asphalt.  Having to pit every 35 or so laps for fresh tires becomes expensive and frankly overkill, plus the idea of tire management really is not competitively appealing  - competition never means managing anything.

The weekend, like seemingly the entire season, was treated in media coverage almost as a referendum on NASCAR's low downforce package and as usual one looked in vain for any dissent from the view that low downforce has opened up passing and produced better racing.   High incidence of tire problems was a feature of NASCAR's past wars against downforce and we're seeing it again in 2016, meaning the same mistakes made by NASCAR in the past are producing the same results. 

The blunt truth remains NASCAR has seen close finishes in 2016 not because of low downforce, but in spite of it - a late yellow was needed for the photo finish at Phoenix and another late yellow allowed Johnson to storm past Kevin Harvick for the win.   Robert Barker's piece a few weeks back showed the futility of cutting downforce and also of soft tires, yet one would think NASCAR would figure out not to repeat the same mistakes.  


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The bottom line remains NASCAR should not need worn-out asphalt et al to see better competition; everyone involved need to reexamine things because the racing has been decent, but it has seen a lot of trouble, trouble racing shouldn't have.

NASCAR: California Here We Go Again

The Winston Cup and Xfinity series finish up their pre-Easter West Coast swing at Fontana, and with four races already in the books what has stood out so far is how much every race has become a referendum on NASCAR's neo-5&5 Rule. The cut in downforce has been lobbied for on the varied racecasts every week, and this lobbying - by Rusty Wallace and drag racer Ron Capps last week during the Phoenix race - has struck one as smacking of defensiveness as each race has seen some competitive moments but nowhere has the racing improved from last year or other recent seasons.

Of course loss of downforce has a proven history of not achieving what is advertised of it, and the angle of softer tires helps showcase the futility of the entire war against downforce as demonstrated by crew chief Robert Barker. The tire angle got hotter with five high-profile failures at Phoenix and the issue of melting beads reared its head again.  It remains that Goodyear needs to develop their tire to race more like bias-plies, which are far more forgiving and raceable; a better tire will help the issue of passing and mechanical grip.

For Fontana the age of the surface has also played a competitive role of recent - like Atlanta and Darlington the old surface wears out tires and that's played a part in the outcome.   The 2013 and 2014 runnings were two of the most celebrated in the track's history, with 2013 seeing the track's wildest finish.    Curiously Fontana has seen more than a few competitive races, notably the 2004-2008 period, yet it isn't viewed all that favorably among fans.

Entering the Fontana weekend the Big Four of the Cup series - Joe Gibbs, Hendrick, Penske, and Stewart-Haas - have won the races run so far; Harvick's win came with a racecar whose chief mechanic, Les Huntley, suffered a stroke before the Phoenix race, making the win all the more bittersweet, especially as the SHR team also was without shock specialist Michael McCarville, hospitalized after a bad snowmobile crash before the Phoenix race.

Among the darkhorses - legitimate and relative - entering Fontana, we've seen some quiet improvement in some of the sport's young drivers.   Austin Dillon managed just nine top-10 finishes in his first 85 starts and has three so far in 2016, and that's been it as far as the long-dormant RCR fleet has gone with Paul Menard being what he is and Ryan Newman as yet untracked.

The Roush and Ganassi fleets have been in even worse shape, with just two top-10s combined so far this season; Roush's lone top-10 came from Ricky Stenhouse while Kyle Larson had a seventh at Daytona and has been largely MIA since.

Leading the rookie race so far has been Ryan Blaney in the Wood Brothers #21, with consecutive top-10s and talk of moving him to a third Penske Ford.

A curious dive has been with Martin Truex Jr., who hasn't posted a top-10 since Atlanta.

Unflashy has been Aric Almirola, who hasn't led a lap or finished higher than 12th but has put Petty's #43 on a consistent run so far.

The BK Racing squad has struggled all year but got some respectability for Matt DiBenedetto at Phoenix.



So it goes entering Phoenix.

Frustration At The Firecracker 400

Daytona racing has a history of enormous competition, but when it goes wrong it becomes incredibly maddening and at time scary. The 2015 Firecracker 400, coming a week after the amazing MAVTV 500 Indycar race at Fontana, showcased some of the same issues as Fontana but also other issues specific to NASCAR.

