Watched the end of the Daytona 500 yesterday...

I had the race on all day and would check in here and there but didn't really watch until the last 10 or so laps. Geez, what a horrible thing to watch. The first 190 laps were nothing more than a high speed parade with some totally boring lead changes that amounted to nothing in the grand scheme of the race. The announcers were pathetic in their attempts to inject some excitement into the "race" by talking about the record number of lead changes. Big deal, whoever was leading was basically a dead duck if he tried to block one of the two lines of cars behind him. The other line would drive past him like he had put on brakes. When the leaders came in to pit and some other cars stayed out, that created some of the "exciting lead changes" too. The silly "stages" NASCAR has implemented do nothing more than break up whatever momentum and excitement a race manages to generate. NASCAR needs to realize they are never going to be the NFL and stop trying to create a facsimile of a football game (stages are the equivalent of quarters, extra laps at the end are called "overtime"). People who watch racing want to watch racing, they don't expect to watch something akin to a football game.

The last lap included the usual big crash that took out a lot of the cars and the leaders. The winner of the race led the race for less than half a lap, being gifted the lead as cars crashed around him. The Daytona 500 used to be something worth watching. Now, it is less entertaining than watching paint dry.

Rhode Island Dork said:

Your entire post should be put into a memo & sent to the nascar brass. I went to every Daytona 500 from 1984-2003. Family was deeply invested in nascar. Now, I may watch parts of 2-3 races a year. They powers that be have killed the sport that was once incredibly awesome. Very sad what it has become. Yesterday's Daytona 500 was nothing more than 195+ high speed pace laps followed by a demolition derby.

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You sound about like me. I went to every Daytona 500 in about that same time period. I also went to multiple races at Darlington, Talladega and The Brickyard. I rarely missed a race on tv back then. NASCAR was, by far, the best racing series in all of motorsport.

Restrictor plates were the beginning of the end and NASCAR's never ending tampering with the cars to benefit GM in general and the Earnhardts in particular, greed and wokeness destroyed what was left. Now, I'm not sure if I would go to a race if someone gave me tickets for free and provided transportation and lodging. NASCAR today is basically what the old IROC races used to be and those races were never very good.

JohnnySolo said:

I am limited to Daytona and Talladega, but as you say those races don't provide anything until the last 10 laps which inevitably end in multiple car wrecks. There are no names worth following. These kids today are nothing compared to the men that created the sport. And now Michael Jordan is pulling strings for better or worse? Gimme a break.

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It's the Michael Jordan/Bubba Wallace race series now. The super speedways are the most boring races now, exactly the opposite of the glory days.

NASCAR's obsession with tight pack racing has ruined what were the great races. I guess they think fans want to see big pile ups. The old days where the truly fast cars could pull away and race each other without being stuck in a pack were much more entertaining in my opinion.

treyno2722 said:

At least they had the sense to switch the playoffs back to the way it used to be. If anyone watched the race on Saturday, now called the O'Reilly Auto Parts series, it was just two strong Richard Childress cars and a bunch of other cars on the track.

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The "playoffs" is another weak attempt by NASCAR to copy the NFL. NASCAR's shameless copying of NFL terms i.e. overtime, playoffs is embarrassing. Bill France has to be spinning in his grave seeing what the clowns running NASCAR have done to what was formerly a great racing series.

The O'Reilly series (I still call it Busch Series) Saturday races used to be some of the best racing on a race weekend. Now, as you say, it is always a couple cars driving away from the rest of the field.

Rhode Island Dork said:

Still ain't fixed. Needs to be a season long champion.

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They started that foolishness trying to get Dale Jr. a championship. The joke used to be, "the Chase is made up of the top ten drivers in points...and Dale Earnhardt Jr.".

Swifty said:

The issues at Daytona and Talladega are born out of the restrictor plate days and exploded in popularity from a national standpoint due to the three-wide packs and "the big one". If NASCAR is hell bent on keeping the "stages" they should just through the green/white checkered flag at those laps and award the bonus points, but not through a caution. They already do it that way at road courses now. Lord knows we don't need those 13-gallon fuel cells that they tried at those tracks a while back with the drivers pitting every 25 laps or so. Ugh. The "stages" were implemented as incentive for teams to compete harder all race long rather than just ride around waiting for the end to run harder.
What happened Sunday would've happened, regardless of which manufacturer was able to get out front and slow roll the field for 1/3 of the race, so people chirping at Toyota need to stop. If you'll remember, I believe it was Talladega spring race last year where Toyota drivers actually took off and pushed the field harder and cycled their green flag stops better and were coming out poised to walk half the field until Watermelon boy pulled up in front of Hamlin and nearly wrecked a dozen cars in the process. It's not ideal that the manufacturers are implementing strategies, but that's where we are these days. They're gonna try to pit together at the superspeedways because of the circumstances. NASCAR has defaulted to cars that are safer and reducing horsepower but it has taken a lot out of the drivers' hands, especially at those two tracks. I'm interested to see how Atlanta plays out. It has been racing more like Daytona and Talladega of 20 years ago since the repave. I really dig it.

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When drivers are using 50% throttle in a race, it isn't really racing, it is playing follow the leader.

Swifty said:

No doubt. But they were all complicit. They all knew it was gonna happen. They were kinda employing the road course model where you calculate backwards on fuel.
I remember in the 80s and early 90s when those tracks were similar to the likes of Michigan where there would be a 3-5 car lead pack, mostly running in line. They even ran that way a few years ago at Daytona and Talladega. Single file for 20-30 laps. It's just a product of aerodynamics. If the lead cars don't throttle back, they'll be burning through more fuel than everyone behind them due to the draft effect. There are times where cars a few rows back are barely using fuel at all, they're just being dragged along by the draft. NASCAR is going to have to address the issue aerodynamically or with a different tire compound or something.

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NASCAR can't legislate away the physics of aerodynamics. The lead car will always punch a hole in the air. "Aero push" was the big problem years ago, a car behind another car didn't get enough down force on the front, so NASCAR changed the car design to correct that. The result was, the lead car is now a dead duck. In the pre restrictor plate days, the cars behind the leader had enough horsepower to pull out and pass. Now, if they pull out of line and no one comes with them, they hit the wall of air and go backwards. This results in 190 parade laps and 10 laps of racing at the end with huge crashes because drivers have to try and pass other cars in a three or four wide crowd.

The obsession with making every car exactly the same performance wise has ruined NASCAR racing. When Ford introduced the new Thunderbird in the mid '80s and the shape resulted in dominance on the track, NASCAR didn't look at GM and say "you need to design a more aerodynamic car". They immediately set about raising the roof on the Ford and making the Ford teams change the body to slow it down. This was the equivalent of the NCAA making the fastest WRs wear ankle weights so DBs could cover them better. NASCAR is legislating competitiveness and it has made the racing boring as hell. Back in the day, the manufacturers and teams had to innovate and develop better engines and cars to stay competitive. Starting in the '80s NASCAR began taking that away and protecting GM at the expense of other manufacturers.

NASCAR's fundamental problem is that no manufacturer in the US builds a two door car with a V8 engine and rear wheel drive other than the Mustang and the Corvette. There are some foreign auto makers that build those cars, but they aren't interested in participating in a racing series where the sanctioning body is going to hog tie their engines and cars to make sure GM is competitive. The series that Bill France created is impossible to continue under the original vision.