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Tag: The White-Zone

  • The White Zone: Race names should have regional significance again

    The White Zone: Race names should have regional significance again

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers,” and I’m here to say it’s time races need to return to race titles with relevance to the region.

    As a 22-year-old male from Tennessee, I’d be part of the millennial audience that NASCAR so desperately longs after. Or I would be if I wasn’t covering this sport as a journalist now. So you might think I would be all for the changes NASCAR has done to cater to the younger crowds such as the caution clock. Well anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that’s not the case.

    For as long as I’ve been involved in the sport, be it as a fan or a journalist, I’ve been stuck in the middle between the old school and new school way of running the sport. This past season, I’ve moved more towards the old way because of gimmicks like the caution clock.

    But I’m not here to complain about the gimmicks (that’s a discussion for another day). Those two paragraphs above were simply to provide context as to where I’m coming from on this topic.

    In August of 2014, NASCAR returned the Bojangles’ Southern 500 to its rightful place on Labor Day Sunday starting in 2015. This reversed a decision made by the sanctioning body a decade earlier moving it off Labor Day weekend in favor of Auto Club Speedway. To many longtime fans, including myself, this was a deadly sin that spat in the face of tradition (I go into much greater detail about it here). Only in returning Labor Day Sunday to Darlington Raceway was NASCAR forgiven of this sin.

    Just a week ago, NASCAR announced Monster Energy as the new title sponsor for the Cup Series. I don’t know much about the company or their exploits. I’m told they’ve got a great reach on millennials like myself. I’ll hold any judgement of them until I see results.

    I bring up these two examples to show there’s a way to build for the future while maintaining the bridge that keeps the past history and traditions of our sport alive. One way to maintain that bridge is for tracks to return to the practice of race name titles that have relevance to the city, region and/or state.

    The younger fans might not understand what I’m saying, but the older fans probably remember a time when race names were relevant to the locality itself. These are races such as the Southern 500, the Daytona 500, the Virginia 500, the Old Dominion 500, the Dixie 500, the Southeastern 500, the Volunteer 500, the Mason-Dixon 500, the Delaware 500, the Pocono 500 and the Pennsylvania 500. Now race titles such as the Southern 500 and the Daytona 500 are still in use, but a lot of tracks don’t do this anymore.

    It started to shift in the 1980s with an influx of corporate sponsorship of races. For a few years, the practice was “corporate sponsor,” “race title” and “race distance.” So instead of the Talladega 500, you’d get the Talladega DieHard 500.

    In the 90s, that practice went almost entirely to “corporate name” and “race distance.” So instead of the Talladega DieHard 500, you got the DieHard 500, Winston 500, EA Sports 500, UAW-Ford 500, AMP Energy 500, AMP Energy Juice 500, Good Sam Club 500, Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500, Camping World RV Sales 500, GEICO 500, CampingWorld.com 500 and Hellmann’s 500. That’s every name this race at Talladega Superspeedway has gone by since 1990.

    DieHard is a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation, based in Chicago, Winston is a brand of cigarette owned by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts, based in Redwood City, California, the United Automobile Workers is an American labor union based in Detroit and Ford closed its only Alabama factory (which produced die-cast parts, pistons and transmission casings) in 1983, AMP Energy and AMP Energy Juice are brands owned by PepsiCo, based in Purchase, New York, Camping World and Good Sam Club are both subsidiaries of Good Sam Enterprises, based in Ventura, California and Hellmann’s is a brand name for mayonnaise that’s owned by Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company based in Rotterdam, Netherlands and London.

    You might have noticed that not one of those companies are based in the state of Alabama, nor do they produce any of their goods in the state of Alabama.

    Now I’m not disparaging the companies that have sponsored this race or any race. I’m not even disparaging Grant Lynch or the team at Talladega that brought these companies in. I have absolutely no problem with any company outside the locality sponsoring an event. What I’m getting at here is that Talladega could go a step further by adding the word “Talladega” or “Alabama” to the title of the race so that race title actually bears some relevance to the region.

    I also don’t mean to harp on Talladega either. Just about every track has done this. The difference is some of those races are sponsored by companies with ties to the region and even city. The Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway is a perfect example because, although not a company based in Tennessee, Food City is based in Abingdon, Virginia, which is part of the “Tri-Cities” metropolitan area of Bristol (Tenn. and Va.), Johnson City and Kingsport (don’t think too long on that). It’s a company that’s part of the local community.

    Another example, albeit obscure to those outside the locality, is the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. Toyota, while a Japanese company, maintains the headquarters of its United States division in Torrence, California and Save Mart Supermarkets is based in Modesto, California, 92 miles east of San Francisco, of which Sonoma is a part.

