Just finished watching most of the Brickyard 400. It was kind of like a lot of recent races: exciting at the beginning, fast forward through the middle, then kind of exciting near the end.<\/p>\n
Of course, congratulations go to Tony Stewart for winning the race. It’s nice to see a race won by a driver who actually passed another car under green for the lead.<\/p>\n
I’m a little surprised at the lack of security around the car when Stewart parked on the start\/finish line. I remember a few years ago here in Nashville they almost took away a win by Jeff Purvis in the All American 400 because someone put some lead shot in the car after the race, while it was in victory lane.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure what to think about Kevin Harvick’s “love tap” after the checkers. Stewart didn’t seem to think there was any malice in it, but it sure looked suspicious to me. I guess it looked suspicious to NASCAR too, since they called him to the trailer afterwards.<\/p>\n
Just asking: how many cars does it take to have a “big one”? 10% of the field? 20%? Wrecks involving 10% and 20% of the field happened at Indy. Why do we only hear about the “big one” at Talladega and Daytona? I’ve seen more cars involved in wrecks at Bristol than have happened in the plate races.<\/p>\n
The face of NASCAR continues to change, and not all for the better. I predict that within 5 or so years, there will only be 10 or 11 teams, each with 4 cars. Since NASCAR increased the number of cars it allows from 2 (which was never enforced) to 4 (which is semi-enforced; how else does Roush still have 5 teams?), then that’s given teams a target to aim at. Then once we see only 10 or 11 owners in the series, we’ll have a situation where there’ll be defacto franchising. To get into the sport as an owner, you’ll have to buy an existing team.<\/p>\n
There’s no way this can be good for the sport. Look at what’s happened to CART. NASCAR should have started enforcing the two-car rule per owner when they had a chance. Instead, you had 5 car teams with shady ownership deals designed to get around the rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just finished watching most of the Brickyard 400. It was kind of like a lot of recent races: exciting at the beginning, fast forward through the middle, then kind of exciting near the end. Of course, congratulations go to Tony Stewart for winning the race. It’s nice to see a race won by a driver … <\/p>\n