Opinion: Want to fix something, NASCAR? Start with this
Restrictor-plate racing is and has always been a polarizing topic for the NASCAR industry and fan base.
Year after year, Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway continually produce some of the most dramatic and compelling racing in NASCAR, the kind of action most tracks can only dream of.
And Daytona and Talladega also produce some of the most spectacular and dramatic crashes in the sport. Austin Dillon's flight into the Daytona catch fence at 2:41 a.m. Monday morning made national headlines and -- predictably -- once again raised the call for NASCAR to institute sweeping changes to make the racing safer.
This is nothing new.
When Carl Edwards went into the Talladega catch fence in April 2009, Charlotte Observer motorsports reporter David Poole wrote a scathing column demanding that the giant Alabama superspeedway be bulldozed into the ground. The next day, Poole dropped dead of a heart attack.
In 2012, after a big wreck near the end of a Talladega race, Tony Stewart gave an incredibly funny and sarcastic interview about how the drivers hadn't done their jobs that day because they didn't wreck at least half the field.
And after Dillon's crash at Daytona, drivers were understandably upset yet again and some in the national media called for a drastic track overhaul, just as Poole did six years ago. All sorts of ideas have been proffered -- add Lexan walls to the catchfence to keep debris out; move the fans further back from the walls; slow the cars by at least 20 miles per hour; reconfigure the tri-oval. Everyone, it seems, has a solution.
I will be the first to admit, I don't know what the right answer is to ensure fan safety. NASCAR has done a tremendous job with driver safety, as witnessed by the fact that Dillon was just the latest driver to walk away from a savage impact.
That said, two things stand out to me: First, NASCAR needs to do everything possible to keep improving fan safety. Drivers know they are taking a risk every time they get in a car. Fans shouldn't have to worry about their safety every time they sit down in a grandstand.
Second, restrictor-plate racing is an important part of what NASCAR does. I would absolutely hate it if the sanctioning body came up with some plan that dumbed-down plate racing. The last thing that needs to happen is for Daytona and Talladega to become Kansas and Chicago. Keep the look and feel of plate racing intact. Don't deprive the fans of some of the best action around.
You want to fix something?
Here's one idea: Move the July Daytona race back until the late morning, when it rarely rains, instead of the nighttime, when it almost always does. That's an easy fix, relatively speaking -- no walls to move, no barriers to erect, no engineers to hire. Just turn back the clock a few hours.
Stewart-Haas Racing Richard Childress Racing Joe Gibbs Racing