    Michigan International Speedway has both races sponsored by entities in the state of Michigan. The FireKeepers Casino 400 is sponsored by FireKeepers Casino and Hotel in the Emmett Charter Township. The connection of the Pure Michigan 400 goes without saying.

    But these are few and far between. Most tracks go with the “corporate name” and “race distance” title. As I stated before, I’m not disparaging these companies for sponsoring races outside their localities, nor am I towards the tracks or track operators that bring these companies in. I’m not asking for tracks to only go after local companies or companies in the state. I’d just like to see more tracks return to using classic naming practices.

    I’ll even give you track presidents some free ones for this season: the Kobalt Las Vegas 400 or Kobalt Sin City 400, the Camping World Valley of the Sun 500 (Phoenix), the STP Virginia 500 (Martinsville), the O’Reilly Auto Parts LoneStar State 500, the Toyota Owners Richmond 400, the GEICO Talladega 500, the Go Bowling Kansas City 400, the Coke Zero Firecracker 400 (Daytona), the Quaker State Bluegrass State 400 (Kentucky), the Bass Pro Shops NRA Volunteer 500 (Bristol), the Federated Auto Parts Capitol City 400 (Richmond), the Goody’s Fast Relief Old Dominion 500 (Martinsville), the Can-Am Arizona 500 and the Ford EcoBoost Miami 400.

    To any track president that reads this, please consider adding these titles to your races this season. It’s a minor addition and it would go a bit of the way to bridging the past that made this sport so great to the future we all strive to create.

    Now I’m limited to what Wikipedia and my books on NASCAR history have to say on this subject. If you guys believe I missed any race titles or have any you’d like to suggest, leave your comments below.

    My flight is about to take off so I must get going.

  • The White Zone: The Chase has run its course

    The White Zone: The Chase has run its course

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I’m here to say that the Chase has run it’s course and it’s time NASCAR do away with it.

    Now right off the bat, I know this might be a tad hypocritical of me to say given I once wrote an article admonishing fans for still hating the Chase. I’ve abandonded that point of view and now don’t look upon the Chase as favorably.

    There is probably nothing more polarizing in the world of NASCAR today than the Chase. Since it’s inception in the 2004 Nextel Cup season, it’s been a source of constant angst that’s divided the fanbase of the sport for a number of reasons.

    The original Chase was less of a “playoff” like in stick and ball sports and more of a 10-race “miniseason.” In it’s first season, Kurt Busch recovered from literally losing a wheel to win the championship by a margin of eight points over Jimmie Johnson, then a record for the closest points finish in NASCAR history.

    As time went on, more and more changes made it more and more artificial and conveluted.

    In 2014, NASCAR implemented the elimination format style of the Chase. This was more like a “playoff” with eliminations and rounds, rather than it being a miniseason.

    This was the format that took the cake in artificiallity. It ensures that no matter what happens, four drivers will always vie for the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

    They went a step further this year and added the same format to the XFINITY Series and Camping World Truck Series.

    For me, it came to a head today.

    On the final restart of the Ford EcoBoost 300, Cole Whitt, who opted not to pit and assumed the lead on 30-lap old tires, spun his tires and cost Erik Jones and Justin Allgaier a chance at winning the XFINITY Championship.

    While it was a dumb move on his part, it was the reaction that I don’t agree with and what led to this column.

    There was a lot of people chastizing him for determining the outcome of the championship the way it occured.

    My take on that is this: Whitt has every right to be there. This is racing! Just because Jones was competing for the title didn’t mean Whitt was obligated to move out of the way for him.

    Just because he had no chance of winning the race – by the way, would you tell me if my Tennessee Volunteers will play in the Sugar Bowl this season while you’re looking in your crystal ball – doesn’t mean he doesn’t get to be there. We harp on other drivers when they decide to lay back and not go for the win, yet criticize Whitt for doing exactly that.

    MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!!!

    But it was this one tweet in particular from Jeff Gluck of USA Today that led to this column.

    The part that caught my eye, and led to this column, was suggesting that maybe NASCAR should’ve stepped in and told Cole Whitt he couldn’t restart up front so he wouldn’t interfere with the championship fight. (I’ll come back to this in a moment)

    Now to be fair, he did issue a retraction of that statement in a later tweet.

    So Jeff, if you’re reading this, I’m not directing my ire at you. I just used your earlier tweet for reference.

    I hate to play the hypothetical game, but let’s say hypothetically NASCAR did step in and tell Whitt, who, even on worn out tires, was leading the race, to take a hike and let championship contender Sadler, Jones or Allgaier in first. If that happened, well, let’s just say I hope Mike Bagley, Pete Pistone, Jim Noble, Chocolate Myers, Dave Moody and anyone else at SiriusXM NASCAR Radio would still has vacation days to burn, because they would not want to be present when those people call in on Monday.

