Holding a Pretty Wheel: And So NASCAR Begins Again

It’s the shortest three months of the year.

It’s also the longest three months of the year.

Whether the NASCAR offseason goes by too fast or too slow, it’s officially over as the engines roar to life at Daytona International Speedway for the sport’s most prestigious race, the season-opening Daytona 500

If the last race of the year is the most important, the first one is the biggest spectacle. It’s a race everyone wants to win and one that, these days, almost anyone can win. It’s not a race for the faint of heart; part of that spectacle is the multi-car crashes that bring your heart to your throat for a moment until the dust clears.

The offseason isn’t quite the long cold winter it once was. (OK, it still is when you live in New England, but stay with me, here.) Social media have made the sport a year-round one. It’s no longer a wistful wait for the media tour or the anticipation of the annual test session at Daytona where the roar of the engines didn’t serve only to knock the dust off for racers, but for fans as well.

These days, the media tour and Daytona testing are no more, but drivers and teams are ever-present on Twitter or Instagram. News happens on a rolling basis. Announcements happen almost more like a stream of consciousness than as scheduled events. Even the ones that are at a pre-ordained date and time lack, if nothing else, the element of surprise.

In any case, it’s now, as of the time of publishing, less than 48 hours from things getting real. Sure, we’ve already had the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum but that’s little more than an appetizer for the smorgasbord of racing that is Speedweeks, which is still called that despite now being about five days long.

But before the engines roar to life—don’t worry, they still roar, even at tracks where mufflers will likely be attached—the offseason wasn’t without plenty to chew on. And now, just days away from the Great American Race and the start of everything, it’s time to digest them.

We’ll start with the mufflers because they generated a lot of noise from fans. Ironic because they’re mufflers, but there we are. 

What they don’t do is ruin the experience. The Next Gen car is loud. If you didn’t attend a race at a track of a mile or less last year, you might not have heard it, but it was an ear-splitting, headache-inducing pitch that the Gen 6 didn’t display. 

What the devices actually do is make it more bearable. The muffler actually makes the Next Gen sound more like its predecessors—growling with pent-up rage as they pour through the turns.

They’re also a selling point for tracks like Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, located in a neighborhood. Fans have wanted that track back and this, folks, is how they might get it.

The mufflers were one experiment featured at a two-day test for the Next Gen at Phoenix Raceway last month. Another was reducing the spoiler height in an attempt to make cars racier on the short, flat tracks where the racing suffered even as it flourished on the intermediates. NASCAR hasn’t announced changes for any races yet, but it’s good to know they’re aware of the issue and taking steps to fix it. They haven’t always done that.

Oh, but there are rule changes this year, just not those. The good: bigger penalties for drivers who deliberately hit other cars on pit road. The incident at Texas Motor Speedway last fall where Ty Gibbs slammed into Ty Dillon’s car in the pits and nearly hit a couple of Dillon’s crew members is unacceptable.

Also good: ending stage cautions on road courses. Road courses have traditionally caused teams to employ an entirely different strategy from ovals, but the breaks disrupted that. Points will still be awarded, giving drivers incentive to race for position. Those breaks were less disruptive at ovals, but if the changes work well on road courses, hopefully it can be extended to all tracks in the future. The breaks have done nothing to decrease commercial breaks later in the race as promised, so they serve no purpose. The points are fine. They essentially replace the old halfway leader bonus.

The…well, why: banning moves like Ross Chastain’s Hail Melon. On one hand, there are reasons that the move should not become commonplace, mainly the crossover gates at Martinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway and the likelihood of collecting other cars. But really, the move is fairly self-policing; the number of drivers with both the intestinal fortitude and skill to pull it off are few, and it feels like a lot of drivers might try it once and end up in a smoking heap and abandon the idea of doing it again.

The please, no: rain tires on flat tracks of a mile or less. The use of wet-weather tires will expand from road courses to the LA Coliseum, Martinsville, North Wilkesboro Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Richmond Raceway, Phoenix, the Milwaukee Mile and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (whose name is longer than the racing surface itself). 

While the idea probably has some fans, mainly those who like crashes, salivating and hoping for rain, it’s terrible. Who wants to pay $100 for a race ticket and sit in the rain, especially someplace like Martinsville in November? Not to mention, rain racing isn’t that great unless you like crashing. Drivers can’t see well if the spray is too heavy, and did I mention the fans who paid to see the race having to sit in the sometimes cold wet?

The racing landscape underwent some other changes as well. Kyle Busch left Joe Gibbs Racing for Richard Childress Racing, while his older brother Kurt Busch stepped out of the driver’s seat due to an injury and still hasn’t been cleared to race even a one-off, meaning the Daytona 500 will continue without a driver who raced against Dale Earnhardt in a Cup race for the first time since his passing in 2001.

The man who took over Earnhardt’s ride after that dark day also announced that 2023 will be the end of the road as the Closer will close out a Hall of Fame career. Kevin Harvick enters the season with 60 Cup wins, tied with Kyle Busch for what would be the active Cup Series race wins lead. Or at least he would if not for Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson’s return to the series, though part-time, means that he’ll be the win leader again and also the oldest driver to attempt this year’s Daytona 500. Johnson also delved into team ownership in the offseason, buying into Petty GMS Motorsports, which changed its name to LEGACY MOTOR CLUB due to the fact that team ownership now boasts 14 NASCAR Cup Series titles between Johnson and Richard Petty. 

If you’re keeping score, Harvick is more likely than Johnson to score a win as they chase the dream one more time. He also has a post-driving career lined up as he’ll join the FOX Sports booth in 2024. 

And so it begins again. Harvick and Johnson will battle the sport’s future on its biggest stage, but the next generation is already grabbing the sport’s collective attention. There are changes, yes. There will always be changes. But one thing remains the same: NASCAR’s longest, shortest season is coming to an end.

It’s time. The racetrack calls. And once again, we answer.