NASCAR who dat?

Cindric is Roger Penske's long time right hand man's son....racing for a Penske team.... most of the others I've heard of and I do not watch NASCAR.

The Clash was a total embarrassment. 37.5 total miles of racing and they stopped the race half way for an Ice Cube(LA rapper?) concert.

 

NASCAR is now like F1 and Indy, best way to get to the top is having a rich or connected dad. the on-air product has suffered accordingly

Clash was OK, short track demolition derby fun but they tried wayyyyyy too hard to make NASCAR look "diverse" (Ice Cube and Pitbull performances, lowriders, etc)

and yes I know Pitbull is a part owner of a team.

 

Tuned in for a few minutes to see what the debacle looked like and pretty much as predicted,
a train of cars all nose to tail and the second one stepped out to pass, crash, bang. Top speeds,
which the FOX Sports wankers didn't seem to be interested in discussing were reported to be
an average of 66MPH/lap (touching 80MPH at end of straights and 40MPH in the turns).

Seems like a lot of wasted resources to send teams, transporters, cars, spare cars, etc. all the
way out to L.A from Charlotte for what amounted to an extended media appearance. Wonder
how many were there for the "racing" vs. the concerts.

Given the fact that the Super Bowl is in L.A. next week, is this NASCAR taking a shot across
the bow at one of their favorite business models, the NFL? Sure seems likely given the amount
of media that are already in town, guaranteed there was a lot of arm twisting to get bored beat
writers to come out and see the train wreck.

Now, the teams must caravan all the way across the country to Daytona to get the season underway
formally. It all just seems rather ludicrous given that NASCAR are talking about how "green"
they are lately.

It all would have been far more interesting if they had been running go-karts.

BHW

 

off the top of my head:

Who Dat
Ross Chastain
Austin Cindric - son of Penske president Tim Cindric
Austin Dillon - grandson of RCR owner Richard Childress
Corey LaJoie - son of Randy laJoie (former Busch series racer)
Tyler Reddick
Aric Almirola
Ryan Preece
Chris Buescher
William Byron - trust fund kid w/ Liberty University backing
Justin Haley
Michael McDowell
Todd Gilliland - son of David Gilliland (former racer/team owner)
Cole Custer
Ty Dillon - grandson of RCR owner Richard Childress
Erik Jones
Christopher Bell
Harrison Burton - son of Jeff Burton (former Cup driver)
Alex Bowman
Cody Ware - father owns multiple race teams in NASCAR, Indy, IMSA
Landon Cassill
BJ McLeod
Daniel Suarez - backed by Carlos Slim

 

There are a lot of new names in NASCAR and that's okay.

We can't expect the old guys will race forever and they make way for the next generation. To NASCAR
it keeps the PR machine going and we'll need to look no further than qualifying in Daytonner to see who
the next big name is when he "wins" pole position and grabs all the headlines.

They come up the usual way, local short track circuits, entry level stock cars, sprint cars and eventually
to Xfinity AKA Grand National. Doubt seriously that anyone is out there that doesn't have at least some
chops already.

To NASCAR's credit, they are trying some new things and that's okay too. This deal in LA was an experiment
and they'll likely do some more strange things to gain attention. At least they're no longer mired in their old
way of keeping the same schedule year after year, shaking things up with more road courses, etc.

The problem is with all the gimmickry, NASCAR is on such a slippery slope that there may be no way back
again.

BHW

 

If you took 5+ years off of F1, would you recognize the majority of the field?

 

if it was the last 5, yes you would

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I liked that NASCAR tried this.I think it will be the model for a handful of races going forward.

they finally figured out that taking the races to the people (i.e. Long Beach Grand Prix) works better than making the people trek to the outskirts of an area (i.e. Fontana).

Cup needs more short tracks.

This format is "old school" (heat races and LCQ) but worked reasonably well on TV.

the gimmicks, and the trying too hard attempt to look relevant, were the weak spots.

(some people were complaining about the camera locations and cuts on TV, but I didn't think it was any worse than other NASCAR short track broadcasts)

 

I understand that F1 has become so enamored with NASCAR that they are considering competition cautions towards the end of the race to make things more interesting.

