How does this season compare to past few seasons?

LouieLouie

LouieLouie

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With the 2016 season coming to a close, I wanted to see what people thought of the racing this season opposed to the previous couple of seasons. This year we saw the new lower downforce package and I thought it was definitely a step in the right direction on most tracks.

To me, the first Dover race was the best of the year followed by Phoenix last week (but I'm completely biased because I was there). Other than that, the races that stand out to me the most were Atlanta, Chicago seemed much better this year, the rain threatened Talladega was interesting to me, though I know a lot of people here didn't like that race. Overall, I thought the racing was much better this year than previous years with this Gen 6 car or whatever it is called these days.

What are your memories of this season and do you think this season had better racing overall than the previous couple of seasons?
 
I think it has been better than last year. Hendricks had been the dominate team for some time but Gibbs started the season as the dominate team. Lagano seems to have been consistent the whole season. Harvick has been pretty consistent this season but his car has fallen off a bit near the end of the season (I wonder if the announcement moving to Ford next season affected that). I've really liked seeing the young drivers succeed this year. I've noticed a lot more green flag racing when the teams began to concentrate on points racing.
 
Two steps forward; one step back...

The aero rules created the best racing seen in many years, elevating the difficulty, placing more focus on driving skill. The leader's benefit of clean air was significantly reduced at most of the fast (non-plate) tracks, and even further gains in this area are hoped for with next year's rules (even lower downforce and zero rear skew).

OTOH, the Toyota domination was extreme, and this was a big negative to me. Credit to Toyota for what they achieved, but please let it end. And the Fords lagged behind, clearly third best of the three makes, although I don't know if that was forced by the approved Ford body or a sign of under-achievement by Team Penske.
 
LewTheShoe said:
under-achievement by Team Penske.
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Under-achievement by Team Penske? Logano has a shot at the title and BK just missed the final 8. The 21 also had a great year!

I kind of agree that it seemed like Ford lagged behind the other makes, but I think the only reason for that is because the other major Ford teams are just not very good, i.e. Roush and RPM.

Chevy has HMS, SHR, RCR, and CGR to a lesser extent.
Toyota has JGR plus Furniture Row.

The rest of the teams are not nearly as competitive with the upper echelon.
Now next year should be interesting
Chevy will have HMS and RCR, CGR = 9 cars
Toytoa will have JGR and FRR = 6 cars
Ford will have Penske, Wood Brothers and SHR = 7 cars

All of this seasons races were won by one of the cars listed above with the exception of Chris Buescher.
 
This season started off really good with photo-finishes at Daytona and Phoenix plus some good races at Atlanta, Bristol, Martinsville. It tailed off around Kansas and didn't really pick back up until the last several races with a few exceptions sprinkled in.
 
LouieLouie said:
Under-achievement by Team Penske? Logano has a shot at the title and BK just missed the final 8. The 21 also had a great year!
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I can see both sides of this. Penske has been good. They've won seven races, more earlier in the season, and if you look at the classic non-Chase points, they would be running 2nd and 3rd. As the season progressed, they did seem to be lacking a bit in raw speed, and rarely if ever has the #2 or #22 looked like the best car on the track. They've been very solid, but probably not quite where they want to be on pure performance.


I give due credit to NASCAR leadership for finally realizing what direction the cars needed to go in with regard to downforce and sideforce, and moving pretty swiftly. It has created better, more skill-based racing, and I'm all for that. It is a shame that these positive steps are happening on the track itself while the bizarre championship format and other management decisions further deteriorate general interest (and mine) with each passing year.
 
The racing on the mile tracks (Richmond, Dover, Darlington, Phoenix, NH) has been amazing and the plate racing in this car has been awfully good too. But the intermediate tracks have been mostly snoozefests this season
 
The first 4 races of the year were OUTSTANDING but it's been pretty boring overall since then. It sucks that the teams figured out how to regain the lost downforce.
 
I think the lack of Penske dominance is that they don't have in house engines and so they rely on Yates to be competitive to Toyota. That said, I think JGR having 4 cars with competent drivers gives them a slight edge over Penske's 2 cars.
It took HMS awhile to catch up and I chalk that up to 1 top driver, 1 rookie driver and 2 drivers that have reached their limits. I think the rookie helped the team to take a step foreword.
SHR spent most of the year in limbo with no real management.
CGR has improved with HMS engines and new chassis. RCR has to make do with their engines which don't quite match HMS motors.
 
Team Penske said:
I think the lack of Penske dominance is that they don't have in house engines and so they rely on Yates to be competitive to Toyota. That said, I think JGR having 4 cars with competent drivers gives them a slight edge over Penske's 2 cars.
It took HMS awhile to catch up and I chalk that up to 1 top driver, 1 rookie driver and 2 drivers that have reached their limits. I think the rookie helped the team to take a step foreword.
SHR spent most of the year in limbo with no real management.
CGR has improved with HMS engines and new chassis. RCR has to make do with their engines which don't quite match HMS motors.
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I think SHR will be playing catch-up next year but will be excellent in 2018, maybe even the 2nd half of 17.
CGR is going to have a great year next year. I think even Jamie is going to get a win next year.
RCR will struggle a little bit. Newman will make the chase, but the pressure will get to AD and he will miss it. Menard will have a crap year and will move to Penske in 18 where he'll make the chase again.
HMS cruises right along. Elliot gets his first win. Jr returns for one or two more years, and JJ retires in 3 years.

Maybe I should put this in the silly season thread! lol
 
gnomesayin said:
I can see both sides of this. Penske has been good. They've won seven races, more earlier in the season, and if you look at the classic non-Chase points, they would be running 2nd and 3rd. As the season progressed, they did seem to be lacking a bit in raw speed, and rarely if ever has the #2 or #22 looked like the best car on the track. They've been very solid, but probably not quite where they want to be on pure performance.

I give due credit to NASCAR leadership for finally realizing what direction the cars needed to go in with regard to downforce and sideforce, and moving pretty swiftly. It has created better, more skill-based racing, and I'm all for that. It is a shame that these positive steps are happening on the track itself while the bizarre championship format and other management decisions further deteriorate general interest (and mine) with each passing year.
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Your 1st paragraph: Exactly what I meant. Penske may have under-achieved in engineering downforce, rear skew, or whatever is needed to create raw speed. On the track, the Penske teams have definitely over-achieved in terms of race execution and getting all the car has to give (and then some).

Your 2nd paragraph: It's a pity that you don't have adequate love for the sport to accept the changes over time that you disagree with, along with the changes you like. You probably do have enough love to do that for some other sports (or maybe you are no longer a fan of any). In addition to Nascar, I am a fan of many other forms of motor racing, NFL, college football, and MLB. All of these have undergone massive changes, and many of the changes I don't like or agree with. I'm still a fan of these sports despite the changes. There are other sports where I no longer have interest. Maybe the sport changed too much, maybe I changed, who knows?

One factor in my resilience as a Nascar fan is that I never made the mistake, back decades ago, of thinking Nascar was perfect or close to it. And I don't look back via selective memory to confirm that all was great back then. You mentioned championship format, so I'll just say my greatest gripe with Nascar *always* was that the format was not designed to ensure crowning the most deserving driver/team as champion. Nascar *always* had a ridiculously flat points scale that under-rewarded victories and over-rewarded those who raced safe. And then Nascar changed the scale to make it even flatter. Bleh.

The current Chase format is problematic for me in several ways, but at least it has de-emphasized conservative points racing for the first 26 races.
 
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