NASCAR Reveals 2018 Cup, XFINITY & Truck Schedules

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse! Richmond is replaced with Indy as the finally? Why Brian said it was fan based; any NASCAR fan I know absolutely hates this track and absolutely produces a terrible on track product. Well expect the ratings to plummet even more next year. Big Bill would whoop Brian’s A$$ if he were still alive!!! I don’t have all the answers to fix the problems as they are stuck with all these cookie cutter race tracks now; however I would suggest opening the rule book, get rid of the splitters, get the cars offf the bumpstops, eliminate the shark fin, and let the crew chiefs be able to experiment a little bit. I’m all for safety but ever since the gen 5 car was released it has been all down hill. I know the good ole days are long gone but I still hold out that someday Brian will be releived of his duties and someone else will take over and right the sinking ship. I still love the sport but it is getting harder to watch every year.
Now with this absurd schedule coming out for next year I cringe even more. To top it off Indy will most likely be a restrictor plate race for next year so it’s either going to be a Jeff Burton at Louden and lead the whole race or it will be missing the big one and lucking into the playoffs.

Seems like a pretty decent refresher. I will largely go with the flow, & I am anxious to see how it goes. RIR & IMS need the boost that I think this will indeed provide. I’m not sure why it got overlooked it here [Kevin], but LVMS is now the Cup “chase” kick-off race, which seems innocuous, but I think is huge & a foreshadowing of the future. LV is a great town & venue for Nascar! I think it is a great idea to boost LVMS’s post-season stature & that, eventually, it will replace Miami as the season finale (…you heard it here first).
I love an additional road-course on the slate, but Charlotte was anchoring my wish list. Other than being bland & uninspiring, which is very clearly is, is there one other major motorsport category who has used Charlotte’s in-field extensively? “There’s yer sign!”
In recent years, I see only GRC (which uses only part of the full infield, after covering some of it with dirt & installing imbecilic x-game/monster-truck style jumps), a few Pirelli WC events & a few IMSA GT’s events (back in the 70’s & 80’s). So, don’t ask me why, but it seems the incorporated motorsport giant, Nascar’s Cup series, is seemingly attempting to emulate the hair-brained, feeble-minded & blissfully unenlightened practices of GRC’s low-ball low-appeal game. I wish all them the best, but since I don’t know of one “major” category to use it extensively, now or at anytime in the past, it seems like an odd choice & risky decision. And one that will, with little doubt, require extensive investment for re-work (pit road reconfiguration, in-field course repave, huge amounts of safety barrier installations, & flagger, safety worker & control lighting station installations). Lest we forget, fans & event associates will no longer be able to park or use the majority of the infield. Therefore, I think represents a huge & very unnecessary gamble, & throwing investments into the wind.
I’m am still for it, but I would much rather see Watkins Glen (or even the Dega, Tona or Indy in-fields) moved into the “chase”. WGI would be a much more realistic test of Championship wares, since ALL Nascar drivers have experience there. In-field courses at Dega, Tona & Indy at least have major motorsport legacy to lean on. Where-as Charlotte’s in-field is an anomaly that only leans on the twilight zone of the unknown. Nascar seems to delight in injecting every growing proportions of unquantifiable entities & uncontrollable circumstances into it’s driver’s championship scenario, hence GREATLY devaluing them for this life-long motorsports advocate.