No, Separating The Cars Is Not Safer

This was initially published July 7, 2015, and has been periodically updated as of August 2018:

The Austin Dillon crash at the 2015 Firecracker 400 and the last-lap tumble at the MAV-TV California Indy 500 at Fontana a week earlier have renewed criticism of "pack racing" and "restrictor plate racing" and how the cars should not be as bunched up as they are. This criticism was renewed in 2017 after two-thirds of the field at the Rainguard Indy 600k at Texas crashed and Sebatstain Bourdais exploded in anger at "b******t racing...we can't race like this." The argument has always been "We have to separate the cars, because it's safer."

No, it isn't......

.....and Sebastian Bourdais' own crash proves him an idiot and hypocrite.


We've seen it at Atlanta on the old oval layout with the Steve Grissom crash tearing open the concrete, while the new layout hasn't lacked big crashes as seen in March 2015 and the most infamous one of all, when Carl Edwards turned into an assassin on Brad Keselowski, not only at Atlanta, but then in even more savage form at Gateway. The most celebrated Atlanta race of all - the 1992 Dixie 500 - also tore up a bunch of cars.

We've also seen it at Charlotte in this compilation of recent wrecks and also in these two wrecks from the 1994 All Star race and also the Ricky Craven melee in 1996 and also the even more vicious Ernie Irvan melee that same year. Charlotte melees never seemed to stop.

And the beginning at Texas Motor Speedway became infamous for its wrecks, lowlighted by October 2000's O'Reilly 400 for the Trucks that included Derrike Cope's enormous melee. Texas also saw the famous 2008 Michael McDowell tumble.

And it isn't limited to places like that, as Bristol is famous for crashes, as seen in this cheesy compilation,  in Mike Bliss's crash that sliced open the fencing on the frontstretch, and David Green's melee.  Bristol's history with big wrecks has been pretty long as evidenced by this 1998 disaster and the track's most celebrated finish.

Most people remember Austin Dillon plowing into the fencing at Daytona in July 2015 - forgotten is Ben Kennedy trying to slice out fencing at Kentucky a week later.  

Some have suggested running the Daytona road course instead of the oval - except it isn't a good idea. Heck, running road courses isn't a good idea as shown here and also with yet another self-important Ryan Newman soliloquy after 2014's melee.

Fans go gaga over the kind of road course melees they whine about on superspeedways - and with far lower incidence of passing than on superspeedways


NASCAR isn't the only one with this myopia about the dangers of pack racing versus non-pack racing. Indycar at Toronto for one sees melees that are really vicious with the Jeff Krosnoff melee the most infamous. The 1995 running saw a lot of nasty melees and RC Enerson recently saw a vicious melee there as well.

Toronto isn't the only such venue where bad crashes have happened - one of the worst was Dario Franchitti's career-ending melee. Franchitti also got into the air in a big way in Kentucky's non-pack race in 2007.

Serious driver injuries hit again in late August 2015 at Indycar's ABC Supply 500 at Pocono, a disaster that claimed the life of Justin Wilson in a crash he otherwise wasn't even involved in - the Sage Karam crash.

This cheesy compilation shows multiple bad Indycar wrecks, only one of which shown here can be called a "pack" crash.

The dark days of 2000-2001 saw the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin (both at New Hampshire), Tony Roper, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Blaise Alexander.   2002 was slightly better, except for a near-fatal crash for Sterling Marlin and a huge crash for Tony Stewart at Darlington.

And in April 2017 at Doington Park in England, F4 racer Billy Monger lost both legs in a savage crash.



By now I think the message is clear - There is zero correlation between size of wrecks and actual risk to drivers.

What these and other melees all showcase is this - the cars are separated as they ostensibly are not in "pack" races - yet the enormity of the crashes is not in the least reduced by being separated; if anything it has only given cars a running start before impact.   The reality is separating the cars is just dumbing down the racing.

That Will Power and Ryan Newman speak out against these races reflects poorly on them.   Racing needs to increase competition while improving safety; it should not dumb down a sport that has foolishly been dumbed down with inferior competition at too many venues.   NASCAR should let its drivers push-draft again to increase passing, while Indycar found the right formula at Fontana and needs to expand on it - 80 lead changes is a lot better than the 22 Daytona saw - a 22 that needs to be 44 and above.

