NASCAR begins its 2020 season with Daytona Speedweeks and controversy is already in mid-season form.
The Busch Clash began as "an analytics race," to quote Kurt Busch, as there was some spirited combat but also quite a bit of single file running to pound out laps and potentially stretch fuel. It turned ugly when Joey Logano threw two blocks on Kyle Busch and it ended in a big wreck. Yet it wasn't all as a gagged restart led to another crash, then more blockheaded Ernie Irvan-esque swerves among Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson left only six cars to finish - yet they still put on a rip-roaring finish as the battered Toyota of Erik Jones drafted to the win with huge slam-draft help from teammate Denny Hamlin.
The incidence of wrecks naturally left everyone outside of the race winner livid. But drivers know who's at fault - themselves. Drivers know holding their line better is a preferable option. NASCAR shouldn't want to enforce a no-blocking rule but it may come to that.
Others try to portray it as "what superspeedway racing has become." This though is an exercise in denial of responsibility. Claiming "the current package just has the packs too tightly wound together with a (draft) that is just too prominent" is excusing the drivers. The draft is supposed to be this strong, and the current wicker package has made the racing far better than it had been for a number of years. If anything the wicker needs to be added to more tracks - all of them truthfully. The intermediates and lower banked tracks like Pocono, Michigan, Indianapolis, etc. are supposed to be drafting tracks, certainly not to the same "extreme" as Daytona..........
.........but more like with the Modifieds at New Hampshire (here illustrated by the 2018 Eastern Propane 100), Indeed the history of Atlanta, Charlotte, Pocono, Michigan, and the old Ontario Motor Speedway were long drafting histories.
As for the short tracks, there's no drafting effect to be had but the short tracks also have aero impediment issues and the wicker by all accounts has killed the "beachball" aero impediment effect that has plagued the racing. I can't help but think having the wicker can help change aero impediment for the better at those places as well.
Matt Weaver's suggestion to run the Busch Clash at New Smyrna is his usual flippant annoyance, especially as short tracks are as prone to bad crashes as superspeedways and aren't that conducive to passing as shown in a pretty anticlimatic finish to the Skips 175, the first race of the revamped Eastern tour of NASCAR integrated into the ARCA division.
So Speedweeks 2020 is underway and we await more competitive excitement.
NASCAR's change of its 2020 schedule has moved the Firecracker 400 weekend from July to early September, making 2019 the last Independence Day weekend for the time being at Daytona. We suspect the date will return to its tradition sooner instead of later a la the Southern 500. But amid all that an unwelcome semi-tradition returned - rain. It affected the Chicago 400 last week and plagued the Firecracker 400 weekend as well.
It has led to the usual griping about the racing not being "racing," with a Clint Bowyer quote about how at Michigan he passed a car then four others passed him back. Ryan Preece then added, "It's not what we grew up doing.....(we were) throwing a car into a corner harder, not driving in as hard, using the brake, letting it roll and pick up the throttle sooner.....(where now)...We're wide open....it's not easy because you still have to find the balance of your car but that's what it is."
It's impossible to take Clint Bowyer's opinion seriously because he's objecting that rival drivers are passing him. This is what competition entails. As for Preece, he won twenty two times (for team owners Jan Boehler, Eric Sanderson, and Eddie Partridge) on the NASCAR Modified Tour, where the cars are far more secure to the track and thus open throttle able than regular fendered racecars - though an interesting caveat is in twenty three starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the tour's Daytona, he has seven top fives, five other top tens, 244 laps led - but is winless.
It brings to mind a scathing review of F1 and Indy 500 champion Jimmy Clark in Chris Economaki's bio LET 'EM ALL GO!
"....of every Formula One race that Clark competed in, you would find that he never passed anyone. He started on the pole in a Lotus and he left.
"When he was forced to battle wheel to wheel with someone, he invariably lost. I saw that at Riverside. Dan Gurney was driving Rollo Vollstedt's car and he beat Clark who was at the wheel of a superior machine.*** In 1963 (at the Indianapolis 500) Clark should have blown Parnelli Jones off and won the 500, but he didn't.
"Clark in my view was never comfortable with someone alongside him....to me he could not handle racing face to face with someone on the racetrack."
This has been manifestly true of a great many road racing drivers and also more than a few oval trackers - I've never been all that impressed for one with Bill Elliott, who certainly is a Hall of Fame champion but who always seemed to have a lower limit of combativeness on the racetrack. It bears repeating that not only did the 1998-2018 period of NASCAR showcase that the tracks with more horsepower and throttle response produced far lower incidence of passing than the plate races, but that a high number of quality drivers such as Rusty Wallace, Alan Kulwicki, Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne, Juan Montoya, Marcus Ambrose, and more recently Kyle Larson never won a "plate" race, where talent is ostensibly smothered.
The reality remains talent isn't being smothered, it's being exposed for what it is and what it is not.
That real talent comes from passing and repassing was showcased in the rain-plagued Firecracker 400 weekend.
It began when Brad Keselowski cheap shot William Byron - during practice - then afterward gave a confusing response stating he was angry at blocking and at crashing in a bevy of races the last few seasons. "I'm not going to lift," Keselowski stated.
Payback proved to be a Dani Beck when Kevin Harvick - famously benched for a race after a cheap shot in a Truck race in 2002 - after getting tagged off Two by Keselowski later let Keselowski have it - and the fans cheered. But the big mess came when Austin Dillon stormed into the lead, threw a massive block on Clint Bowyer, and Bowyer hooked him a la the Sterling Marlin-Bobby Allison crash at the similarly-flaky 1986 Talladega 500. The end result was Justin Haley, who'd stayed out when everyone else pitted, got a win nobody - least of all him - thought conceivable, especially as he'd been pretty much MIA all race. He is the first first-timer since Chase Elliott last season and the biggest upset winner maybe since Keselowski himself at the 2009 Winston 500.
The biggest upshot of the whole thing is the bizarre win is payback to NASCAR for its indefensible yellow line rule that cost Haley the 2018 Firecracker 250. And controversy was still circulating the day later over his team, Spire Motorsports, owned by the sport's largest driver agency and which put Haley in its #77 basically because Haley is one of their clients. The term "cash grab" has been used to describe Spire's tactics because the team was purchased from the remains of Barney Visser's former title winning team, and yet Spire didn't field an actual team, instead getting Premium Motorsports to do so. The company's co-founder Jeff Dickerson purchased the franchise because no one else tried to buy it.
