For one night a year, throw the points out the window as the Monster Energy All-Star teams take to their hometown track for the Annual All-Star Race. The Xfinity teams have one final week off before Charlotte but the Truck Series is back in action Friday night under the lights. Here is how you can watch all of the action.
All times are Eastern.
Friday, May 17
9:05 a.m. – 9:55 a.m.: Gander Outdoors Truck Series first practice – NASCAR.com/live
10:35 a.m. – 11:25 a.m.: Gander Outdoors Truck Series final practice – NASCAR.com/live
11:35 a.m. – 12:25 p.m: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series first practice COMBINED Open and All-Star – NASCAR.com/live
1:05 p.m. – 1:55 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series OPEN final practice – NASCAR.com/live
2:05 p.m. – 2:25 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series All-Star final practice – NASCAR.com/live , FS1 (Delayed)
2:35 p.m.: Pit road speed practice (All-Star Group 1) NASCAR.com/live
2:45 p.m.: Pit road speed practice (All-Star Group 2) NASCAR.com/live
4:35 p.m.: Gander Outdoors Truck Series Pole Qualifying
(Single Vehicle/One Laps All Positions) – FS1
6:00 p.m.: NASCAR Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
qualifying OPEN teams – (Single Vehicle/Two Laps) – FS1
7:00 p.m.: NASCAR Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying All-Star teams – (Single Vehicle/Three Laps All Positions, Mandatory Pitstop) – FS1/PRN
8:30 p.m.: Gander Outdoors Truck Series North Carolina
Educational Lottery 200 (Stages 30/60/134 Laps = 201 MILES) – FS1/MRN
Saturday, May 18
6 p.m.: Monster Energy Open Race (Stages 20/20/10 laps) – FS1/PRN
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway Saturday evening for the 35th running of the All-Star Race with a $1 million prize up for grabs.
Jimmie Johnson leads the way with four All-Star wins in 2003, 2006, 2012 and 2013. Kevin Harvick is the defending race winner with one other victory in 2007.
Kurt Busch, Kyle
Busch, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano complete the list of active
drivers who have won the All-Star Race, with one victory each.
This year’s event will include four stages consisting of 30, 20 and 20 laps with a final stage of 15 laps. During Stages 1-3 both green and yellow flag laps will count. Only green flag laps will count in the final stage. Pit stops are not mandatory.
NASCAR’s Overtime rules will be in effect. During the final stage, if the race is restarted with less than two laps remaining, there will be an unlimited number of attempts to ensure that the race will finish under green flag conditions.
This year’s race will add two technical elements to the cars. The first component is a single-piece carbon fiber splitter/pan. It is hoped that the splitter will “provide a more stable aero platform and create more consistent performance in traffic.” The All-Star
cars will also be “configured with a radiator exit duct through the hood.
This will separate aerodynamic performance and engine temperatures, creating
more parity across the field.”
There are
currently 15 drivers eligible for the All-Star Race. Competitors must have won
a points-paying race in 2018 or 2019, be a full-time driver who is a former
winner of the All-Star race or a past Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
champion.
The fifteen
eligible drivers include Aric Almirola, Ryan Blaney, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch,
Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Harvick, Johnson, Erik
Jones, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman and Martin Truex Jr.
Drivers can also
qualify by participating in the Monster Energy Open. The Open will be held at 6
p.m. ET on FS1 Saturday and will consist of three stages,(20, 20, 10 laps). The
winner of each stage will earn a spot in the All-Star Race.
The final driver will be determined by the Fan Vote, bringing the total to 19 drivers for the All-Star event. In 2008 Kasey Kahne earned a spot in the All-Star race through the Fan Vote and went on to win the All-Star race, the only driver to ever do so.
The Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race is set for May 18 at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Follow @angiecampbell_ for the latest NASCAR news and feature stories.
Wednesday, on NASCAR Race Hub, NASCAR announced the format for this year’s Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race.
Over its 35-year history, it’s had 15 different formats. Three of them have come in the last five years.
