Larry Mac: NASCAR doesn't need to reinvent the wheel at plate tracks
I am talking to you today as a guy who is wearing many hats. I've been in this sport of NASCAR for 35 years. I'm speaking as a guy who has worked on these race cars. I'm speaking as a guy who has been a TV broadcaster for 15 years. With all that, but even more so, I am speaking to you as a parent of a race car driver who has raced at Daytona and Talladega.
The reality is we will never make this sport risk-free. My head has been spinning from reading about all the different ideas that everyone has to say about what happened with Austin Dillon getting airborne and into the catch fence.
The bottom line is that NASCAR will take what's left of that No. 3 car and dissect it from top to bottom. If there are changes that need to be made like possibly tethering the engine and transmission to the chassis, then they will make that adjustment. They don't need to reinvent the wheel at Daytona and Talladega.
They, along with all the tracks, will take a look at the catch fence at Daytona and analyze it. They won't simply fix it. They will ask the question of what could be better about it. If they decide they need to make adjustments, then they will.
Again, for the most part the car and the catch fence did its job. I am sure as a sport we will learn from this event. My point is we don't need to reinvent catch fences. We don't need to reinvent our race cars. We don't need to slow the cars down 20 or 30 miles an hour. I've even heard the absurd suggestions about taking the restrictor plates off. We don't need that. We have a good product.
Right now at six of our 36 races we have damn good racing. I'm talking about the four restrictor-plate races and the two road-course events. We don't need to hurt that product. We just need to focus, as NASCAR is doing this weekend at Kentucky, by helping the product at the other racetracks.