Robert Wickens' crash at Pocono in 2018.



So no Will Power, and no Ryan Newman et al - separating the cars is not safer, it's dumbing down. 


Addendum May 17 2016: The biggest wreck of 2016 so far was at Dover.    While the wildest open wheel crash was this Formula 3 melee at - ironic track name - Spielberg.

More road race nastiness at Road America 2018. 



Worth noting are successful drivers in NASCAR who've never won a Winston Cup draft-pack/restrictor plate race as of October 2018 -


Rusty Wallace
Ricky Rudd
Geoff Bodine
Martin Truex
Kyle Larson
Carl Edwards
Kasey Kahne
Alan Kulwicki
Juan Montoya
Marcus Ambrose
Kyle Petty
Ricky Craven
Steve Park
Jerry Nadeau
Johnny Benson
Jeremy Mayfield
Joe Nemechek
AJ Allmenidnger
Lake Speed
Elliott Sadler

The 2018 ARCA General Tire 200

NASCAR Blasts Into Talladega But Not Without Disappointment

NASCAR's first Talladega weekend arrived amid several eye-opening changes and in a season that has yet to arrest the sport's decline in ratings and attendances.    The continued popularity funk comes amid some reason for optimism down the road with aerodynamic issues now being addressed properly and the racing in 2018 being noticeably better than in recent years.   Once the weekend was over, though, more questions were left being asked about some of its rules sagacity.

The Geico 500 weekend began with an eye-popping crash involving former Talladega winner Jamie McMurray, whose blown tire set off the nastiest tumble in years and raised questions about the wisdom of  allowing speeds in the 200 MPH bracket - Daytona's recent bad melees involving catchfencing both involved speeds in the 200 range, this after decades of experience that 194 is realistically the cut-off point for keeping the cars on the ground.  NASCAR made a restrictor plate change after this wreck that was the weakest form of window-dressing and which thus didn't really solve anything, leaving the question about the restrictor plate size come the Firecracker weekend in July.   A larger spoiler and smaller plate would seem a no-brainer; the curiously unexamined angle is the draft duct package now in use on the flat superovals and beginning at Charlotte in the All-Star Race; one would think down the road that will become a part of the package at the plate tracks as well.

The weekend accelerated with ARCA's General Tire 200 - this coming after the stunning announcement that NASCAR has purchased the sanctioning body.  

Reaction to NASCAR's purchase of ARCA was negative, with angry citation of NASCAR's purchase of the ARTGO and All-Pro tours as evidence against the purchase. As Matt Weaver of Autoweek put it, this buyout is basically a case of the pie being too small for the two bodies - longtime quasi-allies - not to merge.  Given ARCA's experience with superspeedways I doubt it will affect that series that much and may have been inevitable.

As for the General Tire 200, once again the policy of not racing to the flag came back to ruin what was a terrific race with a terrific finish won by Zane Smith.   Sheldon Creed in the Ranier/MDM #28 and Sean Corr in the Petty-affiliated Empire car - this time #46, the number normally used by Petty's grandson Thad Moffitt - were as at Daytona in the thick of the fight for the win, and once again a race-ending wreck left Corr with the worst of it.   The racing was awesome with the sidedraft for the lead raging pretty much wire to wire.


The weekend also saw a major Late Model race at Five Flags Speedway that was even uglier than the crashing at Talladega with a nasty encounter between racers Stephen Nasse and Donnie Wilson, a set-to where Nasse punched out Wilson while Wilson was still in his car; Wilson then got out and the brawl was on.   The track PA announcer supposedly said, "Nasse is known as a hothead" and  Kyle Plott said, "That's Nasse's fault.  He started that.  That's stupid as hell."   When it was all over Bubba Pollard stormed to the win over Casey Roderick and Chandler Smith, who gagged on the last restart.

Nasse for his part spoke afterward.

