1. Team owners, not NASCAR, should rectify unruly drivers
Think of any on-track transgression, and the wait begins:
“What kind of punishment, if any, will NASCAR dole out?”
But repeated on-track shows of knuckle-headed aggression by drivers, the most recent being Saturday’s (March 29) NASCAR Xfinity Series race, hammer home the point that any stern words or other actions from the sport’s sanctioning body are not having the desired impact.
Financial penalties won’t wake these drivers up, and since it’s a question of whether or not NASCAR will suspend a driver, it’s high time that team owners beat them to the punch and sit drivers down themselves.
Reading a driver the riot act as a governing body will only do so much.
But if a team owner hires a driver and later sits them down, therefore making that driver feel the fear of God that their chance in this sport may be taken away if what they do keeps up? It may not work, but if points and monetary penalties do not take effect, team owners reminding the drivers that the golden rule is in effect on race teams could force a different way of thinking.
That golden rule, by the way, is “he who has the gold makes the rules.”
Saturday at Martinsville Speedway was nothing short of embarrassing. It’s time for team owners to do something about it.
2. Can anyone break the Joe Gibbs Racing/Hendrick Motorsports death grip?
Take away Josh Berry’s win earlier this year, and this would be a season in the NASCAR Cup Series so far that’s the opposite of parity.
Other than one race in the NASCAR Cup Series, all have been won by drivers from either Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing. That should be a surprise to nobody considering most drivers from these organizations are proven title contenders.
The question becomes who can break through that stranglehold?
Team Penske is capable, and Joey Logano has shown that the No. 22 team can be in a position to win. His teammate Ryan Blaney also has to be in that group if he can somehow find some good luck. Over at 23XI Racing, Bubba Wallace is off to his best start to a season of this career, and everyone saw last year what Tyler Reddick can do on a variety of tracks.
Clearly, this early part of the season shows that two teams are the frontrunners as long as someone else does not get hot when it matters most in the final 10 races. Penske, by the way, has shown in the past two years that it’s a master of that.
3. What’s with the Penske gremlins?
There was once a running joke that during the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that Penske kept freshly starched white pants and black pants hanging up in a trailer in case one speck of oil got on an article of clothing in the lead-up to the Indianapolis 500.
The point of this mention? The thought of Penske conjures up the feeling that Penske is an operation driven by attention to detail, and its success is derived from thriving in the little things, which in turn leads to great success.
That’s why Sunday’s battery issues for Berry and multiple engine failures this year for Blaney stick out like a sore thumb for Penske and those under its umbrella.
With mechanical issues like these, that umbrella is one with holes punched in it.
It’s a very un-Penske-like string of things. If there is solace, it is the fact that it is only the second month of the season, and there is time aplenty to figure out what’s behind the mechanical gremlins, if not get a win for Blaney, Logano, or Austin Cindric and get into the postseason.
As long as neither driver falls below the cut line and has to rely on a last-ditch regular season win, of course.
4. A true throwback should be on Labor Day Weekend
There’s probably a sociologist somewhere, one that might even be a race fan, that could better explain why so many like to pine for how things used to be.
Personally speaking, I miss the Braves on WTBS, loved the WCW/WWE Monday Night Wars, get warm and fuzzy feelings from 1990s country music, and get emotional when I think of Christmas memories with my extended family as a child.
Suffice it to say, this weekend on the NASCAR schedule is for you if you like nostalgia. It’s hard not to love to paint schemes and marvel at the wild wardrobes that we will likely see.
But how much of a throwback is it for Darlington Raceway to take us back in time for a spring race? The beginning of the throwback race in September fit so well because when you think of that old egg-shaped track, you likely envision Labor Day Weekend in the Carolinas.
Running a throwback in April just does not have that same feeling.
If NASCAR wants to seek a pat on the back for glancing at the sport’s history, this date alignment is fine. But if it truly wants to harken back to what this track means to the sport, it will make the throwback race a Labor Day Weekend staple.
5. Do we really need late dashes to end stages?
It’s happened many times. Sunday at Martinsville was the latest turnabout.
A caution with less than five laps left in a stage gives way to a race for only a few laps for the prize of a few stage points.
One thing you tell a young driver when they begin racing is that “you can’t win the race on the first lap.”
In NASCAR, it’s hard to win a race if you have a mishap on a late dash to the end of a stage.
If there are 10 laps or fewer left in a stage, why not just end the stage there? Yes, every point needs to matter, but is it worth tearing cars up for a lap or two, especially on a short track?
If NASCAR truly wants to put on a better racing product, it’s something that should be on the table, seeing as much to fans’ chagrin, stages in races do not look to be going anywhere.
Brad joined Frontstretch.com in 2020 and contributes to the site's 5 Points To Ponder column and other roles as needed. A graduate of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication, he has covered sports in some capacity for more than 20 years with coverage including local high school sports, college athletics and minor league hockey. Brad has received multiple awards for his work from the Georgia Press Association.