Is there conflict of interest here? Frankly it seems no one knows with certainty, a point shown as Dave Moody recounts how Big Bill France raced in his sanctioning body's events and series sponsor RJR also sponsored Travis Carter's car in the 1990s - and it crosses over to Indycars where Marlboro sponsored races and the series as well as individual racecars, most famously Emerson Fittipaldi.
And suddenly the 2019 Winston Cup season, already by far more competitive and interesting than seasons of the last fifteen-plus seasons, gets more interesting.
*** 1967 Rex Mays 300, Riverside International Raceway. Gurney won after leading 68 laps; Clark fell out after 25 laps with a burned valve.
So Michael Self said to himself, "Self.....go for the win at Daytona." When it was all over, he did. A native of Utah - home of Mitt Romney and the singing group SheDaisy - he'd won in the K&N/Winston West series eight times - six in Chevrolets fielded by Jim Offenbach in 2012-13; after a four-year layoff he returned to K&N Winston West and won twice in Bob Bruncati Fords in 2017.
He has also raced in ARCA, winning on the zaniest restart ever seen at Kansas Speedway in 2016, driving the MDM #28. He switched to the Venturini squadron for 2017, but while the cars are different - he now races Venturini Toyotas - the winning is still the same.
As the showdown swelled forward Daytona suddenly was racing like it was 1984. Sheldon Creed is now wielding the powerful MDM #28, now like the Venturini fleet a Toyota, and sporting teammates Chase Purdy (in a #8 curiously resembling an old Dale Junior DEI Chevy) and #41 Zane Smith . Creed, however, was crossing swords and the sidedraft with Sean Corr, driving the Empire Racing Group #43, an ARCA team with a Richard Petty connection.
The #43 vs #28 showdown was swelling into an epic finish that got derailed by two wrecks, the first tearing asunder the day of Bret Holmes. The subsequent one-lap restart wiped out the leaders and opened the door for Self.
When it was all over Venturini racecars had three of the top five finishes and four of the top eight. Creed recovered from his mess to finish an astonishing third. One of the finishing Venturini Toyotas was polesitter Natalie Decker, who stole the early headlines thusly. Silly commentary praising Danica Patrick for "showing the way" followed, and the irony of that statement followed when Zane Smith stormed into the lead and Decker nearly T-boned some cars on two occasions on restarts - the incar camera footage here was genuinely unsettling. The second set-to so tore up her left front fender that she was dead meat until the spate of late yellows rescued her and numerous others. That she survived and finished so well is certainly noteworthy and in fact is moreso than anything Danica Patrick did.
The most striking aspect of the racing going forward is that Corr was stuck on the outside late - usually a dead lane as far as winning goes - but he produced something we haven't seen at Daytona or Talladega. Most often sidedrafting has been stopping passing, but Corr at the finish was able to rocket from third to a momentary lead in substantial part by sidedrafting reminiscent of Terry Labonte's 1999 BGN win at Talladega. NASCAR made a gear change before opening practice that promised to allow the cars to suck up in the draft more effectively.
That Corr and Creed's race to to the stripe was not declared the finish in this ARCA race showed anew the folly of not racing to the line for the finish of races when it is safe to do so. By instead rewinding and staging another green-white finish the race was torn asunder with more crashes. It thus put a damper on what was a worthwhile winner in Michael Self, and it was also an encouraging start to Speedweeks 2018.
The first half of NASCAR's debut season with Monster Energy sponsorship saw surprises galore and the second half kicks off in basically the same fashion. For Daytona International Speedway competitive rejuvenation could not be limited to February.
Things got off to a messy start, though, as rain stopped the Firecracker 250 for the Xfinity Series after just eight laps on Friday night - leading to the bizarre spectacle of racing being interrupted by the speedway's odd decision to schedule an ultimate fighting card in the infield; intended to follow the conclusion of the 250, the fight card wound up finishing up the night while the racing resumed the next afternoon.
The wait was worth it as newcomers swerved Joey Logano out of the lead and William Byron fought off Ryan Reid, while a lot of others got the worst of it at the end. Seeing Byron taking down the Cup guys in the Xfinity Series was a huge shot for the series, a series struggling with lack of TV money the same way the Trucks (and other NASCAR touring series) have been struggling.
NASCAR, though, still needs to work on deciding the outcome when the leaders have room to race to the flag - with writer Jeff Gluck expanding on this.
It was impossible not to feel a sense of cynicism when Dale Earnhardt Jr. - in his last Winston Cup run at Daytona - conveniently won the pole, and that isn't fair to Junior, who is not his dad and has never had the negative qualities that made his dad controversial (a fact swept under the rug for the last decade-plus by fans and media); Dale Junior is his own man and as such has carried himself with a level of professionalism that is refreshing and necessary for a sport that bizarrely obsesses itself with an ostensible lack of personality. His Daytona effort ended with Kevin Harvick's blown tire.
Joey Logano's version of the 24 Hours of Daytona ended the same way in the 400 as it did in the 250 - in a wreck, this one with Kyle Busch, who nonetheless stayed on the lead lap to the end. Combined with Martin Truex's involvement, and it illustrates there is a problem of lack of competitive depth for the Toyota squadron. The Toyotas have been well behind in overall results of the three marques and with just two teams - JGR and Barney Visser's two cars - the Toyotas are suffering compared to Chevy and Ford.
Not that the Toyotas lacked power, as shown in terrific combat for the lead for Stage Two bonus points. If Toyota had two more organizations in their fleet their depth would unquestionably benefit the entirety of the fleet.
The resurgence of Ford showed in Speedweeks and it showed again in a fittingly thrilling finish to a highly competitive race, and Ricky Stenhouse offered a sense of validation for his spectacular Winston 500 win, while David Ragan offered some validation for himself and his team. The most brilliant drive, though, may have been Darrell Wallace Jr. - a pitiful qualifying effort turned into a solid draft to the front and suddenly Richard Petty's #43 was in the hunt, and even battling Ryan Blaney's #21 in a NASCAR Time Tunnel moment.
Kyle Larson's swerve to chop off Stenhouse can be best described as ill-advised and the result was a late red flag. Darrell Wallace Jr. was one of the cars involved after he pitted under a previous yellow. To rally to finish fifteenth under the circumstances isn't something to be ashamed of; it certainly showed Wallace can race - big time - and it also leaves Petty's organization with a dilemma once Aric Almirola returns - one that a rumored merger with an existing team can solve.
