We are nearly 10/12ths or 5/6ths of the way through 2018 and championships are being decided. While things are being sown up on-track, off-track there is a lot of talk. Drivers try and construct what went wrong this season. Officials are trying to figure out what to do next year.
This is the end of the tenth month of the year and we have ten headlines from NASCAR, Formula One, Supercars, Formula E and the British Touring Car Championship.
Once again, this is just for fun. In case you are new, this is my gut reaction to headlines without reading the article. Of course, the gripes I have may be answered in the article.
SMI's Marcus Smith on Roval: "I feel like this is unique to Charlotte"
No, it isn't. Don't come off like a prick and think you are genius because you stumbled upon something in a bit of desperation to keep people buying tickets to an event that was previously dying as a 500-mile oval race.
Your track was still half-full for what you call unique. Think about the buzz this race generated and how it was the talk of NASCAR for the first three-quarters of the season and look at the result. It was held in NASCAR's backyard and it was half-full! Spare me the unique bullshit. There were races held on combination oval/road courses before Charlotte Motor Speedway was built. You are just a reproduction with a fresh coat of paint in the shop window.
I get where Smith is coming from and he isn't entirely wrong. Does NASCAR need six more roval races? No. He is protecting his event. He doesn't want another roval on the schedule because then his event no longer stands alone. There is only one roval on the NASCAR schedule. It is the only show in town and if fans want to watch it or go to it Charlotte is the only choice.
But fuck Charlotte. Why should an International Speedway Corporation track give a damn about Marcus Smith? If Kansas Speedway can make one of its races better by running its roval, why not? Hell, the Kansas roval has lights. Kansas should make one of its races a roval next year, better yet, it should make its Chase race run on the roval and on Saturday night and for the entire announcement have its middle finger up to Marcus Smith.
The same goes for Pocono. Pocono should make one of its races a roval race. People complain about these tracks having two dates. If you run the races on entirely different layouts then you at least take some of the venom out of the arguments why that track should lose a date.
With all of that said, I don't think there should be more than two or three roval races. If Kansas and Pocono wanted to do it then fine but we don't need Las Vegas, Daytona, Texas, Indianapolis and Michigan all becoming roval races as well.
The roval was still a half-ass way to get a road course race into the Chase and if NASCAR wants more road course races then go to more road courses but the roval might have a place on the schedule. I think we could see the NASCAR schedule evolve to where we still have 36 races but have six superspeedway races, three races at two-mile ovals, 11 short track races (Phoenix, Dover and Loudon are short tracks, get over it), four road courses, three rovals, eight races on 1.5-mile ovals and the Southern 500.
And before you whine and say, "eight 1.5-mile races is too many" there are eight 1.5-mile ovals on the schedule now and NASCAR isn't going to completely abandon them. Each track gets one race. It can't be fairer than that.
"We needed something to step up, but it just wasn't there" - Keselowski
You, Brad, you needed to step up. What is this "something" crap? Did you need the lug nuts to get the job done or was it the track bar?
Yeah, you had a bad brake at Talladega when you had to stop for fuel coming to the green flag for the final restart but you could have been proactive, traded track position for certainty and maybe come home in the top ten anyway.
You didn't get the results Keselowski and it was part misfortune and part you weren't good enough to begin with. You had a dream end to summer and like the breeze you cooled off come autumn. You returned to earth and now you are running for a consolation prize.
"We've lasted longer than the average marriage" - Knaus
I am not sure what is more of an indictment of: Marriage in general or Chad Knaus thinking just because your relationship was better than average that is good enough.
I don't think anyone goes into a divorce and says to a partner, "hey, we did better than average," if they were married for 17 years. That is not what marriage is about. Marriage is a lifelong commitment but I am getting off-track. This isn't supposed to be about marriage.
Hamilton 'conflicted,' humbled after matching Fangio
Lewis, don't worry about it. Juan Manuel Fangio is never going to think about you. He probably doesn't care you won five World Drivers' Champions. He probably doesn't even know you exist let alone equaled him on titles. It's ok.
You worry about you because the dead do not care.
MEDLAND: F1's qualifying works. Why mess with it?
Because it is easier and cheaper than Formula One changing the regulations that could make for better racing and it is something that would not alienate one team but be medicine all teams have to swallow. One team wouldn't feel like the regulations are changing to bring it back to the field and we know how unpopular that would be.
Plus, it is qualifying and Formula One is too sensitive to play with the structure of an actual grand prix and rightfully so because it does not want the races becoming some type of sideshow with gimmicks and you do not run the risk of losing people because qualifying has been mucked up but the last thing the series wants to do is drive people from the grand finale to the weekend held on a Sunday afternoon.