    Fans would be irate, and rightly so, at NASCAR explicitly manipulating the outcome of a race. It would instantly validate every last claim of manipulating the outcome of races that has ever been levied against the people that run NASCAR.

    So what does this have to do with my original thesis? It’s my proof that the Chase has done more harm to the sport than its done good and it’s time we put it in the vault labelled “Good on paper, but poorly executed idea” along with the Car of Tomorrow.

    My plane is about to take off so I must get going.

  • The White Zone: The current penalty structure inadvertently incentivizes cheating

    The White Zone: The current penalty structure inadvertently incentivizes cheating

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to unload on the deterrent system NASCAR has for the penalty structure and how it inadvertently incentivizes cheating.

    This past Wednesday, NASCAR made changes to the penalty structure to give it more teeth and discourage attempts of cheating.

    Among the changes included adding a stiffer penalty for cars that fail LIS inspection and are deemed “encumbered.”

    “The changes are made to assure that we have a level playing field and make sure that there’s not a carrot out there for the team to have excessive violations when it comes to lug nuts and the LIS post-race measurements,” Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, told NASCAR.com. “As we worked with those penalties during the season we realized we probably needed to have a little bit more in place as Chase time rolled around.

    “The Chase obviously changes a lot of scenarios for both NASCAR and the teams; it’s ramped up the intensity and there is a lot of scrutiny, as there is every week on everything (involving) technical infractions. This is really just a matter of us putting something in place so that should something happen, we have a means to effectively deal with it.”

    A few hours after the checkered flag flew on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, it was announced that the winning No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Jimmie Johnson had failed post-race LIS inspection.

    However, and this is where we get to my biggest problem with the penalty structure, the 78 car was not considered “encumbered” so he therefor gets to keep the win and the benefits of said win.

    If you don’t understand all that technical babble, it basically translates to, “The 78 car was illegal, but not too illegal. So Truex gets to keep the benefits of his win.”

    These teams have inadvertently been given license to cheat, but not too much that it’ll really bite them. Sure a 10 or 15-point penalty might bite Johnson in the ass when the checkered flag flies at Dover, but a points penalty means nothing in the case of Truex. It doesn’t matter if you take away all his points. His win means he’s locked into the next round.

    In essence, NASCAR has inadvertently incentivized cheating.

    Think about it. With the current wording of the rulebook, especially in regards to LIS failure, a team is essentially rewarded for finding ways to make a car illegal enough to fail inspection, but not enough to have the benefits of the win taken away.

    If you don’t believe me, here’s a tweet from producer Tyler Burnett of the Motor Racing Network.

    I’m not accusing the 78 team of cheating and I have no proof that they are. I only presented the above tweet to show how their LIS failure could be interpreted as “cheating.” However, they don’t help their case of not being perceived as “cheating” when Truex was explicitly told to swerve and this is the second straight week the 78 car has failed post-race inspection.

    It was bound to happen one of these years. NASCAR has always been hesitant to take away wins because they want the at track audience to know who won when they saw it.

    Maybe that made sense when newspapers were the main source of news, but the date this piece was published is September 18th, 2016. We now live in the internet age where communication with other people is almost instantaneous. And while I do still value the work of newspapers, news can be broken within seconds of an event happening via Twitter.

    I’ll be very damn interested in what Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice-president and chief racing development officer, has to say about this tomorrow in his appearance on “The Morning Drive” because I’d love to know how “encumbered” could be interpreted as anything other than “his car wasn’t illegal enough.”

    My plane is about to take off, so I must wrap this up.

    THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS PIECE ARE SOLELY THOSE OF TUCKER WHITE. THEY MAY OR MAY NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF SPEEDWAYMEDIA.COM.

  • The White Zone: Plate Racing Isn’t Going Away

    The White Zone: Plate Racing Isn’t Going Away

    TALLADEGA, Ala.– “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to make it clear that restrictor plate racing isn’t going away.

    As usual, yesterday’s GEICO 500 was quite the show of excitement and carnage. We saw cars upside down and a whole gaggle of cars caught up in one wreck, 37 lead changes among 17 different drivers and mayhem coming to the finish line. It was hands down the most competitive race of the season and arguably one of the best races at Talladega. That, however, hasn’t stopped the critics of restrictor plate racing from pointing to the carnage as the argument against it.

    Now plate racing has always come with its detractors. The late David Poole was probably the most hardened critic of restrictor plate racing. Every Monday after a race at Daytona International Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway, he would pen a column in The Charlotte Observer and say on The Morning Drive on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that we should knock down the banking at Daytona and Talladega. The wreck with Carl Edwards at Talladega in 2009 sent him over the edge and led to him suffering a fatal heart attack.

