Practice vs No Practice

I would also like to see more sessions, just shorter. If you're a fan this is great because it would force cars to get out on the track. Have the track be "open" for 10 minutes, then closed for 10 minutes, then re-open for 10 minutes and continue the cycle.
 
No practice is a big advantage for the teams with experienced drivers and crew chiefs who already have thick notebooks on each track.

With a new car next year, I doubt even the experienced teams will accept no practice...
 
gone said:
No practice is a big advantage for the teams with experienced drivers and crew chiefs who already have thick notebooks on each track.
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Translation: Teams with a high level of talent often succeed.

shocker.
 
"Translation: Teams with a high level of talent often succeed.

shocker. "


Experience is not necessarily talent - it's just experience. Periodically we see new drivers come in without much experience driving these cars, yet they out-run veterans with lots of experience. But the new guys are usually very inconsistent until they grow their own experience and track notebooks, or are fortunate enough land on teams with highly experienced crews with thick notebooks.

So although technically your quote is true, you misunderstood my point.
 
I love practice and qualifying. Part of the joy of a race weekend is to watch times, and predict what might happen. Having said that, if it is good for the sport to dump it---as it is right now--dump it.
 
gone said:
"Translation: Teams with a high level of talent often succeed.

shocker. "


Experience is not necessarily talent - it's just experience. Periodically we see new drivers come in without much experience driving these cars, yet they out-run veterans with lots of experience.
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Quite right. Lots of people have a ton of experience being mediocre.
 
Darlington probably provided the best insight all year. Cars unloaded off the truck, HMS had probably the fastest cars overall.

It was interesting to see the playing field level out over the course of the race.

HMS clearly has the most raw speed this year, like Gibbs did last year. However, they seem to struggle with keeping that edge over the competition. Not sure if it is a talent thing/an adjustment thing. I suspect a bit of both, really.

Jimmie is in his twilight, 4 years ago we would have been penciling it in as a Jimmie win. He's rusty, Chase is Chase, just isn't at the championship level yet, and Byron and Bowman, as far as I can see, are still finding experience running at the elite level.

This race showed two things.

1. Where the speed is (HMS)
2. Where the execution is (Ford)

My 2 cents


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jaqua19 said:
Darlington probably provided the best insight all year. Cars unloaded off the truck, HMS had probably the fastest cars overall.

It was interesting to see the playing field level out over the course of the race.

HMS clearly has the most raw speed this year, like Gibbs did last year. However, they seem to struggle with keeping that edge over the competition. Not sure if it is a talent thing/an adjustment thing. I suspect a bit of both, really.

Jimmie is in his twilight, 4 years ago we would have been penciling it in as a Jimmie win. He's rusty, Chase is Chase, just isn't at the championship level yet, and Byron and Bowman, as far as I can see, are still finding experience running at the elite level.

This race showed two things.

1. Where the speed is (HMS)
2. Where the execution is (Ford)

My 2 cents


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psst Harv had the bullet all day long..and I mean ALL day long. Bowman ran high top 5 all day but wasn't fast enough to hold a lead. Hendrick is close but no cigar
 
RacerrecaR said:
Get rid of practice altogether and shorten the length of the first 2 stages by half. I think no practice provides for better racing, plus having a long final stage will feel more like a 300-mile race which is what a lot of fans prefer. First 2 stages act like practice sessions.
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That's another way to dump the scheduled uncompetitive competition caution.
 
StandOnIt said:
psst Harv had the bullet all day long..and I mean ALL day long. Bowman ran high top 5 all day but wasn't fast enough to hold a lead. Hendrick is close but no cigar
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Did he though? I missed a portion of it,but at the start of the race he wasn't keeping pace with HMS, and faded just a bit.

My point is that they got better and better and took control of the race. I'm talking strictly off the truck, the HMS cars seemed fastest without practice, without adjustments.

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jaqua19 said:
Did he though? I missed a portion of it,but at the start of the race he wasn't keeping pace with HMS, and faded just a bit.

My point is that they got better and better and took control of the race. I'm talking strictly off the truck, the HMS cars seemed fastest without practice, without adjustments.

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took control of the race? Johnson wrecks, Byron's pits wrecked him with a loose wheel and Elliott caught speeding on pit row. Harv had control of the race, even with a slow pit he came back and led
 
jaqua19 said:
Darlington probably provided the best insight all year. Cars unloaded off the truck, HMS had probably the fastest cars overall.

