As part of the Discover Card Countdown to Green, Bill Weber goes over five issues that they want to see addressed for the 2003 season.
1) The dreaded Aero Push
2) Checkered flag policy – use of the red flag
3) Restrictor plate racing
4) Cost of business
5) The drivers’ voice
Do you think NASCAR responded to these issues over the last 20 years? Have they been corrected or has it gotten worse? Here are my thoughts:
1) The NextGen car seems to have created aero push at tracks I thought I would never see aero push at – road courses and short tracks.
2) That issue was resolved with the institution of the green-white-checkered policy in 2004.
3) There are no more restrictor plates on the cars. The pack racing remains through the current aero package, and I don’t see pack racing going away anytime soon.
4) NASCAR has worked on controlling costs a lot in the last few years. The NextGen car, cutting practice and qualifying sessions out, and teams now under charters (franchise system) are some examples that come to my mind.
5) There is now a ‘drivers chat’ where they can communicate with NASCAR directly if they have issues as a group. Teams also have the ‘Race Team Alliance’ where they can approach NASCAR with issues and even negotiate on contracts, such as they are doing now with the upcoming 2025 TV/media rights deal.
Networks (especially FOX) tend to shy away from criticizing NASCAR or providing a platform to suggest better ideas for the future. I think the NBC guys today (Dale Jr., Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett, etc.) are more opinionated than the FOX guys. Could NBC try to do a segment like this today? It’ll be nice if they did.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this interesting segment for those who haven’t seen it before.
Video is for awareness purposes only. All credit to NASCAR and NBC.
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The end of race procedure is messy to me, but I'm sure ithers will argue that its exciting to rack up the cars again and again and again. If NASCAR wants to argue they have the "best in the world", that needs to be the selling point. Leave the gimmickery for the local short tracks and lower series.
I've heard no report on annual costs with the new car, and nothing substantial about what has been modified since last year when 3 drivers had to miss races due to injury. The charters have only driven startup costs through the roof. $40 million for the Live Fast charter is obscene. That's just getting your foot in the door. Dale Jr has said "no" to moving JR Motorsports to Cup, because of costs. That should speak volumes. Theres only a finite number of prospective buyers. What's the point of having a $60 million charter (or $100 M) if you have no interest in selling, or if no one can afford to buy it?
The sad part is a lot of these aged horribly.
2) It may have been solved, but the amount of red flags have SPIKED compared to 1990-2002 (except 1998).
they won’t even let drivers say anything negative about nascar anymore
The aero push is still an issue. Even with the Next Gen car and it’s terrible.
Currently nascar is expensive and bored.
Incredible find. NASCAR hasn't figured out aero push for a while now. Everyone got their green-flag finishes, though!
Constructive criticism coming from the network to NASCAR? Absolutely mind-blowing!