Jeff Hammond: Give drivers time to feel out new race format
The way NASCAR races have been enhanced for 2017 has got some folks a little overly concerned with the format, which calls for the races to be run in three stages, with breaks between the first and second stage and then between the second and third stages.
At the Daytona 500, for example, the first two stages will be 60 laps each, with the final stage 80 laps.
I think the thing we need to be focused on is, yes, because of the breaks in the racing, they could and almost certainly will, affect the results of a race sooner or later.
But I think these drivers are going to sneak up on it at first. They’re going to realize that everybody’s been behind a little bit. And what these points that they’re going to accumulate in each stage really amount to.
If you make a big mistake and you crash out and you can’t return or fix your car, it’s going to be a harder points hit than if you’re 10th or 11th in line at the break between stages.
So drivers are going to have to learn how to race smart. I think they’re going to have to be very careful how they figure in the trends that they learned in previous races.
Because I feel the race is going to have a totally different outcome in that final stage, because we know how these breaks are going to play out. I think that’s going to be the definitive deal.
Each one of these stages are going to be raced individually. You’ve got to race that first segment and then, OK, forget it. Whatever you got, you got. You run the second stage, whatever you got, you got.
Now, let’s go race that final stage and that’s where you’ve got to put it out there on the line.
So I think once these drivers kind of figure this out — I mean, the ones who try to push the envelope too soon or too early, I think they’re going to be victims of their greed if they get to racing too hard.
We’ve seen it before. Why do you even want to race before you get to halfway?
But this new system, the intended situation is to force you to race early, to go on up there and push the envelope.
Let it kind of sort out and I think it’s going to take at least three races, possibly four, for us to kind of get a feel for it.
In the long run, the end game is if it’s the show we’re all looking for, if it kind of pulls everybody back together and gives them an opportunity to make some strategic adjustments in these two breaks to get back in it, then it’s worth the end result, which will end up being a much more intense end of the race.