It was interesting to see the playing field level out over the course of the race.

HMS clearly has the most raw speed this year, like Gibbs did last year. However, they seem to struggle with keeping that edge over the competition. Not sure if it is a talent thing/an adjustment thing. I suspect a bit of both, really.

Jimmie is in his twilight, 4 years ago we would have been penciling it in as a Jimmie win. He's rusty, Chase is Chase, just isn't at the championship level yet, and Byron and Bowman, as far as I can see, are still finding experience running at the elite level.

This race showed two things.

1. Where the speed is (HMS)
2. Where the execution is (Ford)

My 2 cents
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Pretty heroic conclusions to draw from the recliner in (part of) one race. What exactly is meant by "raw speed" and how is it measured?

Personally, I don't have any great conclusions to take away from this one race. Track position is still king with the current low power, high downforce, high drag rules... even at Darlington, but more so elsewhere I suspect. But ultimately the fastest car won the race. Harvick's #4 ranked first in Central Speed Ranking and first in number of fastest laps, plus that prime pit stall aided track position numerous times. And the SHR #4 also was fastest in 2019 Central Speed, not Gibbs cars.
 
A number of in car shots showed what looked like the drivers were swatting flies trying to keep the car from going around. Many didn't succeed. Gone are the days of drivers looking like they are going to the store in a hurry on the interstate when they had the all aero package.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
The lack of practice doesn't matter with this high downforce, low horsepower ****. Very few cautions yesterday, almost no Darlington stripes, nobody running on the absolute ragged edge. I would've thought they were racing at Richmond or Kentucky if the broadcast booth didn't keep reminding us they were at Darlington.

Let's just be honest, the cars are easier to drive now.
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Yeah I think you're off on this one buddy. Heck they were hitting that wall so much they scraped off the damn Blue Emu sign haha. These cars drive Darlington very differently though, makes them drive sort of like sprint cars to be honest. Everyone is riding around the rim of the track and absolutely wheeling it to keep their moment as the tires wear fast as heck.

I'm interested to see how pissed off these guys get on Martinsville/Bristol week. There are going to be some serious tempers after doing those races back to back within a few days
 
StandOnIt said:
took control of the race? Johnson wrecks, Byron's pits wrecked him with a loose wheel and Elliott caught speeding on pit row. Harv had control of the race, even with a slow pit he came back and led
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Not sure how else I can make my point here. Harvick clearly was the car to beat. But I'm talking about the first run, and that first 30 laps of the race where the cars had the setups they unloaded with. Prior to the first pit stop with adjustments,The 48, and the 88 were better than the 4, as was the 11 and the 24. It was only a very small fraction of the race..but it was Harvicks worst run. After the comp yellow and as the race went on, he got better. The HMS cars were the fastest that first 30 laps and through out the stage before teams could start working on the cars. To me, that tells me that HMS had the speed right off the truck, but Harvick out drove, and his team outworked everyone.

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LewTheShoe said:
Pretty heroic conclusions to draw from the recliner in (part of) one race. What exactly is meant by "raw speed" and how is it measured?

Personally, I don't have any great conclusions to take away from this one race. Track position is still king with the current low power, high downforce, high drag rules... even at Darlington, but more so elsewhere I suspect. But ultimately the fastest car won the race. Harvick's #4 ranked first in Central Speed Ranking and first in number of fastest laps, plus that prime pit stall aided track position numerous times. And the SHR #4 also was fastest in 2019 Central Speed, not Gibbs cars.
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No measures taken. It an observational assessment of a very small sample of the race. Trust me man, I get statistics and research. I have experience with it. From what I saw, the HMS cars were fastest that very first run before major adjustments were made. I felt this was significant because it was the first race all year without practice, and was the closest we have had to seeing base setups in a race. If you want to find me the speed rating for the first 30 laps prior to adjustments and for the first stage, I'm happy to look at that. If the HMS cars aren't near the top in this small sample, I'll gladly concede. I would also love to see the speed rating of the first stage of every speedway race this year to compare, and contrast this particular race to the other races. Because the first stage of this race had a potential independent variable that could influence that first stage.

Thanks Lew, and take care. Two races in a week. We are lucky.


