Holding a Pretty Wheel: NASCAR Sold Its Short-Track Soul. Can We Get It Back?

Once upon a time, short tracks reigned supreme in NASCAR.

As the racecars became more aerodynamically dependent and clean air ruled the roost, fans looked to the short tracks to provide more authentic racing. Tracks of a mile or more, with a few exceptions, had become predictable at best. From the late fourth-generation car through the Car of Tomorrow and Gen Six, passing was a rarity, particularly at the 1.5- to two-mile tracks that had slowly taken over the bulk of the schedule. The winners’ pool was shallow with the bulk of the wins going to a small handful of drivers whose teams had money to burn.

But there was some relief. Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, of course, brought chaos and crashing, but for fans of old-school racing, there was another group of tracks that kept racing at the forefront: the short tracks.

Once a staple of the sport, by the 2000s, short tracks in the NASCAR Cup Series were reduced to just three: Martinsville Speedway, a part of NASCAR since the beginning in 1949; Bristol Motor Speedway, where cages were rattled and tempers raised; and Richmond Raceway, which at three-quarters of a mile wasn’t really a short track, but raced more like one than the intermediate track it really was (NASCAR has since changed its track definitions to include any track under a mile).

Fans pleaded for more short tracks on the schedule even as they watched North Wilkesboro Speedway slowly sink back into the green foothills and heard rumors of even Martinsville losing a race to someplace like Kentucky Speedway or Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR…didn’t really listen, though the Cup Series schedule saw a few intermediates lose dates to road courses and even other intermediates. Atlanta Motor Speedway got reconfigured into a drafting-style racetrack. The resurrection of North Wilkesboro brought the All-Star event to a short track, but the track has not seemed to get any serious consideration for a points race for the Cup Series

Then along came the Next Gen racecar and turned NASCAR on its head.

Suddenly, the intermediate tracks were hosting races with door-to-door finishes. Kansas Speedway became a fan favorite. Homestead-Miami Speedway regained favor with viewers. Darlington was The Lady in Black again. It almost seemed too good to be true, especially in the Next Gen’s early days before even the big teams had a consistent handle on it.

And indeed, it was too good to be true.

As if NASCAR had sold its soul for the intermediates, the short tracks (and the one-milers and road courses) suffered. Races became lackluster, with drivers running away from the field and nobody able to do anything with the leaders.

Bristol, which had already changed after a repave and reconfiguration altered the surface in an attempt to create a second racing groove, no longer featured flaring tempers and drivers rooting one another out of the way. The rattle of cages is rarely heard anymore. Martinsville has suffered even more, with chasers unable to track down the leader throughout a race. Slightly faster Richmond fell flat too.

The All-Star Race, which should be NASCAR’s finest moment at a track back from the dead, is perhaps a little better because of the format, but it too, suffers. 

As the luster wears off the Next Gen as the biggest teams inevitably pull away from the field, there is no longer solace in the tracks that represent the very roots of the sport.

Something needs to change, or fans will be clamoring to drop the sport’s strongest connection to its past, to the great drivers and rivalries that brought fans in to start with. 

It could take a radical departure from NASCAR’s current philosophy. The Next Gen car and rules restricting teams from having dozens of cars at the ready are designed to save teams money and create parity, widening the number of teams capable of winning. To a degree, it has done that.

In doing so, however, it has become apparent that NASCAR needs a whole other approach to short-track racing: a purpose-built racecar and engine package. 

Prior to the Car of Tomorrow, teams built chassis for specific tracks, mainly superspeedways, road courses and short tracks. Not only was that expensive (though road course cars, in particular, had a long shelf life), but it required teams to have more employees to build and work on them so multiple cars could be prepared at once for upcoming weeks.

It doesn’t need to go that far, and it shouldn’t, but it’s going to take more than the handful of tweaks NASCAR has tried so far. True short-track chassis need to be a thing.

To go with cars designed for shorter tracks, there needs to be horsepower. In reality, simply giving the cars an additional 200 horsepower would probably improve the racing at all tracks of a mile or less and road courses drastically. Pairing that with a dedicated short-track package for flat miles and short tracks has the potential to create a breed of racing that fans circle on their calendars and which fans talk about for years, even decades. 

Which, by the way, is how you get new fans.

Applied to the schedule right now, a new car/engine package could be used at Martinsville, Bristol, Richmond and North Wilkesboro, but also at Phoenix Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway with the higher-power engine in play for Dover Motor Speedway Speedway as well as the road courses. 

Ten races are over a quarter of the season, which makes a dedicated car much more practical than it was for just the two road courses that teams used to build them for. Longtime fans remember the days when teams used two different engines every single week—sprinkling them throughout the season as was done a few years ago is far less daunting and less expensive.

The sport has changed drastically in the 21st century. It has become clear that one car is not going to create great racing at every type of track on the schedule. (Look at the NASCAR Xfinity Series cars, for another example—they put on a better short-track race than the Cup cars but suffer on the intermediates.)

The solution is a second package that’s as similar in outward appearance as possible (if teams could use the same body pieces, that’s even better) but under the hood is built for a different kind of racing. It could further be refined for different tracks with tire compounds and options and giving teams some more suspension options.

But something needs to change before the last of the tracks that build NASCAR fade into history forever.