    As of late, I’ve started to notice some more people I work with in the media center, I won’t name any of them, who are starting to turn against plate racing.

    Here’s my take on restrictor plate racing: I love it and I’m not ashamed to say it! Whether you like it or not, Daytona and Talladega are the most competitive races of the season and the numbers back that up. The number of passes is higher than at any other track and the lead changes are higher than at any other track. More than anything, it’s unpredictable and anyone who so much as qualifies can realistically win.

    The carnage is always there, but that’s part of the game. If you go into a race weekend at Daytona or Talladega thinking to yourself that you won’t see big crashes, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

    Racing is a dangerous sport. It’s been a dangerous sport since auto racing was born in France in the early 1900s and remains the most dangerous sport in the world. To quote Brad Keselowski, “racing has always been that balance of daredevils and chess players.”

    We’ve seen other forms of racing continue to race at tracks that don’t fit any current safety standards. One of Formula 1’s crown jewel races is held every Memorial Day Sunday on the streets of Monte Carlo and it doesn’t come close to meeting the safety standards of modern F1. Speaking of Memorial Day, IndyCar continues to race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway despite the fact that these cars are racing at speeds that couldn’t have been imagined in the early days of the Brickyard. Just last year, we saw heart-stopping wrecks in the days leading up to the Indianapolis 500 because of the emphasis on higher speeds.

    Despite all the dangers of Monaco and Indianapolis, these racing series still race at these historic venues for one reason; they’re the cathedrals that embody the greatness of their respective sports.

    This was the reason that Daytona and Talladega were built in the first place. They were built to be the cathedrals that embody what is so damn great about NASCAR.

    The bottom line is that unless fans can settle for Daytona and Talladega becoming drawn out and uncompetitive like Indianapolis, which is exactly what would happen without the plates, plate racing isn’t going away.

    My plane is about to take off, so I must get going. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. It takes about 142.18 licks to reach the center of a Tootsie pop.

     

  • The White Zone: The Garage is Not a Playground

    The White Zone: The Garage is Not a Playground

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to make it clear that the NASCAR garage is not a place for lolly-gagging.

    After Kyle Busch wrecked out of the race and brought his car behind the wall, his car ran into a woman taking pictures. The woman, Erin Vandyke, was treated at the infield care center and later taken to a local hospital. As of the publishing of this piece, it’s unknown if she’s been released.

    I decided to talk about this because I’ve seen people tweet that Busch should be suspended for this. Well here’s the thing, the garage area is not a playground where you can just do whatever as a fan.

    Before I could start working in the media center, I was told there are two standing rules in the NASCAR garage area: be aware of your surroundings and DO NOT interfere with pit crew operations. Ignoring one or both of those rules are the fastest ways to get your hot pass pulled. In order to work in the media center, I have to keep my head on a swivel and make sure my photography isn’t preventing a crew member from getting to where he/she needs to go.

    Yet in the three races I’ve been on assignment this season, I’ve seen constant cases of fans not paying attention to their surroundings and being in the way of crew members trying to get to their destination. This is especially apparent when the track is hot and the cars are rolling in and out of the garage. I can’t count how many times that I’ve about gotten hit by cars because I can barely get out of their way with some fan behind me who won’t move. Just yesterday, because far too many people had hot passes at Bristol, I couldn’t move out of the way of a member of Casey Mears’s team who was taking gas cans back to the stall. If a security person had been near, I probably would’ve had my hot pass pulled because of fans who just had to be looking at their damn phones.

    The point I’m driving at here is that the race track is a dangerous place and you must have constant awareness of your surroundings. If you don’t, you’re going to get yourself injured or killed. If fans continue to not pay attention, NASCAR will start coming down harder on you and make hot passes harder to get.

    My plane is about to take off, so I must get going. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance.

    The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the writer. They may or may not represent the views of SpeedwayMedia.com.

  • The White Zone: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not After Five Races

    The White Zone: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not After Five Races

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to unload on who’s been performing and who’s been lacking so far in 2016.

    After a wild first five races of the 2016 NASCAR campaign, we’re taking a weekend breather for Easter. Since I haven’t done one of these in awhile, I decided to climb atop my soapbox and tell you whom I believe is hot so far and who’s not so far.

    For this list, I’m only counting drivers that weren’t expected to be driving at the level they are as drivers who are hot. I won’t include drivers like Kevin Harvick or Jimmie Johnson because we all expect them to perform well. For drivers who are not, I’m only including those who were expected to perform better than they are at the moment. That means you won’t see Danica Patrick on this list.

    Without further ado, let’s begin.

    Who’s hot #1: Austin Dillon

    Photo Credit: Brian Lawdermilk/NASCAR via Getty Images
    Austin Dillon is looking great so far. Photo: Brian Lawdermilk/NASCAR via Getty Images

    I think it’s safe to say that 2016 is looking to be a career season for Austin Dillon.

