For only the second time in seven years, NASCAR is about to effectively have an extremely rare and welcome two-plus week break.
Due to the Summer Olympic Games, which airs on NASCAR broadcast partner NBC Sports, the Cup and Xfinity Series are going to have a considerable amount of time off between the Brickyard 400 on July 21 and the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway on August 11.
This most recently happened in 2021 and the industry really embraced it as welcome and refreshing for a sport that is non-stop with only three real home games from January to November.
To wit, Brad Keselowski, speaking to Cup Series legend turned broadcaster Kevin Harvick on his Happy Hours YouTube show says the entire industry needs to shut down during this period.
The league.
The teams.
Everyone.
“We need to do an industry shutdown because we have the two-week Olympic break, which I think is great. Perfect,” Keselowski argued. “Let the Olympics have their heyday. Everybody loves the Olympics. It’s great for our sport to get a break and to not compete against the Olympics. Everybody wins. …
“Just lock our doors for a week or two, all the employees go home, go on vacation, go spend some time with your kids, refresh and kind of reload for what is the final half of the season.”
Keselowski has a certain degree of sway here as he is also one of 15 team owners at the highest level, too.
This is a worthwhile conversation as the industry most recently expressed extreme burnout over the winter, feeling as though reduced salaries and job cuts across the entire sport over the past three years placed a greater workload on those who remained.
Keselowski believes a break like this will ultimately make everyone within the sport feel more positive about their contributions in a way that reverberates towards the fanbase as well.
“Our sport really relies on this ambassador-type relationship, whether be with our fans or whether be with the junior level,” Keselowski said. “We need the whole garage area to be in a good mindset and to not be burned out.”
Formula 1 forces its entire industry to take a summer break every year — every team and every employee.
Keselowski endorsed that approach.
“It’s one of those things where all the team owners have to do it,” Keselowski said. “Like, it can’t just be like half of them or it doesn’t work. It’s really hard to get all the team owners into that kind of state of mind.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.