For many years I was only able to watch the races that were broadcast on the networks. These were the 'big' races, such as the Daytona 500 and a few other Winston Cup races. In the last 5 years though, with my better cable package I have been able to watch every race throughout the seasons, so in 2010 I started watching pretty much every NASCAR Sprint Cup race, and some (but not all) Nationwide races (now Xfinity races). Not a lot of truck races though - I do have a life to live.
I am fortunate to be able to get to the races in Dover, and the Pocono's, but most of the other tracks are just too far for a weekend trip.
I have even given up football more recently. By late in the NASCAR season, I'm too invested in the chase for the championship to switch to football with all those BORING commercial breaks!
But this season has been very frustrating. NASCAR has really screwed the pooch this time around, with their hippocracy and erratic rule making. I wasn't a major fan of the change to the 3-race elimination rounds, seems to me they are going for superficial bling and not looking for a true champion driver anymore. They only want ratings it appears. Yea, I will stick out the last few races to see who will win the championship, but I don't think I'll stick around for next year, probably get back into football again.
Their recent actions read as hippocracy to me for two main reasons. 1) Driver Safety, 2) Fairness in competition. A couple of weeks ago they announced that they were reducing the number of green-white-checker attempts from three to one. The original idea was to help the race end with a full-speed race instead of a slow procession under caution. But they now say that it was changed for driver safety. Well if it isn't safe, why do you do that in the first place? How is the start of the race not as dangerous? Or any other green flag lap? Maybe eliminate the last 10 laps? Those can't be very safe!
If they really, really care about safety, why have they took so long to put those softer, safer barriers on the tracks? It IS a good idea. But they only did it in "likely" places. Meanwhile, drivers kept wrecking and finding plain old concrete walls to hit. So they put in some more. And still drivers found bare concrete walls. How long should this go on? Why are they not at 100% safer barriers yet?
But what pisses me off the most is the recent dust-up between logano and Kenseth. Kenseth has been very successful this year, winning 5 races and a contender in the competition for the season champion. He was racing in the lead at Kansas, and logano was in 2nd. Kenseth was doing all he could to keep him from passing, what a good race driver does to protect the lead. It's not always about the best car, but the best DRIVER, and protecting the lead is a technique all champion drivers do.
But logano (as all those assinine Penske drivers do) decided he would wreck Kenseth and make sure he didn't win the race and was out of the championship running. logano of course said he didn't do it on purpose but come on! He's a professional driver with literally thousands of laps and hundreds of races, and even us idiots know that if you ram the back corner of a car doing about 200 mph at the start of the turn, that car is going into the wall hard. So any time ANY driver says that he didn't intend to wreck somebody that way is most certainly a liar.
Fine. Whatever. NASCAR's CEO and president said that was good - it was good racing. Fast forward two weeks and Kenseth gets even with logano by wrecking him in the NASCAR philosophy of "Boys have at it". But this time - Kenseth gets kicked out of the next two races! Interestingly in the EXACT SAME RACE, Danica Patrick was also caught intentionally wrecking another driver - and she was even naive enough to say so over the radio - but she didn't get kicked out, just fined a little bit (in terms of the money they earn, it's a little bit. For us regulars it's a fortune.) HOW IS THAT FAIR?
Through most of the race the two Penske drivers were intentionally blocking the front row of the race restarts, holding up the line while #2 lets #22 get ahead - contrary to NASCAR's stated philosophy of insisting all drivers should compete to the utmost (as a fallout of the Richmond race a few years ago.) So as long as #2 was holding back, he was NOT racing all-out. The part about #2 that really set me off is that he is the teammate of the #22 logano, and it certainly appeared to me that he intentionally wrecked Kenseth - claiming that his blatant hard-right turn was because of a broken steering/suspension part. Yea, sure. Those things break all the time with slight body contact. I've never seen that happen before ever.
To summarize, this is how I stand about watching NASCAR from now on. Since I am quite worked up about it all, I want to use capitals to emphasize it...it will make me feel better.
LISTEN UP NASCAR
LISTEN UP NASCAR. YOU DON'T SEEM TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ALL ABOUT. YOU ARE PLAIN AND SIMPLE AN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. YOU LIVE AND DIE BY THE FANS YOU CREATE AND KEEP. I WAS ONE OF THEM, BUT NOT ANYMORE. NO MORE RECOUNTING EXCITING RACES TO FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS ON MONDAY. NO MORE NASCAR T-SHIRTS OR DAY TRIPS TO THE RACETRACKS. WHY?ONE THING I REALLY DON'T LIKE IS UNFAIRNESS. I WOULD RATHER WALK AWAY ALL TOGETHER. I'VE SEEN TWO INTERNET POLLS AND TWO FOX SPORTS RACE HUB SURVEYS - THE LAST OF WHICH WAS REPORTED TO HAVE 1.5 MILLION VOTES. BOTH INTERNET SURVEYS SHOWED BY A CLEAR MARGIN THAT PEOPLE THOUGHT WHAT KENSETH DID WAS OK. 70+% IN FACT. THE TWO FOX SURVEYS ALSO HAD A >70% MARGIN SHOWING THAT NASCAR SHOULD DO NOTHING, AND THE NEXT DAY SHOWED >70% THAT THE PENALTY WAS TOO HARSH. SO CLEARLY I AM NOT ALONE.
IF YOU WERE AT THE TRACK OR SEEN THE TV COVERAGE, YOU COULD HAVE EASILY HEARD THE 5+ MINUTES OF CHEERING WHEN KENSETH GOT EVEN. (EXCEPT FOR THE BOOING WHEN lOGANO GOT OUT OF HIS CAR). HOW COULD YOU HAVE NOT HEARD THE FANS???
NASCAR HAS LOST ALL CREDIBILITY WITH ME, AND WATCHING THESE RACES IS NO LONGER ENJOYABLE FOR ME. I'M OUT OF HERE. AND I AM TAKING MY CASH WITH ME!
#nascar #kenseth #logano #suspension
