NASCAR reallocating prize money

MOEJOE said:
Smartest Stump? My brain may have to chew on that for a while.

Giver Upper, eh? You call yourself a Brad K fan. ;)
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Leaders of the toadies never give up.
 
I'm sure most on here will disagree with Dave Moody's commentary on this issue but I thought it was a pretty good analogy.
In recent weeks, NASCAR fans have allowed themselves to be duped into caring about things that really don’t matter.

Instead of rooting for their favorite driver, debating the merits of the new Gen-6 race car or debating the ability of Carl Edwards or Jeff Gordon to return to title contention, we have been led down the primrose path; told that the most important teams in the sport are the ones that finish in the back of the pack after utilizing the bedeviled strategy known as “Start and Park.”

"Start and Park should not be a part of what we do,” said Speedway Motorsports, Inc. Chairman Bruton Smith recently, for the 5,000th time. “I think this is derogatory for our sport."

Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage Smith lent his voice to the choir, saying, "People are stealing in broad daylight in front of 150,000 fans in the grandstands and millions of people watching at home."

And someone, inexplicably, we allowed ourselves to care.

There are serious issues in need of attention right now. In-person attendance and television viewership are down. Dodge withdrew from competition at the end of last season, joining Oldsmobile, Buick and Pontiac on the list of automakers to leave the sport in recent years. The economy is in shambles and sponsorship is more difficult than ever to come by. The sport’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., has no backing for 11 of this year’s 36 point-counting races.

And yet, somehow, our panties are in a collective knot over who finished last in the most recent race.
We ignore our champion, Brad Keselowski, in favor of a driver who ran 16 laps en route to 43rd place in the season finale at Homestead Miami Speedway; a driver whose name we cannot seem to remember.

Instead of praising the most improved team of 2012, Michael Waltrip Racing, we focus instead on a couple of teams who were either unable to improve, or have no desire to do so.

Only in NASCAR are fans so willing to be led astray, and only in NASCAR are we so obsessed with the have-nots.

The Jacksonville Jaguars and Kansas City Chiefs were the worst teams in the National Football League this season; winning just two of their 16 games, respectively. ESPN SportsCenter didn’t talk about them, and the vast majority of fans focused their time and energy on better, more relevant clubs. Judging from the attendance figures, even fans in Jacksonville and Kansas City considered the Jags and Chiefs to be unworthy of their attention.

The Chicago Cubs continued to toil in baseball obscurity last season, posting a lowly 61-101 record. Only the Houston Astros were worse, at 55-107. Fans of the Cubbies have grown accustomed to futility. The hometown team hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, so once July rolls around, sports fans in the Windy City automatically begin looking forward to football season.

The Washington Capitals and Calgary Flames are off to abysmal starts in this lockout-shortened National Hockey League season, winning just two of their games to date. Nobody’s saying much about them because, well… they suck.

The Charlotte Hornets are once again the weak sisters of the NBA, after losing 37 of their first 48 games. I live in the Charlotte area, and I couldn’t give away a Hornets ticket if it was wrapped in a $50 bill. People just don’t care.

Only in NASCAR do we spend so much of our time talking about teams that achieve so little.
Only in NASCAR does losing 100% of your games make you worthy of attention, discussion and debate.

It’s time for a change in focus. It’s time to get back to what matters.
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from here
 
Johali said:
Damn tootin, pull up your skirt FB, onward and upward. :D
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MOEJOE said:
:fixed:
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Leave it to you 2 to gay this up.
kurt-puke3.gif
 
Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage Smith lent his voice to the choir, saying, "People are stealing in broad daylight in front of 150,000 fans in the grandstands and millions of people watching at home."
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Is Eddie coming clean?
 
breatheoflife said:
Not necessarily lower the field, no. If you have 43 cars that can run a full race, excellent. I think NASCAR should just mandate a rule that if they start, they have to at least attempt to finish.
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Great idea. Where do you expect to get six or seven full-race capable cars to replace the S&Ps? Nationwide or Truck teams moving up? Andretti coming south? Andy Lally and Scott Pruett coming back from Rolex?

How do you propose to determine whether a team is actually 'attempting to finish'? Look at what happened to Hamlin's car at M'ville last fall. (Incidentally, that was a real hoot to watch from the stands!) If Travis Kvapil or Casey Mears car had kept cutting off, would it be any less legitimate a problem?

If there were another six or seven teams capable of running the full race, they'd already be doing so.
ted@economy said:
Not only that , but I recall Childress once at Homestead starting and parking a couple extra cars when Dale Earnhardt needed to finish 40th or better to win the championship. It was just precautionary in case he had mechanical troubles , but I didn't hear anybody whineing about start and parks back in the day.
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I don't recall that at the Cup level, but I do remember one of the Truck teams doing it, although I don't recall which one. I remember the team started five or six trucks, some of them 'rented' from teams that regularly S&P'ed, in order to ensure their primary driver finished well enough to lock up a title.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I'm sure most on here will disagree with Dave Moody's commentary on this issue but I thought it was a pretty good analogy.
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Nope, makes sense to me.

According to Gossage, these teams are "stealing" money from some imaginary, well-to-do team ready to break in and take the Cup series by storm. Teams like that just plain don't exist in today's NASCAR. It doesn't matter how much prize money is there, or how many laps Phil Parsons' cars run, positions 36-43 are going to look pretty much the same every week. There's no point to all this hand wringing unless NASCAR admits to itself that there aren't enough competitive teams to start 43 cars every week.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Great idea. Where do you expect to get six or seven full-race capable cars to replace the S&Ps? Nationwide or Truck teams moving up? Andretti coming south? Andy Lally and Scott Pruett coming back from Rolex?