Also earning respect were Chris Buescher and Corey LaJoie, quietly racing to the top-11. But the biggest validation may have been Michael McDowell, whose wildcard victory bid fell just short - an illustration of the competitive depth the sport has needed and needs to sustain.
****** Some of the big picture takeaways -
Ford is the strongest brand in the series with the most depth. Chevrolet got stronger than expected results from RCR while Hendrick is clearly no longer the juggernaut - and one has to start wondering whether Chase Elliott is improving because we're not seeing it right now - he runs good, but contention for the actual win is conspicuously missing of late.
RCR isn't the only struggling former juggernaut that has shown rebound - Stenhouse's win continues the resurgence of Roush Racing. Now they and the other Fords have to beat the Penskes on the non-plate tracks.
Stewart-Haas Racing appears to have slipped; while still stout SHR's fleet hasn't been the juggernaut some thought they'd be - and more and more the scuttlebutt is there will be a driver change at the expense of the inept Danica Patrick.
The next restrictor plate race won't be Talladega in October - the Xfinity Series debuts the restrictor plate and drag ducts at Indianapolis in three weeks, and suddenly an expected Kyle Busch runaway for an Xfinity Series race isn't a sure thing between the stronger drafting effect shown in testing and also the rise of William Byron into star status.
The sport's rejuvenation in the competition is needed and welcome, but also needed is a culture change away from the circle the wagons mindset that has long plagued the sport. The recent controversy over the Truck Series created by Kevin Harvick and several others is a step in the right direction, but some dissenting analysis always remains a necessity.
So it goes with fireworks unable to match the spectacle of the Firecracker 400.
NASCAR's Busch/Xfinity Series debuted a lighter downforce package and wound up raising more of the same questioning that has permeated NASCAR for the longest time as Daytona's Powershares 300 exploded and for the second time in three years Ryan Reed stole the win.
The two Daytona wins are the unquestioned highlight of a youngster whose overall career has yet to truly take off, with just eleven top-tens in 106 starts - though what this says about Roush Racing's collapse as a NASCAR power, especially since taking in John Henry as a team partner, is also worth keeping in mind.
The racing proved to be very competitive - when it appeared several times it would be an Elliott Sadler romp the yellows and the draft rolled back up and pushed into a spirited fight for the lead - but NASCAR's obsessions with loose racecars, stifling push-drafting (seeming to ignore of course that the drivers keep at it given it's the strongest power to pass one can ever get), and lack of downforce (the lightness of the cars and the shape of the bumpers of course is alluded to by Kevin Harvick above) bit in a big way as half the field failed to finish and the yellow flew a whopping ten times all told, with two red flags by the 30th lap.
Of course drivers cannot be let anywhere off the hook for causing these wrecks, best shown here when Scott Lagasse - who finished sixth, continuing a Speedweeks trend of eye-opening darkhorses grabbing quality efforts and results - tried to kick Tyler Reddick in the Ganassi-SABCO Chevy for a field goal; Spencer Gallagher wound up being one of some twenty swept up entering Three - you could call it a costly, unwanted, and futile Cris Dishman imitation blocking a kick.
The wrecks didn't end there - Daniel Hemric didn't impress anyone at the end of the first race segment as he got involved in the next big melee.
When it was all over the above-mentioned Speedweeks trend of eye-opening darkhorses showcased numerous quality finishes and also quality runs snuffed out by one reason or another. Consider good old "Smut" Means and driver Joey Gase finishing seventh - old-school NASCAR fans remember Jimmy Means as the ultimate hard-luck independent, his #52 always there, always sporting as much of a quality preparation as his seemingly-perennial limited resources could allow. Consider also Garrett Smithley and Harrison Rhodes in Johnny Davis' Chevrolets (teammate Ross Chastain was less fortunate), both quietly grabbing the top ten. While 14th may not be that spectacular, Michael Annett's 14th after major damage constitutes something he shouldn't be ashamed of - especially given how seriously injured he was in 2013's running.
NASCAR's bonus point structure for race stages made its Busch Series debut and as in the Truck 250 the previous night Segment Two was the calmer of the first two. In all it was somewhat hard to gauge how much more incentivized the drivers were to lead simply because the race flow was so ragged in Segment One - nonetheless it's clear the concept has indeed added needed incentive to go for the front and sooner rather than later.
So for the coming Atlanta NASCAR weekend racing has some answers regarding NASCAR's new bonus point structure - and reason for optimism for better competition as a result down the road. As for the Xfinity Series as well as their Truck brethren it was another slam-bang Speedweeks, another exercise in opportunity and frustration.
While it won't go down as the greatest Daytona race in the history of the Truck Series (2016's running ranks as number one or two) the 2017 Nextera Truck 250 saw awesome racing and also hair-raising melees and served as the first running of the new points incentives NASCAR has implemented with Monster Energy Drink's entry into sponsorship of the Winston Cup Grand National series.
NASCAR's new "stage" concept rewards bonus points for top-10 positions after two stages initiating the race, the two stages encompassing roughly the first half of each race. This incentive to go to the front early certainly showed itself with a spectacular 20-lap opening run following an early melee, the lead changing hands over and over and Christopher Bell making a stirring shot for the first segment win - a challenge torn asunder as shown here by Spencer Gallagher's curious Ernie Irvan imitation.
The melee at the end of Lap 20 appeared to spook the field, who pounded out laps for most of the second segment and the fight for the lead raged on and off until another Christopher Bell crash just as green flag stops began threw things into confusion.
Bell had a rough night - and still finished eighth. He wasn't the only driver with that roller coaster as John Hunter Nemechek crashed several times - and still finished third while his dad, who hasn't raced a whole lot the last three seasons, grabbed fourth - and ultimately the race came to a green-white-checker finish and what looked to be the most amazing finish in Daytona history instead became the biggest wreck of Speedweeks so far, a race that wiped out Johnny Sauter, Ben Rhodes, and Matt Crafton's amazing bid for the win - and left a surprised rookie in Kaz Grala - a native of Boston, MA, known in racing circles for the fiasco of the aborted Boston Indycar street race - as the youngest winner in NASCAR history.
It was a curious night for Grala, who led fourteen laps from the pole yet took a fairly distant back seat to the fight for the lead that raged during this night.
The chaos of the race leaves us with the following takes -
NASCAR's new stages clearly added some needed incentive to go for the lead early on - always a good thing for competition.
The Trucks showed noticeably better lane discipline than the Cup cars, due in large part because the draft is more effective with the Trucks, but also because the Truck racers are making push-drafting more and more effective within the excessive rules box NASCAR has put them in. This not only increased passing, it cut down markedly on the blocking that is becoming a problem in the Cup series.
