NASCAR on TV this week

Side By Side: Should Interlopers Cut Series Regulars a Break?

_Welcome back to Side By Side. There are always two sides to every story, and we’re going to bring them both, right here, every week. Two of our staff writers will face off on an important racing question … feel free to tell us what you think in the weekly poll and also in the comments section below!_

*This Week’s Question: After a late-race shove from Chris Buescher knocked him out of the top 5, Nationwide regular Justin Allgaier expressed his unhappiness with the way Buescher raced, saying, “Unfortunately when you’re not racing for points, when you’re racing those who are racing for points, it’s hard to sometimes not do something like that so you can prove yourself. But at the same time, it screws a lot of people up around you don’t even realize it.” Do drivers need to race the regulars who are racing for a title in a series differently than they might race the regulars in their own declared series?*

Next in Line: Six ARCA Drivers Who Deserve A NASCAR Debut

The 2012 ARCA Racing Series season went out with a bang, rather than a whimper, last Friday at Kansas Speedway with three separate cars getting airborne during the 99-lap event. Alex Bowman won the battle — his fourth victory of the year — but Chris Buescher won the war, edging out nine-time series champion Frank Kimmel by 75 points en route to his first ARCA championship.

Parity, a running theme in NASCAR had to be a hallmark of this stock car series in 2012. Throughout the 19-race season (a 20th, DuQuoin, was cancelled due to inclement weather and the inability of series officials to reschedule a second time before season’s end) 11 different drivers found Victory Lane, three winning for the first time in the series. Officially, 147 different racers made an event, 10 of whom started every date on the schedule in 2012.