Every week of the NASCAR season, our special corner of the social media platform I will always call Twitter gets asked a question by The Athletic‘s Jeff Gluck.
“Was _______ a good race?”
Of course, the answer to that question is very subjective.
This is the internet we’re talking about.
Answers can depend on a lot, specifically on who won or who didn’t win.
But also how they won.
Winner aside, the final result of Gluck’s poll, more often and not, can leave you scratching your head.
Honestly, the fact 72% of 24,176 voters this week wound up thinking Sunday’s (June 30) Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway was “good” surprised me.
And not because I don’t agree with them.
After the chaos of five overtime attempts, multiple wrecks and a “will they or won’t they” fuel mileage drama to rival a storyline on your favorite teenage TV drama (mine for the record is “Smallville”), a score in the 60s wouldn’t have been a shocker.
I mean, look at what happened the week before at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The last chunk of the race was ran on wet tires, and every lap around the “Magic Mile” suddenly looked like a typical restart at Pocono Raceway.
It was very watchable.
However …
It got a D+?
Sure, Jan.
How much of it was due to Christopher Bell winning?
Was it because of NASCAR telling teams when they could or couldn’t change tires?
When the sport is breaking new, and potentially dangerous, ground, I’m OK with some short-term guardrails. I’d rather be over-prepared than lacking experience.
As for Nashville, even though I threw up my hands with every time the best stock racers in the world somehow couldn’t make it one lap without hijinks ensuing, I was entertained.
Really, I was entertained for almost the entirety of the race that took place after the extended red flag for rain.
Now, there are surefire stinkers.
Basically every Coca-Cola 600 in the late 2010s falls in this category.
Most of the Martinsville Speedway races of the Next Gen era are Platinum Card-carrying members of the club.
Sunday night was nowhere near those races.
Yes, we got 30 extra laps.
Yes, most of that was under caution.
But it kept things interesting.
After Denny Hamlin scooted by Ross Chastain, it looked like he was going coast to his fourth win of the season.
Enter Austin Cindric jumping into the deep end of the pool with his spin two laps from the advertised distance.
Enter …
There’s nothing more dry than having a good idea who’s going to win with less than 10 laps to go in a race.
It doesn’t particularly make for good copy on a deadline.
So give me Ryan Blaney running out of gas coming to the white flag World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
Give me Kyle Larson cutting a tire down on the last lap of the 2021 race at Pocono, opening the door for Alex Bowman.
Or Martin Truex Jr.‘s and Jimmie Johnson‘s last-turn mishap at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in 2018.
And maybe every once in a while — and I do mean a while — throw in five rounds of overtime to settle things (just make it further than turn 1, please).
Because before Sunday, like the tire-wear bonanza at Bristol Motor Speedway in March, we’d never seen that before.
Besides.
There are worse ways to spend a Sunday night.
About the author
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.
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I think the TV coverage has a lot to do with whether the TV audience thinks it’s a good race or not. If they focus mostly on the front of the field, use too many in car shots, show the leader running way out front, it doesn’t give an overall picture of what is happening in the race. So far NBC has done a great job finding action during the race, even if it’s for 25th place. That is how you watch a race in person, not just concentrating on a few cars.
In person is the best way to enjoy a race. Next, the radio. Finally, TV. All races, to me, as a 60-plus year fan, are good races. Enjoy the moment. Some are more exciting than others, but it is a great sport, great atmosphere, and if another driver, not yours, runs away with it. You may think it’s dull, but you can bet the fans of that driver are in knots.
I don’t enjoy destroyed cars and hope no one gets hurt. Fuel mileage is always exciting.
Now, if you are in 25th place on the last lap, some common sense needs to expose itself, but those drivers compete with each other weekly. They will police themselves if you don’t belong.
I think back to the 2022 Coke 600. Fabulous race, maybe the best I’ve seen in years, right up until the end when of all people Denny Hamlin won. If there’s going to be chaos in a race I’d rather not have a superstar win. On the other hand a relatively boring race could be quite memorable if someone I totally didn’t expect legit won- by legit I mean Justin Haley at Daytona doesn’t count, nor does David Green in that Bristol race where Mark Martin went to pit road a lap early.
Trying to think of a particularly bad race this year and none really stick out. I was probably least entertained by the road courses.
I’d bet a lot of people, if they’re honest, think any race “their driver” won is a great race, but they don’t like to admit it out loud. There has to be some element of truth, because in the modern era a lot of very popular drivers won a lot of very boring aero snoozefest events.
Don’t forget if a driver who is hated wins an event it is not a good feeling. If Dale Sr. won a race by using the bumper it was cage rattling. If a driver used the bumper to beat Dale it was totally different. If Jeff Gordon won an event only some fans were happy.