By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor
The so-called savior of strung out, single-file racing is going to have to wait until at 2019 at the earliest to make a return to Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
The news might be disappointing to some, and the delivery raises as many questions as it does answers. But in the end the call is the correct one – a decision that could spare the package flack during this season and help the sport and championship retain integrity.
NASCAR announced on Thursday what essentially amounted to an about-face on the draft-heavy rules package seen in this season’s Monster Energy All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, claiming it wouldn’t be utilized in Cup Series action for the rest of 2018. Only
The news came as a surprise. After what was largely deemed a successful – or at least passable and promising – run in the tour’s traditional May exhibition race, the rumor mill filled with talk of seeing the package used again later this season.
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer, told FOX Sports 1 in May that the sanctioning body was looking at using the package “at one or two or possibly three events.” Michigan International Speedway was considered a possible host, as was the oft-lambasted summer trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
There were many supporters of the package. A multitude of fans voiced their enjoyment with the All-Star Race on social media, and various team and track owners expressed hopes of seeing the package utilized again later in the 2018 season.
Until Thursday that seemed likely to occur.
Not anymore.
“Everyone is aligned on doing what’s best for the fans,” O’Donnell told NASCAR.com. “As we went through that process of discussing (the drafting package) following the All-Star Race, we all realized we have something that could work.
“We had a lot of detailed conversations, but in the end, we all felt like the best thing to do was to put some additional effort into some potential tweaks and focus on 2019 versus a race or two this season.”
What spurred NASCAR’s sudden change of heart?
The answer is likely a combination of things.
Drivers weren’t as vocal about their love of the package as those that enjoyed the race from outside of the cockpit. It’s also likely that some of the sport’s power players – team owners at the top of the tour – were leery of any changes that could impact their current level of performance.
Take Stewart-Haas Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing for example. The two organizations account for eight of the 36 chartered cars in Cup, which lends their opinions significant weight in any conversations about NASCAR’s rules and competition. Given that the pair have won 11 of the opening 15 races of the year (12 of 16 if you count Kevin Harvick’s All-Star Race win), what do they serve to gain from a sudden rule switch?
Regardless of why NASCAR changed their minds on additional 2018 runs, the sanctioning body made the correct call in scrapping an idea that could have tarnished what is shaping up to be an intense duel for the championship between the tour’s dominant top drivers.
NASCAR is unique in the sports world because their sanctioning body is willing to implement changes to the format or rules of its product during the middle of the season. They proved that in 2015, when they elected to test a low-downforce package in a July Cup race at Kentucky Speedway – an event that was admittedly deemed a success by most.
The reasoning behind NASCAR’s mid-season race testing is understandable. Unlike in other sports, simulating the conditions that NASCAR sees during their events is borderline impossible in a real-world setting.
A group of basketball players can play a pickup game in nearly identical fashion to a true NBA game if they need to test out a new shoe, rim or ball. Tennis players can test their rackets against each other in a friendly exhibition, and a baseball player can head out and test whether a new bat will send a ball over the fence like their old one.
NASCAR can test their equipment outside of a true race, but the costs of doing so are much higher. Teams can rarely afford to risk damaging their equipment and truly race each other, so most test sessions revolve around single-car runs or light pack runs with minimal risk. The reward for teams simply isn’t high enough to justify true race-like tests of new rules packages outside of races themselves.
Because of that it makes sense for the sanctioning body to test packages during races in the regular season – though the playoffs should forever remain status quo with that year’s package. What’s less acceptable is announcing and implementing these ideas far after the beginning of the year.
Well-intentioned as the notion might be, throwing significant competition changes at the field in the middle of the season undermines the integrity of the sport and championship. This is particularly true in modern NASCAR, where a lone race can legitimately alter an entire season – just ask AJ Allmendinger, Chris Buescher or Austin Dillon.
Can such a move add entertainment value? Sure. But it does so at the cost of the sport’s legitimacy.
Testing a rules package in a glorified exhibition race with little other than money and pride on the line is a justifiable decision. The concept of making it an unexpected addition to the championship storyline is more challenging to defend.
NASCAR’s decision to push the next implementation of the “drafting package” in Cup to 2019 could also serve to preserve the hype around it into the coming year.
If there’s one thing that’s certain in modern NASCAR, it’s the fact that the tour’s top teams will spend every penny and squeeze out every second of wind tunnel and simulator time they can muster to figure out ways to maximize their performance and make minute gains on their competitors.
NASCAR’s low-downforce package run at Kentucky in 2015 succeeded largely because of the unknowns of the package, and for that it is remembered fondly. It’s important to remember, however, that in the time since moving to that package the racing has again become criticized.
Teams learn and improve upon their setups for NASCAR’s various rules packages with each opportunity they get to work with them. The beloved racing of the low-downforce package’s early days quickly regressed back to a more standard racing package with additional races, as teams found ways to make up for the handling they’d lost.
There’s no reason to think the same wouldn’t happen with the proposed drafting package. And if any of the two-to-three proposed test races turned out to be objectively bad, it could have killed the buzz surrounding the package before it ever had time to fully develop.
By waiting until 2019 to implement the drafting package once more in Cup, NASCAR gives themselves time to fine-tune the setup for success while scouting out potential tracks to run it. The sanctioning body also keeps the 2018 championship from seeing an avoidable variable, while making sure teams don’t have additional time with the setup.
There are still faults within NASCAR’s announced change of plans, most notably – as NBC’s Nate Ryan noted earlier today – a continuing theme of conflicting messages and actions.
But the end result of the decision is a net positive for the credibility of the racing itself at a time when the sport sorely needs it.