And lost in everything were astonishing finishes by Austin Wayne Self and Chase Briscoe.
And so has begun NASCAR's brave new world of bonus points for race stages - and it leaves one wondering how the rest of Speedweeks - and of 2017 - will play out.
We now have the first true eye-openers of Speedweeks 2017.
The first shocker was Chase Elliott storming to the win in the first 150 after such a poor effort in the Busch Clash. It also broke up the expected dominance of Penske Racing's Fords and Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas; Kyle Busch in particular suffered when the field almost wrecked amid heavy blocking; also waylaid was Paul Menard, who'd quietly stormed into contention. The other Fords also acquitted themselves - Stewart-Haas was expected to be stout, lesser expectation was applied to the Petty-Roush trio but those Fords ran strong as well; it was actually disappointing Aric Almirola and Trevor Bayne finished out of the top five.
But the bigger shocker came even though Denny Hamlin winning at Daytona doesn't come across as a surprise - the surprise was that he stormed past Dale Earnhardt Jr., returning to NASCAR after sitting out half the season recovering from a concussion. Junior grabbed the lead early and then got into a spirited sidedraft fight with Denny Hamlin. After a midrace yellow Ryan Blaney made a hard challenge to Junior; the challenge got very chippy as at one point Blaney faked out Junior and dove to the bottom and inches ahead but got no drafting help. It thus appeared Junior would cruise to another qualifying race win - except Hamlin got the drafting push and stormed to the win just before the white flag.
So with the 500 field now set, some quick takes -
The upsurge in blocking in plate races nearly caused at least one melee in the 150s, contributed to the Hamlin-Keselowski crash in the Busch Clash, and is becoming a problem for NASCAR between stifling passing - the drivers' on-track goal, naturally - and also the potential for crashes beyond the two-car set-to in the Clash. Drivers of course also tried to push-draft; it's worth noting when they could do it with authority there wasn't much if any blocking, so it constitutes the ultimate mixed bag for everyone involved. Even with that there was noticeably more lead changing in the 150s than in the Clash, an encouraging sign for Speedweeks.
The Hendrick, JGR, and Penske fleets grabbed the Thursday gold, but numerous teams acquitted themselves more than respectably - the Petty-Roush alliance showed drafting fight - Aric Almirola in particular curiously commenting before the race about need for more fight on his part - while the RCR Chevrolets may have been the biggest surprise, as very little was expected here yet Austin Dillon pushed Hamlin to the late lead and finished well in his 150 while teammates Newman and Menard largely unnoticed proved they can surge to the front. The Ganassi-SABCO Chevrolets also showed fight, especially Jamie McMurray in spots looking like Donnie Allison in the #1.
The SHR Fords as expected were stout; the biggest surprise has been Danica Patrick, who followed up a 4th in the Clash with 7th in her 150. The return of Clint Bowyer to the front after his miserable lameduck year of 2016 was certainly welcome.
Dark horses were in evidence as well - Cole Whitt, Ty Dillon, former Firecracker 400 and Winston 500 winner David Ragan, the above-mentioned Ryan Blaney, and Ty Dillon mixed it up respectably all night.
Decidedly unimpressive was JGR rookie Daniel Suarez, who'd run second for much of the Clash but looked like a rookie from Jump Street in the 150s.
NASCAR ended the first half of the 2016 season with a surprising result at Sears Point
and now it enters the second half across the country back at Daytona.
Tony Stewart's win was unexpected given he hadn't won in three years and frankly looked like a driver with one foot out the racecar for good. But like Jeff Gordon in 2015 he goes out with at least one win.
Stewart's win will be the headline story entering the Firecracker 400 weekend and the sport as usual has a number of issues to look at for this race as well as some bottom lines established in a season considered pivotal in some circles with the rule changes made to bolster sagging popularity.
A look at the varied angles entering Daytona -
Will the rain actually stay away this time? - the Firecracker weekend has been plagued with rain two straight seasons now.
Stewart-Haas gathers momentum against Hendrick, JGR, and Penske - Since Martin Truex exterminated the competition at Charlotte, SHR has won two of the last three races, a surprising development with the switchover to Ford for 2017. Speaking of Ford, SHR's future nameplate allies Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have combined for three wins to go with two Hendrick wins, both by Jimmie Johnson.
This leaves JGR's Toyotas with seven wins and the Barney Vissar #78 with the Charlotte win, though the rule changes at Charlotte curiously have seen a bit of a slip for JGR ensue.
And with those four, it's left nothing for anyone else. Kyle Larson turned heads with three top-fives and 103 laps led in Ganassi's #42 Chevrolet, but is 20th in points despite finishing in the top-15 more frequently in recent races. That's been it as far as any kind of darkhorse. RCR, Roush, and Petty are going nowhere and the season shows no evidence any darkhorse will emerge.
The Five Best races this year prove NASCAR's low downforce package can't be called a success - The five best races this year in chronological order - The Nextera Truck 250 at Daytona, the ARCA General Tire 200 at Talladega, the Toyota Truck 250 at Kansas, the Indianapolis 500, the Rattlesnake Truck 400k at Texas. In all the battle for the lead was huge, at times unusually physical. Daytona's Truck 250 saw its most competitive running (26 official lead changes) since 2002. The ARCA Talladega 200-miler was almost a continuous sidedraft war for the lead. The Indianapolis 500 exploded to 54 lead changes, the fifth straight 500 to hit 34 and above and the second in four years to break 50. The Trucks at Kansas and Texas were side-by-side for the lead for prolonged stretches, and Kansas in particular was a physical race where the leaders crashed on the final lap.
For good measure Indy Lights at the Brickyard saw a spirited fight for the lead in the Freedom 100 and ended in a photo finish, this for racecars running at speeds much closer to what NASCAR runs there than what Indycars hit. And ARCA's Daytona 200 was a calm race but also saw a surprising and spirited 13-lap sidedraft fight for first.
And the common denominator to all of these races - the racecars are secure to the racetrack; they do not have more power than what the track can handle relative to how much grip the cars have; they have enough tire to race hard on without having to "catch" the car.
NASCAR has promoted the hell out of its low downforce package and in the last month has worked on the undersides of the racecars to attack chassis "skew" and reduce downforce more. And it hasn't worked. Driver praise of the feel of the racecars tries to obscure the obvious - the racing just isn't there. The one memorable Cup race so far was Dover, thanks to a surprisingly forgiving tire, one that evoked memory of the bias-ply days when the drivers had more tire footprint and teams didn't need "skew" or excessive camber and all the other tricks for grip necessitated by a radial tire that refuses to be forgiving.