Observations from the ugliest Firecracker 400 in years -


* - The cars regularly broke 202 MPH, and once again nothing good can really come from 200 MPH, though Indycars are far safer at 200 than stockers.   The idea that Indycars somehow lose something when the power is restricted to 200 MPH or that NASCAR loses something with restriction to 190 is baffling, especially when in 2001 the entire sport openly acknowledged - Rusty Wallace gave it specific utterance at that time and has repeated it since - that 194 MPH is the cut-off point for keeping the cars on the ground.  

The complaint about restrictor plate racing will come up again, as usual ignoring vicious melees at non-plate tracks, such as the Watkins Glen series of melees including last year's Ryan Newman-Michael McDowell melee, bad crashes at Charlotte over the years, and so forth (Indycar has this same myopia about the lethality of crashes in its "plate" races as opposed to melees on its street circuits, crashes that usually out-do superspeedway wrecks as we saw with Dario Franchitti and more recently with RC Erenson in the Indy Lights race at Toronto).

Worth nothing for context is that this past Friday at Stafford Speedway, CT there was a huge crash in the SK Modified race that took out the leaders (notably Ryan Preece)  and there have been numerous such incidents in a Stafford season where the racing has been unusually competitive.

As relatively uncompetitive as this Firecracker was, it was still superior racing to most non-plate races, and as with the California Indy 500 at Fontana it showcased that the sport needs pack racing - albiet to a point.  The real issue for NASCAR is Brian France's ridiculous opposition to push-drafting - it stopped the blocking that has become more of a problem in racing of late, and it created more outright passing than anything else can; push-drafting would have opened up far more in the way of passing and thus opened up the competition level above what it was here, and this was even more true with the Firecracker 250 for the Xfinity Series, where uncompetitive racing and resultant frustration led to melees that left the finishers all with weak racecars.   

80 lead changes, seen at Fontana, is a lot better than the 22 seen in this Firecracker.




* - The real cause of the Dillon crash was Kevin Harvick, and he's done this before, notably last year's above-mentioned Newman-McDowell crash at the Glen.   Harvick has led over 1,200 laps but hasn't cashed in that much on winning.


* - The Hendrick cars have the season pretty much to themselves.   There is no non-Hendrick challenge anywhere outside of Stewart-Haas Racing, and the only challenger there is Harvick.  Kurt Busch has surged since coming back so he can still offer some challenge.   Outside of him, the rest of the field is racing for fifth at best - only seven of seventeen races have been won by someone other than a Hendrick or Harvick/Kurt Busch Chevrolet.

The upshot of the Austin Dillon crash is it is an illustration of his career - racing for nothing and hitting the wall.


* - Aggravation at Chevrolet's dominance has been a long-standing gripe within NASCAR dating to the 1960s and surging with the 1970s comeback of the Bowtie Brigade, and it appears Chevy's success is driving away other brands in other series, with Indycar potentially losing Honda after Chevrolet returned to the series only a few short seasons ago.   Sanctioning bodies need to rethink whether Chevrolet is as good for their series as they might think - certainly racing needs a lot more success from non-Chevrolets such as Honda and Toyota and (call this a subtle lobby all you want) any comeback Dodge might contemplate.


* - The worst of the non-Chevrolet lot is Ford.   When Penske Racing is off - and it's been curiously off outside of two wins this season - then the brand has nothing.   Roush Fenway Racing is worse than an also-ran, it is a cancer now, between failures at engineering and a driver roster inferior to some of Roush's customer cars.   It is no accident that once again Richard Petty's #43 looked stronger than the Roush cars, and it may be Petty needs to switch manufacturers and thus not be dragged down further by the Roush alliance.


* - With all this, the potential for a first-time winner this year looks strikingly weak.   Nobody with Roush or RCR looks like they know which way is up, and even with some respectable darkhorse runs at Daytona nothing developed to indicate anyone can seize a first-time win.   If anything, some of the drivers tagged for future potential are only getting worse, notably Danica Patrick.   Kyle Larson curiously does not seem to be taking any next step, and that's it as far as drivers who might get a first win.


*- Interesting off-the-track point is made by longtime NASCAR writer Mike Mulhern.   The talk of a franchise system in NASCAR comes after a $1 billion deal by Nike for the NBA, and it leads him to ask a question worth pondering - "Could NASCAR do a deal like that without franchising?"   Stay tuned there.