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The other big story entering the weekend was the announcement that Matt Kenseth - idled since JGR released him after 2017 - will drive for Roush-Fenway Racing in replacement of Trevor Bayne in the #6 starting at Kansas. With reports that Roush was working on some sort of long-term deal for Kenseth, the change is suggestive that Roush has given up on the mostly-unsuccessful Bayne, who won the Daytona 500 in the Wood Brothers #21 in 2011, managed four top ten finishes 2016-17, and won twice in Roush Busch-Xfinity Fords, but has overall accomplished nothing - ironically illustrated in being eliminated in a wreck in the Geico 500.

The seeming failure of Bayne raises anew concern that the much-vaunted Young Guns simply lack the ammunition as racers.   Chase Elliott has run strongly, including second at Richmond, but overall has not shown evidence he is actually learning how to win.   He also has been in essence the only Chevrolet doing anything in a season monopolized by SHR Fords, Penske Fords, and JGR Toyotas.

That Elliott is the only Chevrolet in this sea of Fords and Toyotas is the lone highlight for what looks more and more like a season where the Daytona 500 is the only win the Bowtie Brigade will get.   Talladega showed anew how outclassed the Chevrolet fleet is, with the Chevys basically dragged along from pillar to post.


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Fans also got a front-row seat to the downside of modern racing.   In the Sparks Energy 300 and in the Geico 500 the drivers were capable of passing yet didn't do it.  In the Sparks 300 almost the only combat was the two-lap finish where Spencer Gallagher, who's been kicking around the Xfinity and Truck Series as well as the K&N Series and ARCA since 2011, blasted to the win, his second career win anywhere after his ARCA win at Kansas, both times in Maury Gallagher Chevrolets.

The Geico 500 was actually worse.   NASCAR's liberalized ride-height rule may have backfired with racecars noticeably unstable and drivers were focused more on short-pitting - which so staggered the field as to make it a mess, this even without the rash of pit speeding penalties that permeated pit sequencing - than on actually leading the race.   Even though the battle for the lead in spots swelled to epic proportion - i.e what Talladega is supposed to be - it simply wasn't a case of drivers committed to going for the lead.

Thus was the melee started by a sideways Jimmie Johnson racing for about fifteenth all the more ironic, a confluence of the worst aspects of racing - unstable racecars and drivers almost scared to pass anyone (and yet getting wrecked anyway).  

And in the end Joey Logano grabbed his first win since the Richmond 400 in 2017, a surprising thirty-six race slump.   The starkest contrast in this slump is Logano managed just eight top tens the rest of 2017 while nailing eight top tens before the Talladega win - in contrast teammates Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney have managed just two top-tens combined in the last four races.  


So Talladega blasted through its first race weekend of the season and the patterns of the season appear now to be set with Dover coming up.

Daytona Blockheads Throwbacks And That Black Car Reborn

The 2018 Daytona 500 will go down as a seminal event in NASCAR history as a spectacular race ended in the kind of bizarre fashion that racing often gets and which sparks a lot of reaction.

One theme permeating the week was throwback - Petty 43 vs Ranier 28 in the ARCA race; Elliott 9 vs RCR 3 in the Clash and throughout the Cup portion.   The ultimate throwback then erupted at the finish.

This was one of those races where the official lead changes - 24 - don't quite do justice to the repassing and nose-to-nose combat that permeated over half the race and especially the final ten laps.   NASCAR made numerous changes for this race - a gear change to allow the cars to suck up better in the draft and also lower ride heights.  The way they raced this change seemed to be geared more toward Talladega because it was substantially harder to pass there last season; the effectiveness of the package at Daytona augurs well for the Winston 500 weekend. 

This was a race of contrasts as was Speedweeks in general.   The first 100 laps of the 500 were frantic dicing for the lead, then after the Chase Elliott crash everyone just pounded out laps single file until the William Byron crash set off some of the best racing Daytona has ever seen.

The absurdity of NASCAR's field freeze rule showed again when they let the leaders race to the line after Aric Almirola's crash after not doing so five times in the Powershares 300 while ARCA likewise messed it up in their Lucas Oil 200.