The upshot is also that since the finish of the 2015 Daytona 500 the racing at the plate tracks hasn't been as good as it should be, either. The 500 this year was lethargic until Kevin Harvick blasted Denny Hamlin into the lead on the final lap. The Winston 500 was better, but it was too hard to pass and too hard to push-draft there as well. The Xfinity series at both tracks likewise was less than competitive by Daytona-Talladega standards.
It all shows NASCAR - yet again - has it wrong.
With 200 MPH the cars are not staying on the ground - Talladega saw three cars get off the ground and a lot of gnashing ensued about it, with seemingly no one noticing this is happening with the speeds over 200 MPH again. People are still spooked over Austin Dillon's crash at the Firecracker - at about 3 in the morning - and they should be; so why is NASCAR letting the cars reach 200 again? Haven't we seen that 190 is enough?
The most competitive NASCAR series is the Truck Series - And the Truck Series is seeing the emergence of a new star in William Byron. Driving for Kyle Busch, Byron started slowly with mediocre or worse efforts at Daytona and Atlanta, then exploded after a third at Martinsville to seize the Toyota Truck 250 at Kansas -
NASCAR's newest rising star - William Byron
Following Kansas Byron stormed to wins at Texas and Iowa and has led 299 laps so far.
Meanwhile another Kyle Busch Toyota broke through at Gateway in Christopher Bell, who started the year bending over backwards at Daytona and has been curiously erratic between one win and four other top-tens amid two wrecks and one engine failure.
Christopher Bell's star-crossed season started with a bang at Daytona.
The series has also seen old pros Johnny Sauter in Maury Gallagher's Chevrolet and Matt Crafton in the Duke Thorson/Curb Motorsports Toyota grab victories; for Crafton the season has been doubly bittersweet after the fire that gutted the primary Thorsport race shop in mid-season.
The Xfinity Series trudges on - Bled dry by nearly two decades of Cup driver pillaging of its purses, the former Busch Series nonetheless this year saw two surprises - Daniel Suarez's shocking upset of Kyle Busch at the Michigan 250 and Sam Hornish's win at Iowa. Returning to JGR on an emergency basis, Hornish cleaned house at Iowa for his first Xfinity win since 2014 at this same track.
Hornish's win was one of a surprising five by non-Cup drivers in the Xfinity series this year. Erik Jones has two wins so far while Elliott Sadler in the mess of Talladega in April has the win Brennan Poole was supposed to have. Other than that it's more Cup more of the time.
And for Funny Comedy Gags, consider John Wes Townley and Spencer Gallagher's imitation of a hockey game at Gateway.
NASCAR's yellow line rule for Daytona and Talladega - where passing below the line is ruled illegal - has been in place since the Winston 500 of 2001, when NASCAR implemented it following the Busch Series 300 and a loud protest by Jimmy Spencer.
At least that's the "official" version; the more underground explanation is it was a bone tossed to drivers amid a rumored mass park-out in the 500 to protest NASCAR's roof blade aero package; said parkout never happened.
But the question remains - is it really wise to have a yellow-line rule?
Tony Stewart passes several cars below the yellow line at the start of the final lap
After getting drafted back to about 13th in the 1996 Daytona 500 we see Dale Earnhardt passing in what would be today declared below the yellow line
When Earnhardt and Ernie Irvan battle side by side for the lead Terry Labonte blows past them both by diving below what today is the yellow line
The wild finish to the 1999 Daytona 500 saw plenty of passing below what is today the yellow line
Then there is the most famous example - Junior passing on the apron of Turn Three in 2003
As seen in these examples and also by such dubious yellow-line penalties as Tony Stewart in 2001 (Firecracker 400) and Regan Smith in the 2008 Diehard 500, one has to dispute the sagacity of having a yellow line rule - one is hard pressed to see where it serves any purpose.
The 2016 Nextera 250 for the Truck Series had it all. And when it was over - well past the expected time, frustratingly common to NASCAR races - Johnny Sauter and team owner Maury Gallagher had stormed to a spectacular win in a spectacular race. There was a lot to view in this fight and three things stood out above everything else -
NASCAR's caution clock actually made the racing better
- Everyone scoffed at NASCAR's caution clock for the Truck Series, but in the Nextera 250 something eye-popping happened - the racers fought to beat the clock, not only in going harder than expected for the lead, but diving into the pits with one minute to go before the caution. It disproved the theory going in that the caution clock would lessen incentive to race hard, that drivers would ride and wait for the yellow to get work on their racing machines. For Atlanta and going forward we still have to wait and see and the concept remains gimmicky, but it's clear for now the caution clock surprisingly added legitimate incentive to race hard and thus beat the clock - and the Truck Series has produced some spirited battles on intermediates the last five or so seasons, thus adding more optimism about this change going forward.
The racers made push-drafting effective again - Last year the Xfinity series started making push-drafting at the plate races effective again within the absurd rules box NASCAR has put them in. The Trucks at Daytona have struggled for years to produce more passing, but now they finally made the push-draft work again. Not only did the outside line - which has long been something of a liability for the Trucks at Daytona - kick in and storm into the lead, push-drafting gave the racers reason to stop blocking each other, a problem that has gotten more noticeable in the Cup series. Not that it stopped blocking altogether - far from it; several times Johnny Sauter nearly got waylaid into the wall entering Three by Trucks trying to get into the front of his drafting line.
Of course if you live by push-drafting you can die by it, and the two big melees of the night exploded as a result of ill-pressed push-drafts, the nastiest of which ruined Christopher Bell's spirited race for the win and ended in a vicious tumble almost scarier than Austin Dillon's dead-stop spearing of the fencing last July.
Sauter makes Chevrolet history - Sixteen previous tries, zero wins. Back in 1977 Talladega promoted the Winston 500 by asking whether a Chevrolet would finally win there; Darrell Waltrip made the answer Yes in that race; Johnny Sauter finally put Chevrolet in Daytona's victory lane in a Truck race this time; previously the closest a Chevy had come to winning was 2000 when Andy Houston stormed to the lead on the final lap but Mike Wallace and Kurt Busch stormed back in the final mile for the win.