How do you propose to determine whether a team is actually 'attempting to finish'? Look at what happened to Hamlin's car at M'ville last fall. (Incidentally, that was a real hoot to watch from the stands!) If Travis Kvapil or Casey Mears car had kept cutting off, would it be any less legitimate a problem?

If there were another six or seven teams capable of running the full race, they'd already be doing so.
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They won't need six or seven teams. Most races had at least 40 cars that at least attempted to run the race. There's even some teams that would like to attempt to run the whole race that don't qualify for the race because a S&P team knocks them out of the race.

It's easy to determine if a team is just planning on S&Ping or running the race. If they only have a couple crew members with them and just 1 or 2 sets of tires, it's pretty obvious they have no intentions of trying to run a whole race.
 
breatheoflife said:
They won't need six or seven teams. Most races had at least 40 cars that at least attempted to run the race. There's even some teams that would like to attempt to run the whole race that don't qualify for the race because a S&P team knocks them out of the race.

It's easy to determine if a team is just planning on S&Ping or running the race. If they only have a couple crew members with them and just 1 or 2 sets of tires, it's pretty obvious they have no intentions of trying to run a whole race.
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I don't think that the field size thing or the start and park thing is due to any other reason but the lack of big dollar sponsors . Money will and does fill the field will quality ,top notch cars. If the economy was better and there were 45 big named sponsors wanting to race , there would be two big name cars having to go home. If there are only 35 big name sponsors wanting to race , there will be 8 teams treading water waiting to hook up with some new sponsor . Doesn't matter how we think it should be , when there are 43 sponsors , there will be 43 teams racing to the finish. ECONOMICS 101.
 
ted@economy said:
I don't think that the field size thing or the start and park thing is due to any other reason but the lack of big dollar sponsors . Money will and does fill the field will quality ,top notch cars. If the economy was better and there were 45 big named sponsors wanting to race , there would be two big name cars having to go home. If there are only 35 big name sponsors wanting to race , there will be 8 teams treading water waiting to hook up with some new sponsor . Doesn't matter how we think it should be , when there are 43 sponsors , there will be 43 teams racing to the finish. ECONOMICS 101.
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Of course sponsors is a big part of it. That doesn't change the fact that there are owners out there willing to run full races that can't because they get knocked out of qualify, etc, by a S&P team. Now, I'm not saying that's wrong, you earn your spot in the race, you race, but that's the problem, the S&P teams aren't going to race. I guess my biggest issue with S&P cars are when a big name driver has a bad day at qualifying, or have to change something and go to the rear of the field, then they are stuck back there with guys that have no desire to even be in that race. Then something happens, and a S&P car will take out a car that's trying to compete the whole race. It's happened quite often. That's my biggest problem. I don't care about the money part of it.
 
breatheoflife said:
I guess my biggest issue with S&P cars are when a big name driver has a bad day at qualifying, or have to change something and go to the rear of the field, then they are stuck back there with guys that have no desire to even be in that race. Then something happens, and a S&P car will take out a car that's trying to compete the whole race. It's happened quite often. That's my biggest problem. I don't care about the money part of it.
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More often than not, if a big named driver has to start at the rear of the field, he gets the wave by by those at the back. I'm sure we'll see several examples of this in the D500. It's not always easy to spot on the television broadcast but it's very obvious when you're at the track.

I'm trying to think of an example of a S&P taking out someone under that scenario. Do you have an example that would remind me?
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I'm trying to think of an example of a S&P taking out someone under that scenario. Do you have an example that would remind me?
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Honestly not of the top of my head, I can't remember who it was that it happened to just last year. I'll find it when I get home though.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Name two teams that an S&P team has prevented from qualifying in the last three seasons.
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Other single car, sponsored teams. It happens all the time. Do you not watch qualifying? I'm not talking about a big time team like a Hendricks or Gibbs car.
 
breatheoflife said:
Other single car, sponsored teams. It happens all the time. Do you not watch qualifying? I'm not talking about a big time team like a Hendricks or Gibbs car.
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Yes, I watch qualifying. The only teams I see going home are other S&Ps. But I see I'm going to have to do your work for you. Here's the DNQs for the last four races in 2012, courtesy of RacingReference.info:

M'ville - Mike Bliss (#19), J.J. Yeley (#37)
Texas - Stephen Leicht (#33), Kelly Bires (#79), David Stremme (#30)
Phoenix - J.J. Yeley (#37)
Homestead - Reed Sorenson (#79), Stephen Leicht (#33), Jason Leffler (#91), Joe Nemechek (#87)

Which one of those do you think is legitimate, non-S&P team? I don't see one in the bunch.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Yes, I watch qualifying. The only teams I see going home are other S&Ps. But I see I'm going to have to do your work for you. Here's the DNQs for the last four races in 2012, courtesy of RacingReference.info:

M'ville - Mike Bliss (#19), J.J. Yeley (#37)
Texas - Stephen Leicht (#33), Kelly Bires (#79), David Stremme (#30)
Phoenix - J.J. Yeley (#37)
Homestead - Reed Sorenson (#79), Stephen Leicht (#33), Jason Leffler (#91), Joe Nemechek (#87)

Which one of those do you think is legitimate, non-S&P team? I don't see one in the bunch.
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Well I obviously don't know since I wasn't at the tracks. Possibly none in your example. I didn't say it happened every race.
 
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