Compared to other sports, there is a certain extra zeal that NASCAR fans express for the good old days and the kind of racing they remember.
Especially after a race that falls well short of their ideals.
As I sat through Sunday’s (April 13) Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, my optimism for another action-packed event in “Thunder Valley” marked by extreme tire wear and the slugfest that would ensue quickly turned to dread for what I was going to have to deal with next: An avalanche of the same “Bristol’s dead, they killed it” takes that have been recycled over and over again since the (bad) decision to add progressive banking to NASCAR’s Golden Goose in 2007.
I lampooned these by posting a clip of the final laps from the 2015 Bristol Xfinity race – where Joey Logano led all 300 laps and tire wear mattered just as little as it did last Sunday – as a way of needling the “new thing bad, old thing good” crowd.
And, in a textbook illustration of Poe’s Law, it was met with more than one comment of “That’s not Old Bristol, stupid!”
Even more predictable was what was going to happen when I made another X post on Tuesday sharing what Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said in response to fan concerns about the racing at Bristol.
In the minutes that followed, I was quickly inundated with angry and emotional comments from fans attacking NASCAR’s leadership, their unwillingness to give Cup cars more horsepower, their alleged passing of the buck to Goodyear, and plenty in-between.
I respect and appreciate people’s points of view, and I certainly know what it’s like to be an emotional fan. And I know, too (from experience) that when fans get emotional, they can say things they don’t mean, that aren’t thought out or just aren’t smart at all. Which is why I couldn’t let certain posts about how NASCAR should bring back its former CEO, Brian France, and how the sport was “better” under him than it is under its current leadership.
Timeout. Let’s remind ourselves of a few things, shall we?
As I seem to recall, the average NASCAR fan spent the entirety of Brian France’s reign as the head of the sport throughout the 2000s and 2010s swearing on a stack of Bibles that he was horrible. If I remember correctly, he was accused of alienating the sport’s core fanbase and was frequently criticized as being out of touch and barely around at the racetrack. Many of the things fans rail against these days – the playoffs, spec-style cars, a seemingly neverending quest to bog the cars down to bunch the field up and create “closer” racing – were the brainchildren of France’s tenure.
He even made comments after a 2015 race in Kentucky where NASCAR tried an aerodynamic package with low downforce and high horsepower – one which was met with rave reviews – expressing disappointment that there hadn’t been “more drafting” and “more pack racing,” which are just as cringeworthy now as they were a decade ago.
This isn’t to be construed as an attack on the third generation France or his work – in fact, I actually greatly enjoyed his appearance on the Dale Jr. Download to the point that I wish he had been as open and personable as NASCAR’s CEO as he was in that interview. But the fact is his results weren’t good and the sport suffered for it.
There was instability from year to year in everything from the cars to the points system. Ratings and attendance went into a sustained decline, and NASCAR’s relevance as a national sport tailed off with them. It was only seven years ago where it felt like there was a certain malaise over the sport that just wasn’t going to be lifted.
The current state of NASCAR isn’t perfect, and there’s plenty to take issue with. The Next Gen car has certainly solved for certain issues the previous generation of car had, but it hasn’t proven to be the “panacea” that commissioner Steve Phelps hoped it would be – especially not when it comes to short track racing.
No one should pretend that Bristol was anything close to even an average race. It wasn’t. In fact, it was one of the worst I’ve ever had to sit through and endure. But in turn, fans and observers need to resist the urge to be a reactionary.
Because in doing so, they’re not only opening themselves up to spreading and adopting bad ideas, but also losing sight of the ways in which NASCAR has grown over the past six years and the ways in which the sport is better off now than it used to be.
Let’s use recent discourse concerning the Xfinity Series as an example. In the weeks since Martinsville Speedway’s Xfinity race was marred by overaggressive and outright bush-league driving.
That was spurred on by comments Kyle Larson made after taking the belt to the Xfinity field in last weekend’s race, talking about NASCAR letting Cup drivers race more frequently in Xfinity as a means of “showing the Xfinity guys how it’s done” or “teaching them how to race” have gained traction and a certain degree of popularity.
I can’t say the idea doesn’t have merit – in fact, I value the opinions of some who support it – but it completely loses sight of why current limits on Cup participation in Xfinity and Truck Series races were instituted to begin with. Those stinker seasons where Cup drivers won the lion’s share of races and championships, the excess amount of Cup drivers in those races, and the way it choked off NASCAR’s ladder system – and arguably kept some talented drivers from ever getting the chance to prove they were Cup caliber.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This expression is quite applicable to certain problems stemming from the Next Gen car that NASCAR just can’t seem to shake four years into the car’s lifetime. But it’s also paved with plenty of bad ideas that can take root in said problems. Ideas which, if left unchecked, can infect the volatile discourse that accompanies a race that proves a chore to experience and lead people astray.
It is everyone’s right and prerogative to be upset, and even irrational, about a boring race that should have been much more. But for sensibility’s sake, please try to think things through and not let bad racing turn into bad ideas on how to make it better.