The cynics before qualifying predicted the RCR 3 and Petty 43 of Bubba Wallace would get the front row, and all week promotion for the race noted the 20th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's 500 win; the upshot is the 3 vs 43 dichotomy didn't happen in qualifying, it happened in the race.  

The other upshot is Austin Dillon's history at Daytona was defined by plowing for the grandstands in 2015's Firecracker Fiasco - another irony is it was Hamlin getting spun out (by Harvick) that exploded that disaster.

In this Speedweeks blocking became a massive problem and it caused several crashes, including the last-lap melee that eliminated Aric Almirola.

The irony is Almirola crashed in all three races he ran in - and still showcased he is far superior to his predecessor Danica Patrick, who ended her NASCAR career the way she personified it - by plowing into a wreck after running in the back all day.

Bubba Wallace's comment ripping the sanctimonious Denny Hamlin caused a stir after the race and is the kind of controversy the sport has long thrived on.   It also served notice that Wallace and Richard Petty's #43 are ready to attack.

He also got hugged in the media center by his mom - which appeared to surprise him and he had to pull himself together - aloud.

Chase Elliott's reputation as a driver who can fight for the lead but not finish  the job continues to grow.


This race finished with some other eye-popping trivia -

Overlooked all week was the Rick Ware Chevrolet of Justin Marks, finishing 12th.   Marks, a native of  Rocklin, CA, won at Mid-Ohio in Chip Ganassi's Busch-Xfinity car in 2016; he also won at Palm Beach in a 2010 ARCA race.

This was the first plate win for Chevrolet since the 2015 Firecracker Fiasco and RCR's first plate win since the 2011 Diehard 500.

After Fords seemed to dominate all day Chevrolets took four of the top ten, including the overlooked Brad Daugherty Chevys of Chris Buescher (fifth) and AJ Allmendinger (10th). 

Richard Petty had a striking day - his present team finished second and two of his former drivers (Allmendinger and Almirola) finished in the top eleven.   It also served a larger storyline of the sport's mixture of old school and new - The Black 3 and Petty's 43 showcased young drivers as youngsters and veterans went at it for the lead all weekend.  

This was RCR's first Daytona win since Kevin Harvick's 2007 win.

Ryan Blaney finished seventh after leading 118 laps - and because of stage points (he earned 18 of those plus one playoff point) he is now the point leader ahead of all six cars who finished ahead of him.   Stage racing was meant to incentivize going for the lead - it's clearly working. 

Despite Keselowski's crash, Penske Racing still had a solid Speedweeks as Joey Logano came back from trouble and finished fourth with Blaney seventh. 

Joe Gibbs Racing salvaged third from Hamlin after his other three Toyotas crashed.   Hendrick Motorsports had it even worse as all four of Slick Rick's Chevrolets wrecked; the upshot is polesitter Alex Bowman acquitted himself superbly after he stunk up the joint in the 150 and got himself some trash talk from Harvick about it.


And the end result is the most exciting Speedweeks since..........irony of ironies, last year.   It goes to show that in racing, when the thrill seems to be gone, it comes back.

2016 Rattlesnake Truck 400 - Texas Thriller

The Truck Series squared off at Texas Motor Speedway and witnessed one of the best battles for the lead of the year.

2016 Freedom 100 Indianapolis

Indianapolis has hosted Indy Lights for several seasons now as the Friday preliminary to the 500, and in its short history the Freedom 100 has become a must-see race.   2016's running became another eye-popper of a race with the lead a heated fight all day and a photo finish.

The 2016 Nextera 250 At Daytona

2015 MAVTV California Indy 500

Indycar's greatest race.

2014 Winston 500 Ten Takes

The 2014 Aarons Talladega weekend has come and gone and proven itself again a strong competitive endeavor.  The weekend sees ten takeaways to digest -


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1 - Restrictor plate racing is still the best racing - The FOX Sports website did a poll on what NASCAR should have more of - superspeedways or short tracks.   I can confidently say the popular view is short tracks even though the objective view is superspeedways, as demonstrated yet again here at Talladega.   No short track can produce so high a level of competition up front as the plate tracks have produced.  The irony is that this season so far has produced very good races at all three types of tracks - the two plate races were great, Fontana was very good, and Martinsville was eye-openingly competitive.