The win was Sauter's eleventh career Truck win, first with a team other than Curb Motorsports, and first in a Chevrolet since 2011 at Miami. It was also curiously reminiscent of his 2013 Talladega win, a wildly competitive race that also saw a vicious last-lap tumble.
Other notable performances - Former Indycar driver Shigeaki Hattori entered the #81 for Ryan Truex and Truex came from nowhere to finish second.
Super runs by Cameron Hayley - who always seemed to get forearmed out of the way as he reached the lead - and Grant Enfinger disintegrated in the big melee with seven to go.
Daniel Suarez kept trying to make the extreme outside line work and never could, and he got eliminated in the wreck before the finish.
The last-lap melee ruined a quietly stout night for John Hunter Nemechek.
After the encouraging start to Speedweeks with the ARCA 200 and the Shootout last week, we now enter the meat of the weekend with one feature winner down and two to go.
The former Busch Clash became another Busch Bash as Daytona Speedweeks kicked off and a frustrating race produced a pile of wrecked racecars and a third win in this event for Denny Hamlin. It was ten years ago Hamlin first won this race in his debut ride with JGR and some things didn't change, except for all the "kids" who now comprise his pit crew and engineering squad.
Some takes on this event -
The Shootout hasn't been a particularly good gauge of late for the 500, as JGR has monopolized this race the last five seasons yet hasn't gotten anything out of it for the rest of Speedweeks. Joe Gibbs' Toyotas exploded to life in the second half of 2016 but now the team has to prove it in the 500, something it hasn't done in the ten years Hamlin has been part of this outfit.
It was a terrible start for Hendrick Motorsports, which monopolized the 500 last year until the final twenty laps turned into the fight for the lead it was supposed to be from Lap One onward. All three Hendrick honchos crashed out and were curiously timid as far as trying for the lead went.
Going for the lead was the ugliest part - only three drivers led and it was doubly frustrating as drivers strained to make push-drafting work - this after Frank Kimmel got a push-draft to pass some five cars on the last lap of the ARCA 200 in his futile effort to catch John Wes Townley. The lead actually changed hands numerous times thanks to all the restarts and for all the inability to seize the lead the draft looked strikingly effective, albeit hindered but all those "bubbles of air" discussed throughout the telecast. After the competitive apex of 2012 the Shootout has been in a rut but this one had some very good racing and moments worth remembering.
The ARCA 200 was surprisingly good, and John Wes Townley earned props after an amazing 13-lap sidedraft battle for the lead near halfway. It turned out to be overall almost better than the Shootout; combined the two made for a very good raceday.
Ganassi-Earnhardt Racing will remember this one for awhile as Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson showed the only muscle outside of Brad Keselowski and Hamlin. They were the only Chevrolets worth a damn all night, this even though Paul Menard and Austin Dillon managed decent finishes - for Menard there was a shot at a wildcard victory bid but it wasn't much of a shot, and Dillon's finish said more about the crashes than about Dillon's increasingly-dubious potential as a racer. Of the five Fords, Keselowski and Logano ran strong as usual and that was largely it - the Roush Fords were pretty much junk and Greg Biffle got junked, yet survived enough for a decent finish; Aric Almirola ran decent and looked like a top-10 finisher until the Kahne set-to down the backstretch clipped him with numerous others.
Tony Stewart is not here due to his back injury and it's probably just as well after Brian Vickers got trashed despite some decent fight; his teammates also got it and weren't around at the end. It was also another Danica Patrick race - a top-10 run for a few laps then she folded like tissues, the only surprise being she dodged the wrecks until the very end.
NASCAR debuted its "overtime line" to determine the finishing order of a green-white-checker finish, yet what resulted was yet further proof NASCAR has no clue - it decided to allow the racers to race to the stripe after the last-lap crash, then decided entering Turn Three to throw the yellow.
In all the 2016 running of the Shootout was pretty much like the previous three -a good raceday but with unencouraging moments - a mixed bag for certain.
There are many reasons why the heart grows fonder. In racing the passage of time has that effect perhaps like no other sport. Seeing Richard Petty's #43 return to victory at Daytona International Speedway, regardless of the rainy circumstances, showcases what he means to racing, because where Daytona has showcased the excellence of David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Dale Jarrett, Sterling Marlin, and others and they have more than proven themselves as genuine competition heroes, Petty's absence from winning was still wrong.
Richard did what others have not done - made an entire sport his showcase and made it a positive one. His rivals in Pearson, Cale, the Allisons, Buddy Baker, Isaac, Benny Parsons, AJ Foyt (his equal and then some in Indycar racing), Fred Lorenzen, and others all need no justification as Hall Of Fame racers and people who made racing excellence for all involved; indeed together they grew the sport at least as much as the Frances and others involved in its gestation such as the Vogts, Joe Littlejohn, John Holman and Ralph Moody, the Wood Brothers, the Ranier family (Lorin still wields influence on Jamie McMurray's Chevrolet and that car runs strong as a result), Clay Earles, the Mattiolis, and more than can be remebered off-hand here.
Yet Richard Petty was able to go an extra mile in integrating with all involved as well as going the extra mile to win. He combined guile with aggressiveness and at his best he was amazing to watch wheeling that blue and red Dodge through traffic for the lead.
For all of its faults, racing offers enormously in terms of competitive virtue, and the 2014 Firecracker 400 offered some excellent racing as the battle for the lead was a true battle. The criticism that racefans want to see the wrecks got examples for certain, notably Kyle Busch's set-to with nineteen others near what was the race's end. The battle between Kurt Busch and Petty's driver Aric Almirola was as good a bout of racing as the sport has seen in 2014; even more impressive has been Almirola's surge after a patch of poor results that was at times ugly. He resurrected himself at Kentucky until a mid-race melee swept him up, and now he's taken the next step.
Of course there's the next step beyond that - winning again, and again. Pocono has a Petty history as do Michigan, Atlanta, Martinsville, Charlotte, and Talladega. Almirola now has to take that next step, but now we can see he has that ability. And now we can say - for one week anyway - racing order has been restored.
As Speedweeks fades into the past, it's worth remembering what went right. For all the justified criticism NASCAR gets, it's worth cherishing when things go right. And Speedweeks 2014 was indeed an exercise in great racing. So what went right?
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The track changed with the rain - Until the 500 the racing had been defined by one-line racing - the top line was the line to run for the Cup cars, while the bottom was the fast line for the Busch Series and the Trucks. But with the rain, the track changed - the entire top/bottom dichotomy disappeared as the track got grippier. The result was the leaders could stay side by side and it almost didn't matter which line cars ran.