Does the All-Star Race excite anyone, anymore?
What’s even the most notable thing that’s happened in this event in the last 10 years? Probably 2012, when NASCAR incentivized the segment winners to sandbag, until the final pit stop (to their credit, however, they changed that the following year to best segment average finish).
This isn’t your father’s All-Star Race, where Rusty Wallace turned Darrell Waltrip to win the event or Davey Allison got turned, as he crossed the finish line. This is an event that’s become a victim of the aerodynamic-centrism that’s made races at 1.5-mile tracks so maligned. This is a race where the guy who exits pit road first on the final stop wins it nine times out of 10.
It’s yet another race in a season that’s already too long.
And unlike other All-Star Games in the stick and ball world, you’re not seeing players that, if you follow Major League Baseball, you’d only see three or four times a year (or 20 times, if you’re a fan of a division rival) in a 162-game season. You’re seeing the drivers that already race 36 times a year.
So what made it stand out? It was the gimmicks.
It made sense until 2004, when this was a race with gimmicks, during a season when the championship was decided in a season-long points format. But with all the gimmicks that permeate NASCAR now (and yes, stage racing and playoff points are gimmicks), what makes this race any different from a race during the season?
Is it the million-dollar prize? Aside from it not being the only race with a purse that large, what about that is supposed to appeal to the blue-collar worker that earns $31,900 a year? For context, the median household income in the United States (and this number can vary by source) in 2017 was $61,372.
It’s time to accept that the All-Star Race has run its course. The event, every year, is so over-hyped and enrages fans when it disappoints.
What if instead of the All-Star Race, we use it as an actual off weekend for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. And while it’s off, let’s run the NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) and the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series (NGOTS) at a short track, like — say — Hickory Motor Speedway or Myrtle Beach Speedway.
Then the next weekend (if we must run the NGOTS and NXS at Charlotte), run the NGOTS race on Thursday, NXS on Saturday and the Coca-Cola World 600 on Sunday evening.
Right now, as it is, the All-Star Race is just another race weekend taking up space in an already crowded schedule.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — One term I’ve heard used by those attending the Short Track Nationals at Bristol Motor Speedway this past weekend has been “Corporate NASCAR,” meaning NASCAR’s desires to grow the sport has made it lose touch with the interests and desires of its core fans. After watching yet another lackluster All-Star Race that was overhyped by both NASCAR and Charlotte Motor Speedway, I believe there’s truth to that “Corporate NASCAR” label.
I’ve spent the entire weekend at Thunder Valley milling about the garage “tents” of the late model and street stock classes as they prepared to race on the high banks of the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile.” The differences between the atmosphere of these lower level short track racing series and a typical NASCAR weekend are astronomical, even on a typical Bristol weekend.
Race action during a Super Late Model feature race for the Short Track U.S. Nationals at Bristol Motor Speedway. Photo: Tucker White/SpeedwayMedia.com
The atmosphere at Bristol this weekend has been far more relaxed and fan-friendly, allowing fans to be up close and mingle with drivers who actually were inside the track more often than not. On a typical NASCAR weekend, you’re lucky if your driver spends more than a few minutes outside of his/her motor coach prior to a practice/qualifying session or race. All the late model and street stock teams worked out of a tent where fans could walk by and chat with team members as they please. In the NASCAR world, I see teams rope off their war wagons, telling the public to piss off. Fans were able to stand near the wall inside the track, provided they didn’t do anything reckless. On a NASCAR weekend, you need to be a photographer or hard-carded to be near the walls when cars are on track.
Finally, the drivers meeting this weekend at the Short Track Nationals was actually a meeting where they went over race procedure and emphasized the different layout for Bristol (the turns were on the opposite sides of a NASCAR race and the front and backstretch were flipped). It was also open to anyone who purchased a pit pass for the day or weekend and was held out in the open.
