What exactly is it that you want from a NASCAR Sprint Cup race? I ask that because last weekend, a race broke out at a race track where we were seeing green flag pit stops, and long runs where tire wear, track position and other factors started to come into play.
In the 2nd half of the race, I was seeing what I can imagine to be disdain from some of those folks that I follow on Twitter.
“Yawn” What’s that about? This is auto racing, how can you get “bored” with that which should happen every single race, barring accidents and failures? What exactly are race fans looking for?
Sure, some of the usual intensity is not there from the cars being packed up together. I get that. Sure, no double-file restarts to get the juices flowing. I get that. I love that stuff also, but this is what it’s about. A massive, mechanical chess game where tire wear, driver skill and team endurance kick in.
I know this can’t be correct, but my first impression of some of the comments were that people were looking for wrecks. Hell, even some press were starting to trash on the boredom of cars screaming around the track at 170+ mph.
I was really disappointed by some of the commentary and though I can’t argue that it was going “on and on,” there is the other end of the spectrum. When we get debris cautions, people start festering about mystery cautions.
So you don’t like it when a race runs clean. But then you don’t like it when debris cautions interrupt the racing. I know a lot of you folks don’t like the in-car and bumper cam views… though I get that, I completely appreciate exactly what a driver is needing to do when we see the cars bounce and swerve. And the different camera angles can tend to break up a race viewing monotony!
At one point in the race, comments were reminding me of this one hair-brained web-o-verse citizen who used to comment on a blog that is inactive now. No race was ever perfect because to him, parity meant that every single car in a race should have led a lap before the race was up. If that didn’t happen, then the racing was not fair. Dude… really? You can roll two balls down a chute and one always gets there first by virtue of many factors. Ack… I’m getting side tracked.
So my question remains, what do you want in a race? No field is ever going to be evenly matched up, ever. No track is wide enough to have 6-wide racing. Heck even soap box derby racing fields stretch out!
I need to know. Well, maybe I don’t need to know, but I’ve put this out there for all of us to ponder. I do say us, because though I might not have said anything, I can’t say there were moments that I didn’t emotionally disagree. But then I’d start pestering people on Twitter and such and kept the conversation fresh and hence, my attention span diversely occupied.
If you find yourself not appreciating the results of a team’s mechanical chess moves out on the oval field of play, what are you looking for? The inevitable is that a field is going to stretch out, especially at larger tracks. Do you want mandatory cautions every 50 laps? Shorter Cup races? All the wings and spoilers pulled off a car? (Hmm, now that would be interesting!)
That’s my thought this week.
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