    The driver of the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet has had finishes of ninth, 11th, fifth, ninth and 24th to start out his third full season in the Sprint Cup Series. He had an average finish of 17.5 in 2014 and 21.0 in 2015 through the entire 36-race stretch. In 2016, his average is 11.6 through five. At this point in 2014, he had just one top-10 finish and no top-five. At this point in 2015, he had neither a top-10 nor top-five finish. He’s easily bested both through five races in 2016.

    This would appear to be a sign that RCR is finally making ground and becoming a competitive organization again, but teammates Paul Menard and Ryan Newman have been lagging toward the back-end of the front half of the field with a finishing average of around 20th for both drivers.

    Either way, I have no reason to believe Dillon won’t continue his strong run as we head into Martinsville. I even believe that he’ll finally break through and win a race or two this season.

    Who’s not #1: Kyle Larson

    2016 has not been too kind so far to Kyle Larson. Photo: Getty Images
    2016 has not been too kind so far to Kyle Larson. Photo: Getty Images

    While things are looking great for one driver of the 2014 rookie class, Kyle Larson has been unable to mount any great drives.

    After a seventh-place finish in the Daytona 500, the driver of the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet and 2014 rookie of the year was looking to rebound from a disappointing 2015 season with the low downforce package that many said would favor drivers like Larson. This, however, has not been the case.

    With finishes of seventh, 26th, 34th, 12th and 39th, 2016 is looking to be a continuation of 2015. But by this point in 2015, he already had two top-10 finishes and those were at tracks other than Daytona.

    After starting out with so much promise in 2014, he seemed to regress in 2015 and it’s not looking to be any better after five races in 2016. While he’s signed on with Ganassi through 2017, I believe he’s getting to the point where he’s about to be declared the NASCAR equivalent of an NFL draft “bust.” In a nutshell, it means someone who probably had tremendous potential, but it never materialized.

    Who’s hot #2: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

    Photo: Getty Images
    Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is showing signs of life early in 2016. Photo: Getty Images

    The upgrade in performance from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. appears to be a sign that Roush Fenway Racing is starting to turn the ship around.

    While teammates Trevor Bayne and Greg Biffle continue to lag behind, the driver of the No. 17 RFR Ford is potentially showing that the organization that once put all five of its drivers into the Chase is starting to return to competitive form.

    Now if you look at his finishes of 22nd, 10th, 12th, 37th and fifth, you might think this is par for the course for Stenhouse. When you look at his career statistics, the answer would appear to be yes. However, after five races in each of his previous three seasons, he never had more than one top-10 finish and only once did he have one top-10 finish in the first five races.

    I’m not ready to say if the two-time XFINITY Series champion is ready to fight for a win just yet, but if he continues to have strong runs like he’s had in the first five races of 2016, he’ll continue to accumulate top-10 finishes.

    Who’s not #2: Matt Kenseth

    Matt Kenseth has been dealt awful luck so far in 2016. Photo: Noel Lanier
    Matt Kenseth has been dealt awful luck so far in 2016. Photo: Noel Lanier

    The last driver I’ll talk about is one Matthew Roy Kenseth.

    I almost didn’t include the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on my list because I could chalk up his lousy start to the season to incredibly bad luck. When you look at all his bad finishes after five races, there was a reasonable catalyst that was beyond his control in almost each of them and he was running up front in most of those races. But as I stated in my criteria for this list, I’m looking at drivers that had high expectations and have so far fallen short.

    Let’s go back to the start of the season in Daytona Beach, Florida. Kenseth had the race lead on the final lap and was in good position to score his second Daytona 500 victory. With two laps to go, however, teammate Denny Hamlin broke formation and moved to the high line. By the time the field was in turn 3, Kenseth moved up to block Hamlin. By that time, Hamlin got under Kenseth who came down, got loose and fell back to a 14th-place finish.

    Then came Atlanta where he had a car that could win. Unfortunately, he fell afoul of an unusual rule when his gas man placed a wrench on the back deck lid of the car while the fuel can was engaged. NASCAR deemed this “improper fueling” and Kenseth was shown the black flag. While crew chief Jason Ratcliff argued the call, nobody relayed the penalty to Kenseth. After three laps, he was shown the black flag with white cross marks which meant he would no longer be scored until he served his penalty. This process took him from fourth in the running order to 31st two laps down. The best he could do was rally back to a 19th-place finish.

    In Las Vegas, Kenseth was running toward the front when he was sent up toward the wall and rear-ended by Chase Elliott near the end of the Kobalt 400 and finished 37th.

    In Phoenix, he finally did enough to post his first top-10 of the season with a seventh-place finish in the Good Sam 500.