2 - A mediocre Talladega is still better than others, yet.... - The 2014 Winston 500 saw 48 lead changes, the most for this race since 2011, yet as terrific as the racing was, it can still be better.  "It's so hard to pass..." re-entered the postrace conversation and it makes further nonsense of NASCAR's recent rules to kill push-drafting.   It bears repeating how 2013's Talladega Truck 250 showed how tandem drafting has been evolving back toward conventional pack drafting but with that extra power to pass that will always be the strongest such ever seen in racing.  It would not have hurt anyone if the Busch and Winston Cup races were able to see cars push-draft all the way around and thus move the top line forward faster and stronger - it also, for Junior fans, have allowed him to make a run for the win at the end; we will discuss that below......


3 - Brad Keselowski's fall from grace - It's been said numerous times that Joey Logano has usurped Brad Keselowski as Penske Racing's top dog; one wonders about that watching Keselowski race like Ernie Irvan in this race; laps down after a tap from Little Miss Danica left him (and several others) with damage, he nonetheless raced like hell and crowded the top ten until he lost it and took others with him - ironically including Joey Logano.   Now Keselowski has been flashy but this strikes me as very odd. 


4 - Chevrolet gets a comeuppance - Normally Chevrolets dominate Talladega; not this time, as Fords and Toyotas were the strongest of the lot pretty much all day.  Denny Hamlin's win topped a top-four near-monopoly by Toyota and capped a weekend sweep by Joe Gibbs Racing after Elliott Sadler's Aarons 312 win Saturday.  


5 - The rookie race spreads out more - Austin Dillon's rookie run from the Daytona 500 pole has been pretty much downhill from there, as Kyle Larson outclassed him again. 


6 - There's been a Michael Waltrip sighting - MWR finished third and fourth and Brian Vickers had a legitimate shot at the win; it's the first time seemingly all season we've seen any muscle out of MWR, and even with a third place Clint Bowyer didn't look particularly impressive.


7 - Junior and Hendrick's curious fall - Kasey Kahne salvaged a top-ten for Hendrick Motorsports and that was pretty much all to have for that team, as Junior never looked up to challenging for anything - though he led 26 laps he lost the draft twice late in the race - and both Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon crashed out.   Though the Hendrick fleet has a combined twelve top-fives so far, the muscle of yore hasn't been there since Daytona.

And here, Junior's postrace comment to the effect that "the reward wasn't worth the risk" is flabbergasting. Trying to win is not worth it is an insult to competition in general and racing in particular, and signals there is something fundamentally wrong with Junior as a racer now.


8 - When Stewart-Haas's guys are good they run good - And when they're bad they don't.   Simplistic a summary perhaps, yet watching Danica Patrick lead six laps and then finish 22nd with pretty much a whimper one cannot help but think this way.   Kevin Harvick remains the organization's point car while the rest of the fleet limps in his wake - especially Smoke, who looked like he didn't even want to be there at Talladega.


9 - Break up the Underdogs! - Justin Allgaier finished 27th and his last-lap wreck ended the race under caution.   Yet for a strong moment it appeared Allgaier might top David Ragan's spectacular win from last year as he stormed up the extreme high side for the lead.   There was also a superb effort from AJ Allmendinger in Brad Daugherty's Chevrolet and a commendable if overlooked effort from Landon Cassill in Joe Falk's #40.   Richard Petty's #43 of Aric Almirola looked like junk for most of the race yet drafted into the top fifteen - commendable yet like the race itself a frustrating reminder that it should be a lot better than that. 


10 - It's time to get rid of Barney Hall - MRN, it's time to give up on Barney Hall.   Yes, he's been a NASCAR icon forever, but it gets more and more embarrassing listening as he tries to recover a fastball that disappeared from him long ago.



And so the first Talladega weekend has wrapped and Kansas awaits.   It's noteworthy that in 2013 Kansas saw racing strikingly similar to Talladega in the Trucks and Busch Series - one hopes they and the Cup cars get that kind of effect this time around.

2013 Talladega Truck 250