One Week Later

It’s been one week since Nashville, and believe it or not I’m actually feeling pretty good. Granted, the financial situation Herd Racing is in doesn’t favor them in terms of going to Talladega, but you never know what might happen. They’ve got a superspeedway car ready to go if they’re able to get sponsorship, but that’s the biggest question, isn’t it?

I don’t know what the full cost of not qualifying is like. I don’t know how much money it took for Herd Racing to go to Nashville. But I do know that the financial cost can be made up for if the right sponsor is willing to step in. However unfortunate the situation may be, though, there are a lot of teams struggling with the same problem.

To further expand on my thoughts on how to fix the Nationwide Series, NASCAR should not put its eggs in the Nationwide COT’s basket and hope that fans take a renewed interest in the series – because it won’t. In the transitional period for the Cup COT in 2007, it was said that teams were put under a financial strain because they had to build two types of race cars. One could argue that the financial strain on teams trying to transition to the Nationwide COT before 2011 will drive these small-budget teams into the ground, even though the scheduled races for the Nationwide COT is considerably smaller than that of the Cup COT when it was being phased in.

I believe, honestly, that the Nationwide COT is going to play more in favor of the Cup teams putting big dollars into their Nationwide programs than it will for Nationwide-only race teams. Hendrick Motorsports utterly dominated the Cup COT races in 2007 (and continues to do so, although Hendrick arguably has set the standard for superteams in Cup since the 90′s) because they put a huge emphasis on testing the COT. Who’s the say the same won’t happen in Nationwide? And don’t tell me it’s because NASCAR put a ban on testing – it’s only at NASCAR-sanctioned tracks and these big teams WILL find a way to get an edge.

Not that it would really matter, though – one could reason that Cup teams with big dollars in the Nationwide Series have been dominating the series forever. That’s fine as long as a Cup driver isn’t coming to the Nationwide Series to snap up an easy championship. If these big teams like Penske Racing or Roush-Fenway Racing want to give drivers like Justin Allgaier and Colin Braun a shot at the title, more power to them. But they need to cut back on how many races their Cup drivers run in Nationwide.

The argument that Cup drivers bring the crowds to a Nationwide race is total nonsense – NASCAR obviously hasn’t looked up in the stands recently. Nothing against Dale Jr. or anything, but I doubt many of the people in the stands are there to watch him. Even though he’s NASCAR’s most popular driver, I don’t see a difference in how many empty seats there are when he’s racing than when he’s not. Furthermore, the thought that Danica Patrick will renew interest in the series is also a bunch of hooey. Danica’s faring in Nationwide is interesting in and of itself, but I doubt anyone’s filling the stands to see her run 35th – though I do think that when she gets the hang of driving the car and she begins running up near the front, it will be a lot more fun to watch.

What I think will bring in more fans is if some of these Cup teams pick up and fill their Nationwide seats with fresh talent and encourage them to show their personality. I mean really, put in some new faces for more than just six races a season. And if they’re complaining about how there isn’t “fresh” talent out there, go look in the Whelen Modified Series or ARCA for goodness sake. There’s plenty of people there just itching for a shot at Nationwide with a good team. You get some of these guys from The History Channel’s “Madhouse” and I guarantee you the stands are going to be chock-full of fans.

Obviously I can’t predict with any certainty if any of these proposed remedies will solve anything – even if Cup teams put new talent in their Nationwide cars, that’s not going to benefit the smaller-budget teams any more than if Cup drivers were running. But there has got to be a way to fix that issue as well.

Maybe it’s not a cure-all, but if NASCAR were to do inspection on the cars not locked into the top 30 in points first and get those teams through the tent and out onto the track early on in practice, maybe that would allow some of these teams to find the speed they need to qualify in on time. And an hour-long practice session for the teams that would need it would actually benefit the field as a whole – those teams that can get their stuff together could bolster the level of competition in the field. And who knows, with a scenario that Tony Stewart faced at Daytona in February – qualifying a car with no owner points – a Cup driver might actually get humbled by a driver with second-rate equipment compared to what he’s got. Now whether NASCAR goes for that happening is up for debate, but it could happen…

Anyway, I’m going to enjoy this beautiful spring Sunday afternoon a little. I hope everyone has a great week, and I want to say thank you for reading. Whether I’m involved in the sport or not, I still have an opinion on it, and I appreciate the consideration people have given these opinions of mine.

Until the next one,

Guy Driggers