    Last week in Fontana, Kenseth was largely a non-factor as he finished 19th.

    Unlike Larson, I don’t expect the 2003 Sprint Cup Series champion to continue having rotten finishes. His team will find a way to have more consistent finishes and get him to victory lane. In the month of April, he’ll be visiting four tracks at which he has a combined eight wins and an over 50 percent top-10 average at two of the next four tracks.

    Now five races is, by no means, a representative sample of the 36-race season. If I were to do this again in five weeks time, this list could look very different. So don’t freak out if your driver isn’t living up to his expectations after five races because it could all change for better or worse on any given Sunday.

    My plane is about to take off, so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. Most toilets flush in E flat.

    The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author. They may or may not be shared by SpeedwayMedia.com.

  • The White Zone: I’d like to see a relegation system with the charters

    The White Zone: I’d like to see a relegation system with the charters

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to unload my thoughts on the idea of a relegation-esque system for the charters.

    While I was sitting in the media workroom yesterday at the Charlotte Convention Center in the Queen City, I came across a tweet that peaked my interest from @RaceTalkRadio. They tweeted “New Charter system SHOULD have performance clause with some meat in it, lowest ranked team loses spot + highest non-charter gets it.”

    I tweeted him back saying I could get behind that idea. I liked it so much that I asked NASCAR Executive Vice-President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell about it during the news conference. I asked if there was “a chance in the future where we could see a system where the lowest charter team in the points could lose that charter to the highest non-charter team in the points, i.e., a type of relegation system you would see in European soccer leagues.” He said that NASCAR “did study a lot of different sports, including the [Barclay’s Premier League].

    “He said that NASCAR “did study a lot of different sports, including the Barclay’s Premier League. For us the best model is where we landed.” O’Donnell also added that the sanctioning body’s goal “is to have sustainable charters. We’re comfortable with the number that we have and believe that the number 36 in terms of charters, we don’t want to be in the business of taking any away, we want to see them go out and compete; one through 36 have the opportunity to go win a championship.”

    For those of you not familiar with the concept of relegation, here’s a crash course. In England, there are 23 levels of professional soccer. The Premier League is the top of the chain. At the end of every season, the lowest ranked team in the league gets relegated to the Football League Championship and the champion FLC team gets promoted to the Premier League. The only real difference between the two leagues is the distribution of television revenue.

    Basically, what I’d like to see NASCAR do down the road is use a system where the lowest ranked charter team loses said charter and it goes to the highest ranked non-charter team. This would provide extra incentive for the non-charter teams to put their all into the season and give perspective new owners just starting up a chance to “live the good life” should they be the highest non-charter team in points.

    I know this would cause some ire with the charter holders because there’s no guarantee that they’d get any of their money that they paid for said charter back, but I believe that if NASCAR would compensate the team that finds themselves on the short end of the stick with relegation, this is a system that could work and make for interesting storylines with us in the media.

    My plane is about to take off so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. More people speak English in China than the United States.

    The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and may or may not represent the views of Speedway Media.

  • The White-Zone: Stop Whining About “Daytona Day”

    The White-Zone: Stop Whining About “Daytona Day”

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to tell everyone to calm down with the freakout over “Daytona Day.”

    From time to time, NASCAR nation gets embroiled in some ridiculous discussions like the Confederate flag and the restart zone. By far the most ridiculous discussion of all still belongs to the damn restart zone, but the uproar over Daytona Day is a close second.

    For those of you who weren’t watching the NFC Championship Game this past Sunday, FOX ran a one-minute promo for the upcoming 58th running of the Daytona 500. If you didn’t get to see it, here it is.

     

    As you can see, it’s basically a promo aimed at people my age who love to socialize and have fun while watching sporting events. It’s not meant for those of us who are diehard fans of NASCAR and already had the Daytona 500 circled on our calendars. While I think it’s a little cheesy, I know people to whom this would appeal nicely. It’s basically saying get your friends together for a Daytona 500 viewing party like you would for the Super Bowl.

    Judging from the reaction of the fans already here, you would think FOX took a truck full of bibles, dumped them into a hole, doused them with gasoline and lit a match.

    Fans were taking to Twitter to bitch and moan about a promo saying it doesn’t portray NASCAR fans the right way, it doesn’t depict the NASCAR experience and that it didn’t make any mention that Pope Pius XII died of heart failure on Oct. 9, 1958.

    Some even said that this was the final straw and that they’ll never watch NASCAR again.

    As I said in the lede, “get a grip!” This isn’t Augusta National where only the select few can enter. This is a sport with a fan base whose average age is 50 (Sports Business Journal).

