Martin Truex Jr. is right, you know.
Maybe it’s this tank of a car that offers no repercussions over what drivers choose to do behind the wheel or maybe it’s the high stakes of the championship format that encourages it but the end of NASCAR Cup Series races right now are generally complete madness.
Candidly, the occasional Stock Car shish show is fun and separates NASCAR from purer disciplines like IndyCar, IMSA or Formula 1, but at what point do these races cease to become sport?
NASCAR president Steve Phelps, in telling Kevin Harvick on Happy Hours why they penalized Austin Dillon for his racing actions on the last lap at Richmond, said ‘we are not a demolition derby’ but it definitely doesn’t look like it more often than not
As a result, one of the cleanest racers of his era has had enough eight weeks before setting sail into retirement anyway.
“You go into the esses and they just plow through you, put you in the marbles. This racing is just ridiculous. It’s a joke.”
“It’s just crazy that all these races always come down to this. I just don’t understand how guys can call themselves the best in the world when they just drive through everyone on restarts at the end of these races.”
“It’s very frustrating but it is what it is these days. I’m outta here.”
And by the way, this isn’t totally blaming the racers themselves because what are they supposed to do with this underpowered weighty brick of a race car?
Goodyear’s radically experimental tire compound did not produce merit on Sunday. At one point, leaders Ross Chastain and Shane Van Gisbergen stayed out on tires for 40 laps and kept the lead based on the benefit of clean air.
It was a 90-lap race!
They can’t pass except on pit road, which is why you see super aggressive sends deep into the corners and corresponding blocks. When every position matters, especially under a three-race playoff round sample size, these are the ethics everyone plays under.
Maybe, if the car was better, it would at least let these guys actually go out there and properly race.
Just ask Ty Gibbs, according to this quote from The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck.
“Until you put 900 horsepower in these things, you’re not going to do anything. You cannot pass. Sometimes I feel like, is this car designed for us not to pass.”
Instead, this is the underpowered heavy brick that can’t even get going on restarts until one driver slams into the one in front of them and can’t complete passes unless they deliver and even bigger shove or hook.
It’s a car designed for crashing more than racing.
And the response to all of this was to start the playoffs, what should be the ultimate test of racing execution, at a lottery comprised of a diet superspeedway, a road course on an experimental tire and a Bristol Night Race designed to replicate the extreme tire wear conditions from March.
When these are the conditions, how do we expect them to drive? And this is perhaps the point, the memeification of as many races as possible and there comes a point of diminishing returns when races devolve into a never-ending crescendo of crashes.
Because deep down, right now, we are demolition derby racing.
Praise for Chris Buescher
Despite how the race trended in the midpack near the end, the right guys ultimately contended for the win and what a duel it was between Chris Buescher and Shane Van Gisbergen.
Hardcore racing fans don’t need to be told this but Buescher really is one of the most underrated gems in the NASCAR Cup Series. There’s a reason he has been in the Roush development pipeline and then the main roster for over a decade and spanning two different ownership combinations.
There was always a conviction that once the Ford flagship put it all back together, and in this case was saved by the NextGen reset, that Buescher was going to lead them to a resurgence. Absolutely, co-owner Brad Keselowski deserves a lot of credit for the turnaround but it was also jointly his decision to continue having faith that Buescher was their guy too.
For all the hype Shane Van Gisbergen receives on road courses, and it’s absolutely warranted, Buescher not only took the fight to him but also overcame getting passed by the three-time Australian Supercars champion and pressure him into a mistake.
RFK Racing isn’t totally back yet but they are so far beyond where it was in the last half decade with the previous generation of car and Buescher was also going to be the catalyst for a turnaround if they could just keep him in the stable.
From that standpoint, it’s really remarkable that no one came calling to poach Buescher because he could have been had at a discount while Roush Fenway struggled season after season.
And some of that is his demeanor, right? Buescher isn’t flashy. He’s not flamboyant. He speaks softly but is carrying one hell of a big stick right now and should be good for multiple wins for years to come.
Stray thought
If you really, whatsoever, questioned why Shane Van Gisbergen is getting the call from Trackhouse to run the Cup Series next year, this is why.
The same thing applies to AJ Allmendinger, who won the ROVAL race last year, and is coming back to the Cup Series with Kaulig Racing too.
At any point, for any race run on a road course, these two guys could change the entire course of a season for an organization.
COTA
Mexico City
Sonoma
Chicago
Watkins Glen
There are five regular season race chances for SVG and AJA to punch their tickets into the Round of 16 and positively impact the business of their team’s season. Sure, Buescher proved that all the Cup guys are just as capable of winning but this is Trackhouse and Kaulig stacking the deck.
Blaney’s gripe
Ryan Blaney was involved in the first lap crash with Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Corey Lajoie and the crash severely left his car damaged and with flat tires that made the car undrivable.
NASCAR officials determined the damage was enough to eliminate him from the race.
It made that determination, not because of the flat tires, but the damage to the suspension and concluded the Team Penske No. 12 wasn’t going to drive back to pit road for repairs.
“How are they going to dictate if we are done or not?” Blaney said. “They have no idea of the damage. They said because I couldn’t drive it back to the pit box that we were done, but if you have four flats you get towed back to the pit box. You can’t drive that back.”
The damaged vehicle policy has pros and cons, right?
On one hand, teams no longer have to carry around expensive crash carts and the spare parts each week, and that simplifies the race day experience over doing whatever it takes to get just one or two extra points.
On the other hand, the racing product would benefit from slower cars off the pace for the contenders to have to navigate around and them possibly dropping debris to cause cautions and naturally shake up the racing too.
But ultimately, NASCAR got this one right based on precedence, even if there’s a middle ground conversation to be had.
After all, William Byron and Keselowski drove these cars away, and they couldn’t have been any worse than Blaney’s car.
Or Hamlin for that matter, but they all made it back to pit road.
Playoff dogfight
h