The drivers meeting’s in NASCAR are a joke. It’s an overblown spectacle, and I’m using that term incredibly loosely, held in a secluded location that’s not open to the public, usually inside the track where a hot pass at minimum is needed to even get near, much less attend. And even a hot pass won’t always get you into the meeting, even if you’re media. What goes on when the meeting actually starts? It’s about eight to 10 minutes of naming off dignitaries and then two to three minutes at most dedicated to actually talking about race procedure.
That 24-word sentence that ended the previous paragraph is every drivers meeting ever. Once in a while, you’ll get a driver or crew chief to actually raise their hands when a series director asks everyone if there are any questions, but that’s usually a result of a fustercluck XFINITY/Truck Series race the day prior and/or NASCAR making a bizarre penalty call in a race the day prior.
But I’m not here to dwell on the atmosphere of the Short Track Nationals. I presented it to show the dichotomy between local level short track racing and NASCAR.
Now let’s discuss last night’s snoozer of a race that was the Monster Energy All-Star Race.
First off, take a look at the “over the top” infield logo for this year’s race. It’s so bland and generic for a race that’s emphasizes “no points, just old fashioned, run for the money,” high energy racing. This looks like a freaking teaser logo that’s used to keep people in the dark about what’s really coming.
But if you think the race logo is phoned in, feast your eyes on the infield logo, via this Tweet from Jim Utter of Motorsport.com.
Charlotte Motor Speedway couldn’t even take the time to paint that generic race logo on the grass? They just painted Monster Energy on the grass.
I know I’m nitpicking here, but I must if this is not to be repeated.
CONCORD, N.C. – MAY 20: Monster Energy performers entertain the crowd prior to the start of the Monster Energy NASCAR All Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 20, 2017 in Concord, North Carolina. Photo: Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images
Let’s now turn to the new sponsor of the Cup Series, Monster Energy.
Their idea of brining people to the track is MMA fights and motorcycle shows in a giant steel hamster ball that I’ve seen done with more at stake at a state carnival.
Now I understand perfectly that entertainment is not experienced in a vacuum and everyone has different tastes. But how is anything Monster Energy is doing leading to attracting a new crowd? Attendance at most tracks is still shaky and ratings are still plummeting, so it’s not working right now.
To make a long story short, everything Monster Energy is doing is all flash with no substance.
And now we come to the race itself.
It was yet another snooze-fest of a mile and a half race that had nothing of substance to it. Kyle Larson led from start to finish in the first two segments and Jimmie Johnson led all but two laps in the third segment before winning it.
On the final restart, Kyle Busch dove under Brad Keselowski only a few hundred yards past the start/finish line to take the lead and drove on to victory.
Clean air was key to victory.
We’ve seen this year after year where the driver who gets out front in the final segment is the driver who wins the race more often than not, last year being the exception where Joey Logano passed Larson in the closing laps of the final stage.
Yet for whatever reason, NASCAR continues to run this race at Charlotte, rather than moving it to a short track where aerodynamics aren’t so critical.
Year after year, the aero push effect has gotten worse at the intermediate tracks, especially at Charlotte, but NASCAR, International Speedway Corporation and Speedway Motorsports Inc. aren’t moving away from these types of tracks. Instead, they’ve gone to more of them. Hell, next season, we’re taking a race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and moving it to the intermediate track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
To put it simply, the biggest problem with NASCAR today is the disconnect between those in charge of the sport and those who sit in the seats, and it was on display at Charlotte more than any race this season. The disconnect encompasses everything I’ve mentioned in this piece and explains why people who take part in local level racing have such a negative opinion of NASCAR today.
Now I understand that a sport the size of NASCAR has many masters to serve. They have to please the drivers, teams, tracks, media and fans at the same time, and the interests of one entity listed isn’t always shared with another. In that respect, I understand NASCAR can’t please everybody. The best they can do is do what pleases the largest number of people and apologize to those it shafts in doing so.
But the most important entity of the bunch is the fans. If people aren’t buying tickets and/or watching the race on TV, the sport grinds to a halt.
Bottom line, take care of your customers and they’ll take care of you. And last night’s All-Star Race shows NASCAR still has work to do.