Verstappen: F1 risks qualifying becoming practice
Technically it is "qualifying practice" so Formula One doesn't risk qualifying becoming practice, it is already practice. I get what Verstappen is saying in that with all the grid penalties and tire regulations in some cases it has become advantageous for a team not to attempt a qualifying run over participating in the session and what you end up with is something like Russia where only ten cars ran a lap in the second qualifying session and in the United States when only 12 cars ran in the second session.
What can be done to prevent that? Get rid of grid penalties? Make grid penalties happen later in the season? I don't have an answer. I am going to throw something at the wall in an attempt to have an answer. Why does every penalty have to be grid spots or time added to a pit stop? What if a penalty could somehow create more racing?
What if the penalty was instead of kicking a car 39.5 positions down the grid but a pit stop within the first ten laps of the race and it not just be a drive-through but allow the team to change tires? It is a bit of strategy manipulation but who is to say this would not make the racing better? In the current state of Formula One teams run to the tire limits. Teams are told how long a tire can go on a stint and what it will take to make it on one stop or two. What if teams are forced off that strategy? What if it wasn't just a mandatory pit stop within the first ten laps but one within the first ten laps and the final ten laps?
You probably hate what you are reading but is the current arrangement the best? Yes, this could lead to a race being altered as a driver could go from fifth to 12th because of a late pit stop but if that team decides to take that penalty at the earliest possible point and let's say that is with ten laps to go it would force the team down the order but allow for enough time to pick up positions.
In this case, there would still be an incentive to try in qualifying. Instead of sitting out of the second qualifying session and taking a 20-spot penalty and dropping to 20th a team could start on the front row or the second row and the team will have to complete this force strategy but it wouldn't be race over and it be better than what we currently have.
Hartley: Engineer's lie played part in superb qualifying
See kids, sometimes lying is a good thing.
Reynolds labels Bathurst pole lap 'a controlled explosion'
Orgasm. I think the word you are looking for David Reynolds is orgasm.
Formula E "needs" a Japanese driver - Agag
Needs? Really? I am not sure the series needs a Japanese driver. I am sure the series would like a Japanese driver but does it need a Japanese driver more than say it needs an American driver or a Canadian driver or an Australian driver or a Spanish driver or a Finnish driver?
I don't know if Japan watches Formula E. Japan has one of the best motorsports fan bases in the world but is the lack of a Japanese driver keeping people from tuning in? Japanese manufactures were not invested in the series at the start and Nissan is now on-board taking over from its sister company Renault but I don't get a sense that Formula E is taking hold anywhere let alone in Japan.
It is good to have a diverse drive line-up and give a country of 126 million people a reason to tune in and Japan has plenty of talented drivers to choose from. But there are many things about Formula E that makes you cynical. Do they want a Japanese driver or want more money from Japanese companies and the only way to get that is through a Japanese driver? What does Formula E really want? Why can't the series be honest?
Can a champion be worthy if he only won one race?
Yes. In fact, a champion would be worthy if she only won one race. Every series has a championship system and the driver on top when the season is over has fairly won the championship.
This was a story before the British Touring Car Championship finale and Colin Turkington won the title with only one victory.
You might not like that a driver can win the championship and only win one race or possibly not even win a race but that is not on the driver. Don't hate the player; hate the game. But that leads to an entirely different discussion. Should race victories be weighed more? Possibly.
I think we want winning races to matter. We don't want someone to win a quarter of the races or a third of the races and lose the title to a guy who only had a victory and was on the podium in fewer races than the driver with the most victories.
There is nothing wrong with a driver that won only one or didn't win at all. The #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio García won the IMSA GT Le Mans championship and didn't win a race. Are they not worthy? Titles do not come down to worthiness. When you look at that class, no team won more than twice. The #3 Corvette had eight podium finishes. No other team had more than four podium finishes. The #3 Corvette didn't win but when you take into consideration podium finishes, did any other team deserve the title more?
Most series decide a championship based on an aggregate of events. Most people like that system. The alternatives (NASCAR) are not beloved and have not been widely adopted. It is par for the course. It doesn't happen often. It happened one too many times for NASCAR and it has been off the rails for almost 20 years. It is a special case. Instead of being rejected, it should be embraced because it is a rare occurrence.
Should more be done to limit the chances of this happening? If you want, a series could make a victory worth 100 points and second worth 20 points and heavily weigh winning but even that leaves the door open for a champion with one victory, especially if there are 15 different winners and no driver wins more than twice.
Let's not get caught in these traps. It is ok to explore whether more can be done to favor race winners but let's not diminish a driver for doing what was necessary for him or her to win a championship.
November. The year is nearly over. Seasons are nearly over. Seasons are about to begin. It is a fun time of year. It is a melancholy time. Enjoy the days while daylight gets shorter.
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