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jaqua19 said:
No measures taken. It an observational assessment of a very small sample of the race. Trust me man, I get statistics and research. I have experience with it. From what I saw, the HMS cars were fastest that very first run before major adjustments were made. I felt this was significant because it was the first race all year without practice, and was the closest we have had to seeing base setups in a race. If you want to find me the speed rating for the first 30 laps prior to adjustments and for the first stage, I'm happy to look at that. If the HMS cars aren't near the top in this small sample, I'll gladly concede. I would also love to see the speed rating of the first stage of every speedway race this year to compare, and contrast this particular race to the other races. Because the first stage of this race had a potential independent variable that could influence that first stage.

Thanks Lew, and take care. Two races in a week. We are lucky.


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You may be right but I don't see the significance of being the fastest off of the trailer when there isn't any practice at all. Lets be fastest the last stage. Keselowski led the second most laps, a distant second from Harvick's numbers, and he also was fast off the trailer early.
 
donthaveanickname said:
I was just thinking about that during the Xfinity race... KDB will have a massive advantage when there's no practice and he runs Xfinity and Trucks before the Cup race.
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If they wouldn't have started him in the rear it would have been worse. The trucks will be a joke, they should start him in the parking lot.
 
Somehow I manged to post my original comment in the wrong thread, but here goes in the correct thread; As many people that throw hissy fits every time a practice session isn't televised, and as much as everybody HATED the qualifying format that condensed an hour or more of paint drying activity into 10-15 action packed minutes, I am truly shocked at most of the responses here. I can't even count how many times I have heard complaints when all of the practice was on Saturday, with nothing to watch on Friday, or the resistance to my suggestion that all but a handful of Cup races should probably be two day shows. My opinion is that as long as testing is forbidden, at least SOME practice is warranted, and I personally can't imagine racing without qualifying. I have faulted NASCAR for YEARS for giving up on qualifying to easily and setting the filed by points. I have always said if nothing else, qualifying could be held on Sunday morning, and they proved it last year at Indy.
 
Liking the less is more thing. May help on the race day ratings. Qualifying same day leaves us scrambling for fantasy, forces some to watch pay attention.
 
Turtle84 said:
Liking the less is more thing. May help on the race day ratings. Qualifying same day leaves us scrambling for fantasy, forces some to watch pay attention.
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I have suggested less is more on the number of races too, but I have been crucified for that. I guess if the mid week race idea sticks, we could 36 races and STILL shorten the season by a month on either end, although I still am concerned that those would almost totally wipe out the live attendance for those races.
 
Formerjackman said:
I have suggested less is more on the number of races too, but I have been crucified for that. I guess if the mid week race idea sticks, we could 36 races and STILL shorten the season by a month on either end, although I still am concerned that those would almost totally wipe out the live attendance for those races.
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I'd be surprised if mid-week stuck beyond this year, for the reason you mentioned of wiping out the live attendance. It does give them the opportunity to double up at a location if they desire to though...
 
`Got a pretty good idea that TV is running the show. Nobody knows what they are going to do. And if or until Nascar has it's own network that isn't going to change. Unlike the welfare sports with multi millionaires owning teams, Nascar has had to make changes for their survival of it's teams. No practice is temporary until everybody gets a few paychecks to be able to afford it.
 
Still a LOT of money to walk away from, unless TV is going to make up the difference, and pandemic aside, does TV really WANT to see races run before empty seats? I see and hear comments in other places all the time that NASCAR must not be worth watching because nobody goes to the races anymore. Sometimes you have to step outside the bubble we're in and take a look at how others perceive the sport. Truthfully, special circumstances aside, I don't think weeknight races would be any more of a ratings boon than Saturday night races are.
 
Formerjackman said:
does TV really WANT to see races run before empty seats?
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If I was a network exec, I'd prefer races run before empty seats with the pandemic as an excuse, than run before grandstands half full (or less) with no excuse.

But I'm not an exec. I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
If I was a network exec, I'd prefer races run before empty seats with the pandemic as an excuse, than run before grandstands half full (or less) with no excuse.

But I'm not an exec. I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
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Last I heard TV doesn't make a dime on attendance
 
^^^ It is not possible to “put the pandemic aside” in any conversation about a commercial enterprise of any kind.

Several of NASCAR and its teams’ revenue streams have dried up and there’s no way to know when they’ll be back.
 
aunty dive said:
^^^ It is not possible to “put the pandemic aside” in any conversation about a commercial enterprise of any kind.

Several of NASCAR and its teams’ revenue streams have dried up and there’s no way to know when they’ll be back.
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My point was that everybody is willing to accept things now because there is no alternative. Will everybody be as willing when there IS an alternative?
 
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