The Trucks forced the top line to move - The Nextera 250 for the Trucks was the classic tale of two halves - the first half was a single-file parade where the only battle was for 11th; after Lap 51 however all hell broke loose as Kyle Busch and Timothy Peters got to the lead and fought it out heading a 20-plus Truck slugfest ultimately won by Busch.
Some striking trivia from this race - Chevrolet is 0-for-lifetime in Daytona's Truck races.
The racers had no choice but to go for the lead - Drivers in preseason were asked about how hard they're trying and several claimed they were trying as hard as they could. The irony is the rain and threat of its return showed they can try a helluva lot harder; with the drivers racing first for halfway and then for whenever the race might end, the battle for the lead was the most amazing in a Cup race seen in years.
Restrictor plate racing is still superior racing - An overlooked bit of trivia - 2014 was the fourth time in the last seven runnings the Daytona 500 broke 40 official lead changes, and a related fact.........
The best racing is when the draft is more important than handling - This was a Speedweeks where the draft and handling were jostling pretty intensely all week; NASCAR's spoiler changes worked okay here; the bigger spoiler change for the intermediates won't get its first tests until March at Vegas and Fontana; here NASCAR hopes the draft becomes more important.
NASCAR proved anew it learns nothing while doing something when it announced it will outright ban tandem drafting for Speedweeks. "If your bumpers lock up, you are going to get black flagged," said Busch Series Director Wayne Auton. "That's going to be the rule, and we're going to stick with it."
Of course that's never been how NASCAR does things, as officiating that ignores what the rules ostensibly say has never been a rarity (see Dale Junior's "illegal" pass on the apron at Talladega in 2003 among many examples over the years) and it is one of the major issues people have with the sanctioning body - the favoritism periodically shown. Of course there has always been the "It" List by the France family toward certain participants, such as Harry Hyde, the Woods, Hoss Ellington, Gary Nelson, the Elliotts, and the Pettys. Given the difficulties in sports officiating it overall has worked out well but still has needed addressing.
Apart from all that, the whole opposition to tandem drafting stopped making sense once one became used to the practice. Moreover, the big negative that existed with tandem drafting - the push-car obstinately refusing to pass the leader once a tandem got in the clear - has been disappearing as the practice has evolved. The Truck 250 at Talladega last October was one of the most amazing races in years and it showcased how tandem drafting has been evolving - a tandem would take the lead, then the push-vehicle would bail out and pass the leader, plus conventional drafts were able to regroup and catch up to tandems.
Tandem drafting is the strongest power to pass racing has ever seen; not only have lead changes skyrocketed with the tandems, they have allowed gigantic comeback runs for drivers - no longer is losing the lead draft a race-ender; with tandems two cars would be half a lap back and in a few laps had taken the lead.
Banning the tandems has no reason other than NASCAR's fundamental problem that it can't bring itself to understand when to leave things alone. Meddling simply doesn't work, in life or sports, yet NASCAR has a ridiculous disease of feeling the need to meddle instead of letting the competitors compete. This meddlesome disease explains the absurd rules the sanctioning body has - closing pit road when the yellow comes out, "speed limits" that are justified in the name of safety that ignore the lack of excessive risk of pre-1989 pit rules, "out of bounds" lanes on restrictor plate tracks (and tellingly nowhere else), and deciding running orders by arbitrary scoring loops instead of the start-finish line, thus giving the officiating tower more control that is warranted over the racing.
NASCAR continues to learn nothing while it does something. It needs to be the other way around for a change.
The Daytona 300 ran Saturday afternoon and it was by far the most exciting race of Speedweeks, an epic battle where a race-record 20 drivers led and the lead changed 34 times - it also proved to be the most frightening. A massive fight for the lead that raged on and off all day turned into a huge crash and a violent flight into the trioval fencing by rookie Kyle Larson, already involved in several scrapes in Late Model and Modified action earlier in the week on Daytona's new backstretch bullring. Larson tumbled into the fencing, then the nose of his car inexplicably snagged the crossover gate and the engine was ripped out of the car, sending one tire flying some ten rows into the main stands. Larson's #32 tumbled to a stop, a crash reminiscent of the fatal Don McTavish melee near that same trioval in 1969's Daytona 300.
The sheer violence of the melee muted celebration of the race win by Tony Stewart, a record seventh Grand National Sportsman win at Daytona and sixth in the 300's last seven runnings. Some fourteen spectators were hospitalized; reportedly two were critical but had been upgraded to stable by 11 PM Saturday night, and Sunday morning it appeared all were stable.
The crash has brought about the inevitable discussion about spectator closeness to the racing surface as well as the safety of the sport. Some have taken the expected shots that it was a restrictor plate crash, and reviews of this crash naturally brings comparison to past melees in NASCAR history.
But criticisms of restrictor plate racing in this discussion ignore as always similar crashes on local bullrings over the years - this writer witnessed at the 2001 season finale at Thompson Speedway a crash in Turn Three where several spectators were injured - as well as at the Cup level - crashes such as Brad Keselowski's melee with Carl Edwards in 2010 at Gateway and his tumble at Atlanta in 2010 were closer calls than most realize and the epidemic of injuries in the sport has almost entirely taken place on non-plate tracks - such as Sterling Marlin's near-fatal crash at Kansas in 2002, the 2000-01 epidemic of fatalities at New Hamsphire, Texas, and Charlotte, Jerry Nadeau's vicious crash at Richmond in 2003, and Bobby Hamilton's last-lap Richmond Truck race melee that wound up cutting short his season - to cite a few examples.
Cited has been Carl Edwards' bitter mocking comment about his 2009 Talladega crash where he blamed NASCAR for "putting us in this box," ignoring that his crash took place with four cars separated from the rest of the field. Such criticisms are a case of assigning blame to everything except the performance levels of the racecars.
The fencing at Daytona and other tracks will be reinforced, though one has to nonetheless ask whether making the fences stronger may wind up being counterproductive - it may not necessarily be such a slam-dunk good idea.
Even though they are restricted, the speed of the cars should not be ignored, with speeds 194 and above now common and trap speeds at 200 being recorded. The idea that another 10 MPH can be taken out of the speeds shouldn't be dismissed.
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It put a damper on the best race of Speedweeks, a race that bucked some trends of this Speedweeks. All week long the complaint was the high groove was the only fast groove, but in the Daytona 300 the opposite was the case. The race saw plenty of the tandem drafting missing from the Cup cars and which the Trucks on Friday night made a real effort to revive - this made possible the 34 lead changes, far more in this one race than seen for all of Speedweeks (and another indictment of the rules myopia of Brian France and the Cup cars).