    Just like the human body, sports need new blood to keep the sport going. Our fan base isn’t getting any younger and we need people my age to get into the sport. Some of us weren’t born into families that already watched NASCAR religiously. Those people like myself had to find our love for racing on our own.

    A lot of the old school fans have attacked the people in the ads as a bunch of yuppies who wouldn’t stay for the entire 36 race season. Even if that were the case, the Daytona 500 is the biggest race of the year for us. We should be getting as many freaking eyeballs as possible in front of the TV sets every February.

    Let me put it to you another way. NASCAR races every season average around 4 million viewers. Let’s say you throw a viewing party for the Daytona 500 and invite 20 people to watch it. If even just four of them are converted and continue watching for the next 35 weeks, that’s 16-million new people introduced to the sport we all love.

    I understand that the old guard doesn’t want to acknowledge their time has come and gone. I understand that they don’t want to feel like NASCAR isn’t catering to them anymore. I’ve been following this sport long enough to qualify as a “legacy fan” so I get it. I also feel there needs to be a balance between serving those fans that got NASCAR here and serving those who are just starting their journey as fans into NASCAR. But the fact is the legacy fans aren’t going to live forever and what worked back in the day doesn’t work for my generation.

    In any sport, the last and probably most important responsibility of the old guard is to help facilitate and initiate the new guard to take over. It can’t work, however, if you’re not willing to welcome those new guns and new ideas into the mix. Last year when Kansas Speedway announced that it had partnered with Nickelodeon to call the Kansas spring race the SpongeBob SquarePants 400, so many people turned their nose up at it saying it makes it too much for kids. To which I say, that was the whole point. What is wrong with using companies like Nickelodeon to help us market to children? I loved it because I grew up watching shows like SpongeBob and to a degree still enjoy it as an adult. A lot of the current stuff is crap, but it still brings in the youth that this sport desperately needs.

    I found my love of NASCAR through a show called NASCAR Racers. Yeah, remember that show from back in 1999? When I discovered that this show was based on a real sport, I started tuning in and that’s how I’m here.

    The bottom line is it’s ridiculous to get so worked up about a promo aimed at getting new blood into the sport we all love because the fan base is one of the oldest in professional sports. I’m not saying you have to like every new idea or new marketing campaign, but don’t get so worked up over a promo for one of the biggest races in all of racing because it’s cheesy and doesn’t include the fight of Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison in 1979. If you just stand around with your finger in your nose and do nothing, expect to get left behind.

    My plane is about to take off so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. The most money ever paid for a cow in an auction was $1.3 million.

    The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and may or may not represent the views of Speedway Media.

  • The White Zone: The Owners Title Should Mirror the One Used in F1

    The White Zone: The Owners Title Should Mirror the One Used in F1

    “The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I want to make the case for making the owners title more like Formula 1.

    The owner’s championship model used in NASCAR has never made sense to me. If you don’t know, the model used by NASCAR is awarding points to individual cars rather than to the organization as a whole.

    Mercedes has been the dominant force as of late in Formula 1. user:Kd1980 Wikimedia Commons
    Mercedes has been the dominant force as of late in Formula 1- user: Kd1980/Wikimedia Commons

    I’ve always believed that the model used by Formula 1 makes far more sense. The points scored in a race go to the team as a whole instead of the individual cars.

    This leads to both more buzz about the constructors’ championship, makes it more significant and is a far superior barometer for who was the best team.

    Here’s what I mean. For the last two years, the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team has dominated the entire landscape of Formula 1. The constructors’ championship model used by F1 shows that the combination of both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg is superior to any driving duo in the sport right now. If it followed the NASCAR model, it would just be a battle between Hamilton and Rosberg. That would be redundant because the driver’s championship already shows who’s the superior driver.

    With the model used in NASCAR, it paints both a redundant and a false picture of who was best. In the XFINITY Series this season, the No. 22 Team Penske Ford won the owner’s title, but it really didn’t matter given that they were using drivers that weren’t racing for points in the series.

    Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR
    Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR

    In the Sprint Cup Series, the owner’s title almost always goes to the car driven by the driver who won the Sprint Cup title.

    It’s entirely and utterly redundant and I’m all about reducing, curtailing and slashing all that is redundant in this world of redundant things that are redundant.

    This is why I would love to see NASCAR change the owners championship model and make it more like that used in Formula 1. It would be a far superior barometer of which organization was the best in the sport.

    Now I understand that one problem with going to F1’s model is that it would favor the multi-car teams – especially the four car teams – while single-car teams would be left out. The best way to account for this would be that only the highest finishing car of each team scores the owners points like is done with the manufacturers title.

    My plane is about to take off, so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. Aposiopesis is the official name of the rhetorical style in which you deliberately fail to complete a sentence. (“Why you…”)

  • The White Zone: We Need Fewer Night Races

    The White Zone: We Need Fewer Night Races

    “The white-zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to unload about the amount of night races on the NASCAR rotation.

