Silly Season 2025

As has been pointed out in this thread, we often forget that while a driver like Gaughan or Lajoie or Ware or Townley or Ty Dillon or Marco Andretti or JHNemechek may suck compared to other Cup or Xfinity drivers, any of them would leave our unexperienced asses in the dust. Even actors like Patrick Dempsey and Frankie Munoz or AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson would smoke at least 80% of us. Running 95 on the interstate isn't comparable experience.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
As has been pointed out in this thread, we often forget that while a driver like Gaughan or Lajoie or Ware or Townley or Ty Dillon or Marco Andretti or JHNemechek may suck compared to other Cup or Xfinity drivers, any of them would leave our unexperienced asses in the dust. Even actors like Patrick Dempsey and Frankie Munoz or AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson would smoke at least 80% of us. Running 95 on the interstate isn't comparable experience.
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I wish there was a way to bet money on pretty much any live body being able to get into a Cup car and get within a half second in lap time of the permanent driver who sits in the car every Sunday when it comes to Talladega or Daytona, but tragically, I do not have a way to do this. All I can do is cite every time a driver is asked about the difficulty of driving these tracks and they respond with "It's as tough as driving down the freeway" along with, you know, looking at them driving cars where there is minimal steering input, virtually no correction or reverse lock, and no braking.

Lots of things in racing take talent. Daytona and Talladega are not those things.
 
virtualbalboa said:
All I can do is cite every time a driver is asked about the difficulty of driving these tracks and they respond with "It's as tough as driving down the freeway" ...
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And I'm sure it is, for them. To misquote Sheldon Cooper, "I didn't say plate drivers are not good at what they do. I just think what they do is not worth doing."
 
virtualbalboa said:
You don't need to tell me. The last time he ran Daytona I put money on him at something like +7500. Why not? Dude sucks and he's there because his dad doesn't want him screwing up the South Point. But he's got a pile of money for good equipment thanks to his dad owning South Point and he knows plate tracks are the only ones he can be competitive in, so he's gonna push there. The connective tissue of "They're a plate track specialist" is they are dogs#it everywhere else when the competition's speed isn't limited to match their car's speed. The drivers and teams both know that, so they're gonna be extra aggressive and try to run up front. Corey LaJoie sucks lmao like it's not like he's magically smarter than everyone else when it comes to maneuvering in the air, he's just going as hard as humanly possible because if he wins, he gets in the playoffs and saves his career and gets people to pretend he is better than he is (like everyone else who only has ever won plate races). Jimmy Spencer got a long career out of being Ryan Preece w/two plate wins.
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Weren’t there road course specialists who sucked everywhere else? Sometimes you get really good at one discipline and not any others.
 
Naitch said:
Weren’t there road course specialists who sucked everywhere else? Sometimes you get really good at one discipline and not any others.
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Most of those were ringers brought in specifically for R/C races but not for full seasons. Of those that did run a full season, Andy Lally made Rookie of the Year mostly because he was the only full-time rookie. Marcos Ambrose was a major threat on R/Cs and mostly forgettable elsewhere; AJ 'Dinger has been about the same, and SVG looks like it too.
 
virtualbalboa said:
I wish there was a way to bet money on pretty much any live body being able to get into a Cup car and get within a half second in lap time of the permanent driver who sits in the car every Sunday when it comes to Talladega or Daytona, but tragically, I do not have a way to do this. All I can do is cite every time a driver is asked about the difficulty of driving these tracks and they respond with "It's as tough as driving down the freeway" along with, you know, looking at them driving cars where there is minimal steering input, virtually no correction or reverse lock, and no braking.

Lots of things in racing take talent. Daytona and Talladega are not those things.
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They’re talking about qualifying. 200 mph racing in traffic is a world away from that.

Being “in the mix” at these places is much more difficult than it appears on TV.
 
aunty dive said:
They’re talking about qualifying. 200 mph racing in traffic is a world away from that.

Being “in the mix” at these places is much more difficult than it appears on TV.
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That reminds me of my late father in law. He was a truck driver, and when they had in car camera shots of the drivers at Daytona or Talladega sawing the wheel in the turns, he’d say “now see…they don’t need to do that. They’re just doing that for TV to make it look hard”. 😂😂 God bless him…I tried to explain how the air buffeting and steering wheel setup would affect how it looked but he didn’t believe any of it. Heck, I’ve never driven any race car other than a racing truck once on a short track “driving experience”. Ended up spinning the rear around in the turn 3 (no damage, actually controlled it pretty well). I can imagine trying to keep any racing stock car from wrecking in those 200MPH packs. Yeah they are pros and get used to it, but that doesn’t keep their heart rates any lower.
 
virtualbalboa said:
I wish there was a way to bet money on pretty much any live body being able to get into a Cup car and get within a half second in lap time of the permanent driver who sits in the car every Sunday when it comes to Talladega or Daytona, but tragically, I do not have a way to do this. All I can do is cite every time a driver is asked about the difficulty of driving these tracks and they respond with "It's as tough as driving down the freeway" along with, you know, looking at them driving cars where there is minimal steering input, virtually no correction or reverse lock, and no braking.

Lots of things in racing take talent. Daytona and Talladega are not those things.
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I couldn't disagree more. Firstly, you'd have to be good enough to actually stay in the draft. If you end up losing it, you're suddenly a menace on the track once the field approaches you.

Racing at 190MPH with the field bunched up is incredibly tricky and takes a lot of talent. A LOT.
 
Naitch said:
Are we just ignoring that Burton showed promise on plate tracks in Xfinity or does that not fit the “plate races are a lottery” narrative?

Making it to the end can be a crapshoot but you actually need some degree of talent to actually pull off a win. Mike Wallace could lead to the white flag and he would end up getting freight trained.
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To be fair, Mike Wallace did good at plate tracks in the lower series.
 
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