Trying to watch the Daytona 500..., and just can't do it. They should call it the Danica 500 Options

[billh1963]

First of all I'm not a fan of NASCAR. But, even more importantly, it's all about Danica....just can't stand to listen to all the hype

[scott_in_nh]

I don’t hope for crashes but if they are going to happen I want to see them, but it has gotten out of hand.

The crashes happen because the cars are too bunched up.

They are too bunched up because the rulebook makes all the cars so equal that little to no advantage can be had and the cars are all the same with different engines.

The rule book is like that because new racing fans lose interest if there driver isn’t on the lead lap with a chance to win at the end and manufacturers find it better for their purposes and cheaper to threaten NASCAR (with their advertising dollars) to legislate their cars to competitiveness instead of engineering and designing high speed aero packages into their production cars and building skunk work race engines like they used to.

Real racing fans can find the race and it only takes 2 or 3 cars going at it to entertain me. If the leader checks out, I’ll watch the race for second, if there is no race there I’ll find the race somewhere in the pack. This is why races are better in person and part of what makes local racing so good!

The way the cars are might still be ok, but they insist on still racing from 300 to 500 miles. Originally this was to prove their engineering superiority of their products, now it is a waste of an afternoon when almost all the engines make it to the end of the race because they are so restricted and with the cars so bunched up and everybody on the same lap the drivers have no choice but to go for it at the end of the race.

The result is often 1, 2, 3 or more crashes toward the end that negates the skill, strategy or luck it used to take to be in a position to win a race making the entire episode pointless.

So I would propose that they go to short heat races where the first so many positions advance to the feature and a consolation last chance heat for the losers that would be the wreck fest everybody likes followed by a longer but still short feature race – just like the short tracks do it.

They’ll never do it, but that it is what it would take.