Should The Chase have fewer than 16 drivers?
We haven’t even made it a year yet, and folks are already bitching about The Chase. Who would’ve thought?
Well, when I say that, I really just mean Kyle Petty. I promised I wouldn’t use the Dale Earnhardt Jr. quote here, but come on.
To give the cliffnotes, Petty was on a show with Motorsport.com, where he said he simply doesn’t care about the back half of the Chase field as much because there’s no way they can win a championship.
I’ll relent that it isn’t the most unhinged take from NASCAR’s version of Stephen A. Smith, but man, at what point are we just putting on for the cameras?
Petty knows that the difference between a driver who finishes the season in 16th and 12th is astronomical. For instance, say Ryan Preece jumps up and snags the final Chase spot, then strings together a few great runs and ends up there instead of 16th. That difference in end-of-year standings changes how much money the teams get at the end of a season.
Obviously, the charter agreement got a refresh this offseason following the saga that was NAScourt, and, in keeping with NASCAR tradition, fans got the highlights (evergreen charters, etc.) of the agreement, while NASCAR kept the fine print close to its chest. The part that was kept quiet? An updated revenue-sharing split.
If I were a betting man, I’d even venture to say that the new deal sweetened the end-of-year terms for teams, so the difference between 16th and 13th might even be more than is realized. All of this to say: 16 cars is more than fine for a 40-car field. The mentality of “winning the championship is the only thing that matters” is what got us the horrid playoff system and has been proven ineffective when measuring success in stock-car racing. There are much larger fish to fry right now.
Should the tracks release the schedule in pieces, or should it be one big announcement?
I absolutely hate that we’re getting bits and pieces of the 2027 NASCAR schedule, full stop. I shouldn’t have to play go fish between various track social media platforms to put the 2027 schedule together in my head like it’s a game of Lincoln Logs.
Not only is it mind-numbing and confusing from a messaging standpoint, it also detracts from the pomp and circumstance of the actual schedule release, which is almost assuredly coming any day now, given recent events. If you’re a longtime race fan or have ever been a regular at a local track, waiting for next year’s schedule release is always part of the fun.
NASCAR should feel the same. Instead, this year’s schedule release is being pieced together bit by bit, and once the final product is released, the storylines around it will be far fewer.
Then again, though, maybe that’s the point. As someone who has some experience in mass-media messaging, there are two likely scenarios: A) NASCAR doesn’t think fans will care much for the 2027 schedule, so it’s releasing it in bread crumbs to soften the blow, or B) NASCAR has something big planned for the new release and wants it to be the center of attention and receive as much positive press as possible.
For one, I know another Nashville market race would draw a lot of attention, and Marcus Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports, has been open to revamping the old Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
That, of course, is a pie-in-the-sky idea, but if nothing big is coming down the pipeline, all these micro announcements are doing is softening the blow of the full 2027 schedule release. It’s a good PR strategy but disappointing to see if that’s the reality.
Will NASCAR’s new stage-break rule work as intended?
If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’. Words to race by, and as someone who grew up in a racing family that stuck our fair share of nitro in some go-karts, I see a few places where these new stage rules could be exploited.
Oh, one member of a multi-car team is leading with under 10 to go but needs to pit before the end of the stage? Hey, teammate running in 34th, go ahead and hit the grass for me real quick. Thanks, homie. I’ll buy you a beer later.
The guy running second behind me is way faster on newer tires with eight to go? Let me go ahead and find this left pedal really quick. After all, I just have to make it to another caution, and if I never fire up the radio, it’s like nothing ever happened, right? These rear bumpers are pretty tough, after all.
Those are just what my pea brain can conjure up off the top of my head, and there are people with much larger brains and paychecks whose sole purpose is to figure out those kinds of loopholes. NASCAR will inevitably close them if they’re exploited too harshly, but at that point, why even make the change at all?
That answer is actually simple: fans getting 70% of what they want is far better than the whopping 0% they had before regarding stage breaks. Because the networks have a say in it, stage breaks probably aren’t going away anytime soon. That’s just the reality that every sport finds itself in. The Super Bowl takes much longer than your average NFL game for the same reason.
But even just by making his announcement directly via video, O’Donnell continued to do something NASCAR fans haven’t seen in a while by talking to them like he’s a fan himself, and for that, he earns another tip of the hat.
Can sponsorships like the Big 12 Football/Monster Energy agreement bring fans back to NASCAR?
It’s no secret that there’s a lot of overlap between college football and NASCAR fans. In general, many NASCAR fans are also football fans. I am one of them. That’s why it piqued my interest when I saw that the Big 12, as part of its new naming rights deal with Monster Energy, is slapping its logo on Riley Herbst‘s car this weekend.
Now, does the Big 12 really need help selling itself? Probably not. But no football conference in the history of television ever turned down a good chance to attract some extra eyeballs, and NASCAR is the same way.
Even just by promoting this on conference socials earlier, I’ve already had a few Texas Tech fans asking me about Herbst, his team and the race this weekend. They were former NASCAR fans, and I would imagine they’ll at least try to see where Herbst finishes (to be determined on whether they’re disappointed or not).
That got me thinking: what would an SEC sponsorship agreement do for the sport, or an ACC? Sure, some colleges and universities have sponsored cars before, but taking that up a notch might be the kind of brand partnership that could bring both fresh eyes and those who have left the sport back to the product.
All in all, this is a solid idea and job by the advertising agents in charge of it, and, if they have any sort of long-term interest in NASCAR, a type of placement that I wouldn’t mind seeing more of in the future. Typically, Learfield is the mastermind behind all of these negotiations, and as a company worth roughly $2 billion, that’s not a bad partner to have around.
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s OnSI Network, a contributor for multiple automotive news outlets, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host, and a PhD. student at a premier college of media and mass communication. Tanner began working with Frontstretch in 2022, covering the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Stage manipulation will be out in full force !
We’re going to have a lot of Bowyer “itchy arms”!
Leave it to Nascar to make a fix, but entirely the wrong one. Just score the cars for the stage as they cross the line and keep it green. Not that hard to figure out. Sadly, Nascar bows down to the networks so that will never happen.
Tanner, do you have some kind of axe to grind with Petty? Are you sure he’s not just talking about the competitive side? I’m sure he’s well aware of the monetary aspect of teams making the Chase. And he’s not wrong about the competitive side. 16 drivers is too many to qualify and only 5-10 are actual threats to win it.