So what's next? Kentucky for NASCAR, Milwaukee for Indycar, and the sport has to plug on and try to get something better.

2015 MAVTV California Indy 500

Indycar's greatest race.

California Indy 500 - The Classic Nobody Saw Yet Nobody Can Forget

Indycar returned to California Speedway and the result was history for this form of racing.   The most competitive race in Indycar history exploded, as the lead changed hands 80 times among 14 drivers, beating the previous record set in the California 500 in 2001 when there were 73 lead changes.  

Yet the aftermath illustrated the stupidity that has reduced Indycar racing to irrelevance, as driver Will Power and Penske Racing honcho Tim Cindric griped about the enormity of passing and the frequent four-abreast battles by invoking the death of Dan Wheldon to argue against pack racing - and once again ignoring non-pack melees of greater violence such as what transpired at Toronto earlier this year in the Indy Lights race as well as Dario Franchitti's disaster on a street course that ended his career.   Dan Wheldon's death had nothing to do with pack racing and Cindric and Will Power should know better.   Running over 200 MPH instead of 190 is more relevant to safety than pack racing - and for whatever it is worth the cars seemed curiously slow in this race.

Racing is about lead changes, and nothing else - you go for the lead, you take the lead, and if you lose the lead you take it back.   That's been the reality of racing forever.   And 80 lead changes - only the fourth race in history after three Talladega thrillers in the 2010-11 to reach that number - is racing as it SHOULD be.   So what the California Indy 500 showed is a racecar package that worked to perfection - a package Indycar needs to use for Pocono in late August; the stronger the draft, the better.

It also illustrated the need to incentivize going for the lead - most laps led should always pay more to the driver since that is a huge performance gauge.

If there is a safety concern here, it's in the abysmal state of the surface at Fontana.   The cars clearly weren't as comfortable as they should have been the whole race and it appeared some of the crashes might have been prevented by a better surface.   Fontana needs to be repaved even more now than before, and the "character" argument about racetracks doesn't mean anything.  

The sad part is it was a classic race that no one actually saw - the crowd at Fontana was almost nonexistent, an interesting comment with the NFL trying to secure a temporary home for a team for 2016 on the myth that there are actual fans in the LA area.    Indycar's decline in popularity has been long term and it needs racing this exciting to regain popularity.  


Some other takes on this amazing 500 -


* It was a superb day for AJ Foyt's team as Takuma Sato led 31 laps and sliced into the fight for the win, rallying when he got squeezed to the apron and lost his momentum, before getting into the Lap 241 crash.  Jack Hawksworth's tenth salvaged something that should have been more for Supertex.

* What does Ed Carpenter have to do to win?   Once again Carpenter was in the thick of things and once again it led to nothing.

* Rahal Letterman's win broke the duopoly that's developed between Penske and Ganassi, a duopoly that appears to be leaving Michael Andretti's outfit behind.   It was also the eighth different winner in Indycar this year.

* Eight cars got tires under yellow after the Power-Sato crash, but the way the draft was working it might not have mattered.



So ended the classic that nobody saw but nobody should forget.

Fontana Goes Fast And - Slower

The California 400 at Fontana proved a newsier weekend than a lot of people might have expected. Coming a year after Denny Hamlin's bad wreck there, it was natural a lot of reminiscence of that 2013 race would be uttered; making it even weirder was Hamlin's illness that knocked him out of the race before it began, putting Sam Hornish into the JGR #11.

 There turned out to be a striking level of rules debates, first with NASCAR's acknowledgment that it is working with manufacturers toward a modest 100 HP reduction for 2015. There was also considerable discussion of race distances and whether races should be shorter.

The case for shorter race distances failed long ago, because longer races produce more passing, more switches in outcome, and are an overall better test of racecars and racers.   500 miles is the optimum distance for races such as Fontana and Pococo.   Indeed since switching to 400 mile distances Pocono is showcasing why its 500s were better -  the racing at Pocono is enjoyable, but the lack of the extra 100 miles is denying that track the swings in outcome and extra passing that 500 miles provide.  

NASCAR has needed to put start times to earlier, not later.    12:20 area time is the right time to throw the green flag for these races so they can be run in optimum time.

The argument about reducing horsepower is laughable because it's so little being proposed and it's been two decades overdue to permanently restrict the horsepower; the performance levels between safety and quality racing have done nothing but prove they are beyond the level they ought to be.   The superior racing the Busch Series and Trucks - with restrictive engine spacers - provide is the ultimate indictment of the high horsepower mentality.