The Joe Gibbs Toyotas (Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Elliott Sadler, and Brian Vickers) proved to be the strongest cars (Vickers to a far lesser extent than the others) for much of the day - so much so as to be surprisingly almost unpassable until in the race's second half Regan Smith and others finally forced past the JGR fleet. Smith wound up suffering the biggest heartbreak as he blew into the lead on the final lap and had the race won until getting blasted head-on into the trioval wall. It was the gift for Tony Stewart, who'd lost the draft earlier and was only able to gain third on the final lap before the wreck.
Also star-crossed was Michael Annett in Richard Petty's #43, who bounced up and down the field and pushed all the way to second and was still in the fight until he sideswiped Austin Dillon and a major melee erupted. Curiously it is the second straight Daytona Grand National Sportsman race he and Dillon have tangled in a major crash.
There was inevitable over-coverage of Danica Patrick, who led briefly then faded before falling out with engine failure. Hyped because she is running Winston Cup in 2013, Patrick has garnered foolishly positive press coverage despite poor effort in the racing itself - the story of her major league racing career from 2005 onward.
For what it's worth, a bizarre coincidence also comes to mind - this is the second time a Speedweeks has been haunted by a bad crash in a year where the Baltimore Ravens won the Superbowl (even more ironic with Ray Lewis named honorary starter for the 500).
NASCAR met its worst nightmare on Saturday. Though it was very close, it nonetheless escaped it.
The renamed Daytona Shootout was won by Kevin Harvick in rather uncompetitive fashion and it constituted the debut of NASCAR's "Generation Six" racecar as well as a tweaked rules package for the aerodynamics intended to eliminate any vestige of tandem drafting from the 2009-12 period.
This goal was debuted in 2012 and while overheating issues got in the way, tandem drafting wound up winning Daytona's races anyway - but with a huge drop in competitive depth for the series with a forgettable Daytona 500 and a dismal Firecracker 400 marred by the biggest Daytona wreck in decades. The 2013 Shootout - dubbed The Sprint Unlimited - proved very limited as far as competitive racing goes.
At some point the Race Stream Media - the most pliant in pro sports - needs to start calling out NASCAR for the fundamental absurdity of these rules packages and the premise behind them. Lack of passing proved 2012's approach didn't work; 2013's Shootout proved this anew but with greater effect. Without the tandems and with less downforce, the drivers couldn't race.
And chances are the difference in competitive depth will be even more pronounced when the Nationwide Series, which produced three of the six best NASCAR races of 2012 - the other three were the Diehard 500 and the two NASCAR Modified 100-lappers at New Hampshire - hits Daytona's high banks. The three plate races for the N'wide Series run the package that allows near-unlimited tandem drafting and it produced a combined 117 lead changes in those three races, including race records for Daytona.
As it is, what NASCAR and the manufacturers should be doing is reverting to the long snout, lean, raked roofline aerocoupe bodies of yore, not pushing the same top-heavy sedan bodies they've been racing for over six years. As far as the overall rules package with the cars, NASCAR should bring back the roof blade, shave some bumper off to allow air to flow better (and get rid of the "beachball" aeropush discussed in these Generation Six cars), go back to a six-inch rear spoiler, and make it out of the clear plastic used on the rear spoiler of many Late Model and Pro Stock short track cars and also on the Cup cars' "sharkfin" atop the rear glass - a constant gripe in the tandem drafting period was drivers couldn't see through the spoiler out the front windshield of the lead car in a tandem; it remains puzzling why switching to clear plastic spoilers hasn't been explored.
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Among the individual racers in the Shootout, apart from race winner Kevin Harvick, challenger Tony Stewart, and early dominator Matt Kenseth in his debut in Stewart's former JGR #20, the only drivers who stood out were Greg Biffle (race runner up), Joey Logano in his debut with Penske Racing, and a sixth place run for Richard Petty's #43 and Aric Almirola, who was abysmal most of 2012 but who salvaged something in a quiet but solid effort.
Curiously undercompetitive were the Hendrick Chevrolets; Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon crashed out after struggling to stay up with the leaders while Dale Junior was hardly inspiring en route to seventh and Kasey Kahne didn't impress anyone, either.
It was a fitting end to a Shootout that was propelled by a new racecar and a rules package that conspired to ruin the competitive quality of the racing all because Brian France has a personal and irrational dislike of tandem drafting.
If you think you've seen these outcomes before in recent years, you have. It's been a deja vu season in NASCAR with outcomes identical to 2008 and 2009. But if it's been deja vu, it's also been deja screw, as we're seeing the outcome of bad ideas all season again.
While the Firecracker 250 was awesome the 400 was only memorable for Tony Stewart's perposterous rally after being over half a lap down, needing a mid-race yellow to catch back up, then seeing himself and Kyle Busch using sidedrafting to stop what were the otherwise-unstoppable Matt Kenseth/Greg Biffle tandem from winning. With NASCAR insisting on the small spoiler and giving only a minor concession to allow radiators to cool the cars, the drivers had to breathe the cars instead of race, and they were obviosuly not handling, especially with the top line never coming in all night. The result was an abysmal race. A huge number of cars were torn up, but this is to be expected of competitive racing.
The fact remains Brian France's hatred of tandem racing hurt the quality of competition in the Cup series; that he refuses to get it shows his lack of qualification for his job.
Further showing the absurdity of NASCAR is the two crashes involving pit road. First came Jeff Gordon sideswiping Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne, spinning them into the parked car of Brad Keselowski. Why NASCAR insists on closing pit road when the yellow comes out and throwing everyone in at once remains mystifying. Pit incidents like this didn't happen before March 1989 (the month NASCAR began closing pit road under caution); drivers dove into the pits when they wanted to when the yellow flew; pit crowding was far less frequent. NASCAR began closing the pits under yellow because of scoring/pace car issues at the 1989 Atlanta 500.
The second incident was the ten-car wreck near the end when Kenseth and others slammed on their brakes to enter the pits at the mandatory speed limit. Wrecks like that (involving Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon most notably) have happened before when leaders slow to enter the pits under the speed limit; I'm amazed they don't happen more often. The better alternative (in addition to leaving pit road open when the yellow comes out) is not to have pit speed limits; Kenseth et al should have been able to dive into the pits at speeds under their control - once again we have a scenario where NASCAR's mania to control the racing makes things more unsafe.
