If you had not heard, the Daytona 500 is this Sunday and last night the Daytona 500 qualifying races affectionately known as the duels were held. Unfortunately for NASCAR, the races that set the field for the most prestigious race in the series set the grid but didn't decide who made the race and who had to return to North Carolina heartbroken about a missed opportunity to run in the Daytona 500. NASCAR had 40 entries, the maximum number of cars allowed to run a NASCAR Cup race. Everyone was guaranteed a spot in the big race.
No one had the pressure of having to race in but to be fair with the charter system and 36 cars being locked in not many were going to face pressure. Pressure is for the poor. Even in NASCAR the poor is pitted against the poor and the fat cats are never in trouble. NASCAR is running out of poor though. It is getting the minimum number of poor to reach the maximum grid size but no more.
You can spin the depleted entry list any way you want but it is not good. If eight NHL teams disappeared over the course of four years no one would be saying, "Well, at least every team remaining is competitive." That is bullshit and not addressing the problem at hand. Teams are disappearing and that is never a good thing. It would be one thing if there had been 85 entries four years ago and now we are down to 75 entries. It is down but it is still plenty. NASCAR is at a point where it can't lose anymore. It will say it can because hey, at least there will be the 36 charter teams but we all know that does not show a truly healthy series.
I am not here to talk about grid sizes. I see where NASCAR stands at this time. My solutions for not just more cars but gargantuan entry lists are to go to either a GT3 formula or a GT4 formula and all of a sudden have teams in the United States who would never consider entering NASCAR now eligible and teams from Europe deciding to come to Daytona not in January for a 24-hour race but in February for a 500-mile oval race. Neither of those would happen but it is the best I got. My goal with this post is to make the duel races into something other than two duds.
Last night was a waste of time. Not that there is anything wrong with wasting time. We all do it and it can be argued all sports are a waste of time. If you chose to waste it on two races then good for you but if you didn't it is understandable. There was nothing in it. The winners got ten points and will start third on Sunday. The teams that tore up race car did it for nothing but starting somewhere between 31st and 40th. It is a loss of equipment for next to nothing. It is Daytona, who cares where you start?
NASCAR needs something to be interesting and less than two-dozen cars running single-file for most of an hour isn't keeping people tuned in. It should try new things because it really has nothing to lose and the Daytona 500 and these duel races should not be off limits from experimentation.
It doesn't appear the entry list is going to balloon back to numbers we saw even a decade ago. Next year, NASCAR might make sure that there is at least one car going home from each qualifying race but 42 entries is only a Band-Aid to say there was intrigue in this two races. With that in mind and with grid size apparently not meaning as much as it once did NASCAR needs to do two things to help improve these duel races.
1. No security blanket. No one is safe. It doesn't matter how many Fortune 500 companies are on your race car. It isn't going to save you and you could go home.
2. If NASCAR wants to promote rivalries and make heroes and villains than go all out and make it happen.
Here is what I would do.
The front row for the Daytona 500 would still be locked into the race but the winners of each qualifying race gets to choose a team that has to pack up all its equipment and go home regardless of where he or she finished or of what qualifying race he or she participated in.
It seems corny but does anyone have a better solution? No, no they don't. This would create drivers people would hate and create drivers that win sympathy points. It puts nice guys into a bind. No one seems to hate Ryan Blaney and a buddy of mine said this type of predicament where he decides the Daytona 500 fate of one team would create his first rival but this situation NASCAR needs. Not every driver can get away with a clean image and be a 100% fan favorite. There are no saints; only sinners and we all have some blood on our hands. Blaney would be no different. He would be faced with the task of deciding to kill the Daytona 500 dream for somebody. You don't think that driver is going to be pissed? You don't think a segment of the fan base is going to be pissed? You don't think there will be a segment of the fan base that is thrilled about a certain driver told to beat it? It may become something Blaney never escapes in his career. That might not be a bad thing.
You are probably thinking, well, there is too much money in NASCAR and Blaney wouldn't want to send a weekly competitor home. He would probably just pick a non-chartered team or a smaller chartered team that is in the bottom four charters. He might do that but wouldn't that make him and any driver look worse? Wouldn't Blaney and Chase Elliott look like two assholes for sending D.J. Kennington and David Gilliland home? Wouldn't fans call them cowers for not having the stones to tell Joey Logano to bounce or tell Brad Keselowski to take his whiny ass home?
Speaking of Keselowski, wouldn't you have loved to see him win and tell Kyle Busch to get out of Daytona Beach or vice versa? And the winner would do it immediately in victory lane. If you win the first race and the driver you bounce is scheduled to be in the second race then he or she is done and doesn't get a chance to race. The car should be rolled from the grid in disappointed and anger and that team should be left to stew on it for ten days until Atlanta.
Winning would be the only safety net. Drivers would have to push the limits. The drivers would have to go for it. They can't rely on being 4th and settle for starting in the top ten for the Daytona 500 because that driver could be told less than five minutes after getting out of the car to take a hike.
If it had been done this year, only 38 cars would have started the Daytona 500 but the level of interest it should generate should counterbalance two fewer cars in the race. For those who think it would be a bad thing to have 38 starters consider this, if you are saying there are 40 competitive cars that have a shot to win this race well if we have 40 competitive cars running in the Daytona 500 then we have 38 competitive cars in the Daytona 500 and it wouldn't be that much of a loss, would it?
This could become something that goes throughout the NASCAR season. Imagine it be a weekly thing with drivers holding vendettas over one another. I am not sure you could do 150-mile heat races but perhaps on Friday night you have qualifying and then two 50-mile heat races with two drivers getting booted. People would watch. It would give people a reason to watch. It would have to be regulated. You couldn't have the same driver get booted each week. Drivers would have to get at least a one-week immunity after being bounced and perhaps there should be a limit of six or seven times being bounced. There would also have to be a limit when the Chase starts. It would be fun for the first 26 races and then once you get into the final ten races you have the race weekend play out as it does now.
It will never happen. NASCAR doesn't want to step on toes even if it could be for the greater good of the series.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