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The most striking aspect of the Fontana is that while the Busch Series 300-miler saw the draft work - when he wasn't bitching about how much "better" the racing is on worn-out asphalt and how new pavement takes away ability to pass (and never cited one example of such, because they don't exist) Rusty Wallace was talking about how the draft was working - the California 400 was another case where the cars were scrambling to avoid the draft.   That is surprising in that the larger spoiler makes the draft more effective and that is what the goal needs to be - make the draft more important than handling.  

The 400 also saw another fit of Goodyear tire-itis (Junior weighed on on it afterward).   The worn-out asphalt certainly is a problem, but we see Goodyear fail repeatedly over the years with its tires.  Each season sees several races where Goodyear's tires are worthless and of course in its arrogance Goodyear blames "aggressive setups" instead of admit it has a problem.   Goodyear has been nothing but a tiresome (sorry) company and NASCAR needs to accept real on-track tire competition with Firestone, Hoosier, etc.


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Goodyear tire-itis wound up leading to the surpising finish after the Hendrick cars faltered on tires and Clint Bowyer spun late, setting up the green-white-checker finish.  Kyle Larson's win in the 300 the day before proved a harbinger of the Fontana weekend's finishas he came out of nowhere to finish second.   Larson is now taking control of the rookie race and there's no sign he's going to get any kind of serious challenge. 


So with Fontana wrapped up the series hits Martinsville - and one should wonder why a race that is supposed to be in late April is stuck in late March.

Ontario Motor Speedway Meets Bristol

For most of its life California Speedway was routinely dismissed by racefans because of the lack of ferocious racing there. A track like this was what NASCAR had in mind with its controversial Generation Six racecar, and entering Winston Cup's Easter bye weekend, something decidedly unexpected is happening here. 

A sign there was something about this weekend showed in the Nationwide 300 won by Kyle Busch, a spirited affair with several very good battles up front.   The Cal 400 then saw some decent racing before a late caution set off a shocking ten-lap shootout between cars on worn tires and cars on fresh tires. It began with seven-abreast into One and then it all got ugly on the final lap between Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin and both crashed - but the worst came when Hamlin stabbed hard into the concrete and was hospitalized overnight with a compression fracture in his lower back.

Some criticized that the area he hit didn't have a SAFER barrier, but after Michael Annett and Eric McClure's bad injuries when they hit one it's not a particularly valid criticism anymore.    

The wreck renews questions about the fundamental fitness to be in this sport of Joey Logano. Racecaster Dave Moody likens the incident to Logano now standing his ground as a racer. Roger Penske defended Logano after the wreck but Logano was in a fight last week after a wreck and now was in the middle of this melee and then got into an actual punches-thrown brawl on pit road.   Logano's career in effect started by wiping out a group of cars in the Toyota All Star Race at Irwindale in 2009 and continued through a pathetic career with Joe Gibbs Racing - that career clearly has brought out a savagery in Hamlin as their feud since Logano went to Penske Racing has become perhaps THE story of the season so far.


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Except there are other stories right now.   NASCAR's Generation Six racecar has been criticized because it came out of box poorly at Daytona and Phoenix.   Since then, though, there was some decent racing at Vegas and a spirited affair at Bristol, and now comes Fontana's wildest finish ever.   This thing may actually start making believers out of people.

There is also the worn out nature of Fontana's asphalt, a fact that earned rave reviews from just about everyone from the TV broadcasters (if Andy Petree uses the word "character" again I'll explode) to Dale Earnhardt Jr, though he did complain about the bumpiness at the end of the backstretch. The idea that tracks need worn asphalt to put on good racing, though, seems a stretch after seeing good racing on new pavement at Pocono and elsewhere.

A curious aspect of the race is also Logano's Ford, which was missing the left corner of its front splitter - yet seemed to run better without it than with it.  

Another angle is that in the frantic finish Kyle Busch and Logano among several others did not get tires under the late caution - Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Dale Junior, and Hamlin were drivers who got fresh tires and bolted through  the field yet once they got there had nothing for the leaders.   I wonder what those drivers were thinking when they found the cars on old tires held them off despite fresh tires. 

In any event the Easter bye gives the sport something to chew on and also gives it reason for optimism about where it's going after all.