 

Yikes! Where did you hear that?

 

The LA race was a joke. The Clash should be and always has been a preview of how the cars will run in the 500. For the race in the LA coliseum they couldn't even run the entire field. The 25 lap, 6 minute heats the day before were pathetic. Average speed/lap about 60mph. Looked like a drifting contest. Should have made the track a circle and put tethers on the cars. Wha's next, a figure 8 race. I watched the first TV NASCAR races in 1960. How far NASCAR has fallen. New cars/rules makes NASCAR basically what IROC was. Can you imagine is INDY car or F1 pulled such a stunt? Not to mention I got dizzy watching it.

 

IROC was great. It was always fun to watch some uppity wing-car driver get stomped by a redneck from Alabama on a road course

 

complete tangent, but Martin Brundle has a few good stories about him running IROC and how pissed off Terry Labonte was that he won a race

(starts around 41 minutes or so)

 

It was a gimmick for sure.

 

Wow, you have been out of the game if you haven't heard of those guys. Michael McDowell is my driver (he has been my #2 for years, but now that Bowyer retired...), he's always been an underdog that raced for smaller teams, but had a breakout year last year, winning the DAYTONA 500 and turning more top-10s than anytime in his career. Should have won Talladega also but Harvick pushed Brad K. Hoping for another strong performance this year.

Of course, it doesn't surprise me that you didn't know that, since even in this year's 500 promos the feature the extremely UNTALENTED BUBBA NO-WINS WORTHLESS PIECE OF **** WALLACE non-stop (yes, I know he "won" Talladega last year as a gift from Nascar for reasons unmentioned here)

 

I know most of the drivers probably because I always watch the Daytona 500. I couldn’t watch the Coliseum thing for more than two minutes. Ugly and ridiculous. Go karts wouldn’t have helped.

 

Yeehaw!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZwv5HepqBW/

 

Read elsewhere that NASCAR likely moved The Clash away from Daytonner due to lack
of attendance in recent years and the event had lost its shine.

All well and good but making the teams traverse the entire country to make a point in a major
medie market like LA is rather a stunning admission that an event the size and tradition of
The Clash shows their constant tinkering of the rules and other nonsense isn't working.

They're touting that the Coliseum event had 70% capacity and big TV numbers. So, there were
more people there than was predicted but how many of those seats were give aways? Guessing
that the attending spectators and TV viewers were there for the novelty and once that wears
off they'll be off to another venue in major media market.

At least they're trying some things as revising the schedule, adding new venues, etc. must have
the effect of eliminating the monotony of their set-in-stone schedule they'd been running year after
year for eons.

Friends and I were recalling that not long ago, the NASCAR teams caravans would be lined up
on International Speedway Boulevard and DIS waiting for the end of the 24 Hours and the minute
the IMSA teams cleared out, they'd move in for their two week stay in Daytonner.

BHW

 

IIRC, there used to be a "private test" the week before qualifying at Daytona, which ended some time ago. that would bring the teams to Daytona the day after the 24

Clash, Duels, 500, Truck, ARCA and Xfinity is a lot of plate racing for one week. no wonder the Clash lost its appeal. plate racing is pretty boring until they destroy half the field.

the logistics of NC to CA to FL then back to west coast is rough, but it's not that much difference than how the schedule usually is later in the year.

 

Yeah, I was in college in Daytona Beach for a couple of years and back then the NASCAR teams
were testing there constantly, practically year-round. Notably, Ken Schrader was always there
testing for Hendrick, he had to be logging some serious flight time as he'd be racing in California
one day and back in Daytonner testing the next.

They had a section of the grandstand cordoned off so spectators could go in and watch and they'd
post a schedule of who was coming in next so we always knew who'd we be seeing. One of
my classmate buddies was a NASCAR fan and so we'd head over and spend hours in the stands
watching one or two cars go roundy-round, time better spent on college work perhaps.

One of my racing buddies was at Volusia Speedway last night for the sprint car races. Looks
like a few big names showed up for it.

BHW

 

I’ll be watching Gilles’ Dad in #27.
https://www.jayski.com/2022/02/17/jacques-villeneuve-team-hezeberg-locked-into-daytona-500/