Bearden: All-Star package postponement a correct, if confusing, move
By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor
The so-called savior of strung out, single-file racing is going to have to wait until at 2019 at the earliest to make a return to Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
The news might be disappointing to some, and the delivery raises as many questions as it does answers. But in the end the call is the correct one – a decision that could spare the package flack during this season and help the sport and championship retain integrity.
NASCAR announced on Thursday what essentially amounted to an about-face on the draft-heavy rules package seen in this season’s Monster Energy All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, claiming it wouldn’t be utilized in Cup Series action for the rest of 2018. Only
The news came as a surprise. After what was largely deemed a successful – or at least passable and promising – run in the tour’s traditional May exhibition race, the rumor mill filled with talk of seeing the package used again later this season.
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer, told FOX Sports 1 in May that the sanctioning body was looking at using the package “at one or two or possibly three events.” Michigan International Speedway was considered a possible host, as was the oft-lambasted summer trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
There were many supporters of the package. A multitude of fans voiced their enjoyment with the All-Star Race on social media, and various team and track owners expressed hopes of seeing the package utilized again later in the 2018 season.
Until Thursday that seemed likely to occur.
Not anymore.
“Everyone is aligned on doing what’s best for the fans,” O’Donnell told NASCAR.com. “As we went through that process of discussing (the drafting package) following the All-Star Race, we all realized we have something that could work.
“We had a lot of detailed conversations, but in the end, we all felt like the best thing to do was to put some additional effort into some potential tweaks and focus on 2019 versus a race or two this season.”
What spurred NASCAR’s sudden change of heart?
The answer is likely a combination of things.
Drivers weren’t as vocal about their love of the package as those that enjoyed the race from outside of the cockpit. It’s also likely that some of the sport’s power players – team owners at the top of the tour – were leery of any changes that could impact their current level of performance.
Take Stewart-Haas Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing for example. The two organizations account for eight of the 36 chartered cars in Cup, which lends their opinions significant weight in any conversations about NASCAR’s rules and competition. Given that the pair have won 11 of the opening 15 races of the year (12 of 16 if you count Kevin Harvick’s All-Star Race win), what do they serve to gain from a sudden rule switch?
Regardless of why NASCAR changed their minds on additional 2018 runs, the sanctioning body made the correct call in scrapping an idea that could have tarnished what is shaping up to be an intense duel for the championship between the tour’s dominant top drivers.
NASCAR is unique in the sports world because their sanctioning body is willing to implement changes to the format or rules of its product during the middle of the season. They proved that in 2015, when they elected to test a low-downforce package in a July Cup race at Kentucky Speedway – an event that was admittedly deemed a success by most.
The reasoning behind NASCAR’s mid-season race testing is understandable. Unlike in other sports, simulating the conditions that NASCAR sees during their events is borderline impossible in a real-world setting.
A group of basketball players can play a pickup game in nearly identical fashion to a true NBA game if they need to test out a new shoe, rim or ball. Tennis players can test their rackets against each other in a friendly exhibition, and a baseball player can head out and test whether a new bat will send a ball over the fence like their old one.
NASCAR can test their equipment outside of a true race, but the costs of doing so are much higher. Teams can rarely afford to risk damaging their equipment and truly race each other, so most test sessions revolve around single-car runs or light pack runs with minimal risk. The reward for teams simply isn’t high enough to justify true race-like tests of new rules packages outside of races themselves.
Because of that it makes sense for the sanctioning body to test packages during races in the regular season – though the playoffs should forever remain status quo with that year’s package. What’s less acceptable is announcing and implementing these ideas far after the beginning of the year.
Well-intentioned as the notion might be, throwing significant competition changes at the field in the middle of the season undermines the integrity of the sport and championship. This is particularly true in modern NASCAR, where a lone race can legitimately alter an entire season – just ask AJ Allmendinger, Chris Buescher or Austin Dillon.
Can such a move add entertainment value? Sure. But it does so at the cost of the sport’s legitimacy.
Testing a rules package in a glorified exhibition race with little other than money and pride on the line is a justifiable decision. The concept of making it an unexpected addition to the championship storyline is more challenging to defend.
NASCAR’s decision to push the next implementation of the “drafting package” in Cup to 2019 could also serve to preserve the hype around it into the coming year.
If there’s one thing that’s certain in modern NASCAR, it’s the fact that the tour’s top teams will spend every penny and squeeze out every second of wind tunnel and simulator time they can muster to figure out ways to maximize their performance and make minute gains on their competitors.
NASCAR’s low-downforce package run at Kentucky in 2015 succeeded largely because of the unknowns of the package, and for that it is remembered fondly. It’s important to remember, however, that in the time since moving to that package the racing has again become criticized.
Teams learn and improve upon their setups for NASCAR’s various rules packages with each opportunity they get to work with them. The beloved racing of the low-downforce package’s early days quickly regressed back to a more standard racing package with additional races, as teams found ways to make up for the handling they’d lost.
There’s no reason to think the same wouldn’t happen with the proposed drafting package. And if any of the two-to-three proposed test races turned out to be objectively bad, it could have killed the buzz surrounding the package before it ever had time to fully develop.
By waiting until 2019 to implement the drafting package once more in Cup, NASCAR gives themselves time to fine-tune the setup for success while scouting out potential tracks to run it. The sanctioning body also keeps the 2018 championship from seeing an avoidable variable, while making sure teams don’t have additional time with the setup.
There are still faults within NASCAR’s announced change of plans, most notably – as NBC’s Nate Ryan noted earlier today – a continuing theme of conflicting messages and actions.
But the end result of the decision is a net positive for the credibility of the racing itself at a time when the sport sorely needs it.