    I was listening to Mike Bagley and Pete Pistone on The Morning Drive today and they brought up a story in the New Hampshire Union Leader about David McGrath – general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway – wanting to add lights to the 1.058-mile speedway in Loudon, N.H.

    Here’s a taste of what McGrath said, “Lights is certainly something that we’re always going to be looking at. I know the fans want that, and we owe it to the fans to explore that to the furthest extent that we can. It’s a deep exploration, a process we are undertaking. We are looking at it, exploring it, giving it the due diligence that it requires.”

    While I believe all tracks should have lights so we’re not constrained by sunset like we almost were at Martinsville, we have far too many night races.

    Once upon a time, there were just two night races on the Cup schedule; at the old Nashville Fairgrounds and Bristol Motor Speedway. After the fairground fell off the schedule, it was just Bristol.

    In 1988, Richmond began hosting one night race every season when Musco Lighting trucks lit up the then Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway.

    Now night racing wasn’t a foreign concept at the time, but the lights at most local tracks weren’t all that great. Even at Bristol, the track at night was lit rather poorly by today’s standards. It was “One Hot Night” that changed the very concept of night racing forever.

    In 1992, the madmen Bruton Smith and Humpy Wheeler had the crazy idea to install over 1,000 lights at the cost of nearly $2 million. The end result was one of the most dramatic finishes to the All-Star Race. Dale Earnhardt gets turned on the backstretch leading the race. This left it to be settled by Davey Allison and Kyle Petty. The former won in a dead heat but celebrated victory in the hospital after a brutal crash past the start/finish line.

    So next season, the Coca-Cola 600 was adjusted from running at the same time as the Indianapolis 500 to a race that starts in the evening and ends at night. It was The Intimidator that found himself standing in victory lane.

    In 1998, Musco created the largest permanent outdoor sports lighting project in the world when lights were added to the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway.

    While racing at night was nothing new at the world center of racing with the Rolex 24, there had never been a restrictor plate race at night.

    The race was scheduled to be run on Independence Day 1998, but it was postponed to late in the season as central Florida was dealing with raging wildfires.

    NASCAR had waited until the 11th hour before finally making the decision to postpone the race on July 2. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say the 11th hour. The teams had made the trek down to Daytona Beach and were scheduled to practice on the day the decision was made.

    The race was finally run on Oct. 17, 1998. Being late in the season, 30th of 33, the win by Jeff Gordon was his 11th of the season and also made it that more difficult for Mark Martin to gain ground in the title hunt. One last nugget of interest from this race is that this was the first and only time in NASCAR history in which the sport ran back to back restrictor plate races. This race comes only six days after Dale Jarrett won at Talladega. I can only imagine what havoc this would play in the Chase if this were to happen again.

    But I digress.

    Where the night racing spiraled out of control was around 2005 when start times were being adjusted so that races would end at night. This was most evident with the Daytona 500. It went from starting at noon or 1:00 p.m. to starting at 3:00 or later. From 2006 to 2015, the Daytona 500 ended during the day only three times. Now granted it was the track surface in 2010 and weather in 2012 and 2014 that caused those night endings, but, combined with running the Sprint Unlimited and Duel races at night, it ruined the luster of night racing at the world center of racing.

    It also didn’t help that night races were being held at tracks that didn’t put on good racing like Auto Club (prior to 2011), Chicagoland (prior to 2011), Texas (still) and Kentucky prior to this season.

    This season alone, we were scheduled to run 10 points races at night. That’s more than a quarter of the schedule. Even with Richmond in April and Charlotte in October being moved to Sunday afternoon because of rain, 22 percent of the schedule was at night.

    Personally, I’d reduce the schedule to five night races. It would start with the Sprint Unlimited returning to Sunday afternoon the week before the Daytona 500. Qualifying would return to Saturday afternoon the week before the Daytona 500. I’d leave the Duel races in place because it’s much more convenient for the viewers than having to “call in sick” that Thursday afternoon.

    Instead of running Kansas on Saturday night on Mother’s Day weekend, I’d move it to Saturday afternoon.

    I’d leave the All-Star Race at night, but run it the Wednesday before the Coca-Cola 600. The Coca-Cola 600 would remain on Sunday evening and be the first points night race of the season.

    The next night race would be Independence Day weekend at Daytona International Speedway. While I’d be all for putting this race on Sunday night, I think it would work best on Saturday night. The other three night races would be three in a row with Bristol, Darlington and Richmond.

    Every other race should be run on Sunday afternoon. I feel that by reducing the number of night races to five, that would restore the luster of racing under the lights.

    My plane is about to take off, so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. On a Canadian $2 bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building.