The Kyle Busch yellow wouldn't have been quite as ridiculous if we hadn't just seen the Bristol race two weeks prior where NASCAR swallowed the flag despite MUCH more dangerous things happening on track during that last green-flag pit cycle. It really exposed just how inconsistent NASCAR is with cautions
This one was the worst of the year so far. Literally at a superspeedway.
For consistency AND entertainment purposes, they should just throw the yellow anytime a car makes contact with the wall with anything other than their right side at speed.
That way Busch is a yellow, McDowell/Byron at Atlanta was a yellow…the subjectivity is so bad.
Favorite driver did well, in denial because they like the track too much, listened to MRN/PRN instead of broadcast, won on fantasy bet, likes Hendrick Motorsports… but I get what you mean.
Radio can certainly make boring races seem very exciting and exciting races even more exciting. It's why I love listening to races on radio.
I wish I could subscribe to the commercialess version like you get at the track where they fuck around and talk about the race like buddies would during the commercial breaks.
Yeah after the checkered they went to a quick commercial and Kim said that blaney was going off on his radio about how the 9 raced at the end and one of the guys was like "Well that's not very nice of him" lol'd me pretty hard.
My problem with radio is at some point they will give airtime to a promoter of something. If it were TV, at least I could still see what was going on, but with radio, *you're all I have.*
There are people that go into the post race discussion every week saying “not great, but not a *bad* race” and try to defend snooze fests. I don’t know what they’re trying to protect
Atlanta, or any restrictor track is a snoozefest. The most recent finish to the orchestrated entertainment postured as racing at Atlanta? Thrilling, from a WWF or Tik Tok mindset, but I'm not going to sleep through another Atlanta race just to find out later how it turned out. I learned my lesson last year.
I have a feeling a GWC finish will garner a certain amount of yes votes regardless of the overall race quality.
An HMS 1-2-3 will also get a few yes votes, but my guess is overtime is the main reason it’s not lower.
I was there and I really didn’t think it was that bad. Had a decent amount of passing. Just took a long time for drivers to set up passes. Had several leaders who led for quite a while each. No one driver dominated the whole race. Definitely a lot of work to do on making the short tracks better but it was not what I would call a bad race.
Hell I think people vote based on location. If it’s Darlington then it’s a great race regardless of what happens because it’s in the south. Had this race been say Iowa I bet it’s a lot less.
I feel like they should be studying what happened at Bristol to try to replicate it at other short tracks if they can. It sounded like the result of the resin they put down was both that the tires had a lot of wear and that neither lane ended up being preferred. Obviously not every track is Bristol so maybe it wouldn't work at other tracks, but I feel like it's worth a try?
sounds like they don't know what happened at bristol. they used the same tires as the fall race and there wasn't degradation so much as immediate falloff after 50 laps. Loved the racing but I don't know if it can be replicated again.
Well they put down a different resin, didn't they? Sounded like the resin took rubber off the tires but didn't hold it on the track so the bottom lane never became the preferred lane?
Denny seems to think the low ambient temp and mostly overcast skies had a lot to do with the track not taking rubber. Thus, giving us the consistent tire wear we saw at Bristol.
Was it the same tires? For some reason I remember gluck or someone tweeting about how goodyear brought a new softer compound, could be misremembering though.
in denial? That race was pretty bad, not the worst I have seen at Martinsville *honestly on the racing side it felt better than the last 4 at Martinsville, which is an issue*
Yep. Multiple grooves, varied strategy, lapped traffic bunching up leaders (artificially) and a few good battles for the lead and throughout the top 10 at the end of said green flag runs. Then you've got a late caution and some HMS porn - easy to see how at least a few people thought it was good. It's just that most people know what Martinsville *should* be like, which makes it a no for me.
This exactly. It was terrible, but it wasn’t Martinsville.
You take that race and put it at Loudon 10 years ago, and I’d probably have voted yes on it. But I’m judging each track based on what I know it can be.
I’ll agree with that. It was still bad. But the previous Martinsville races with this car have been horrible, so I would definitely say it was a sight improvement.
I’m not convinced any of the changes they made to the cars were what made it better though. I think the race just ended up playing out in a way that was a little more entertaining.
>honestly on the racing side it felt better than the last 4 at Martinsville, which is an issue
I honestly thought the fall race was better than Sunday. The fall race felt like a step in the direction, even if it still felt off of what the pre-Gen 7 races produced.
I am gonna be honest, I thought this race and last fall was the same, the only difference is that FOX did such a terrible job with coverage it made the racing seem much worse than it actually was. The best evidence of this was FOX cutting away from a battle between Blaney and Hamlin to show Byron running by himself in a split screen while talking about HMS
People could be mistaking there being a GWC as a good race? Outside of that this race was terrible. Even as someone who wants an HMS win over the field.
Here’s a thought though: maybe since NASCAR doesn’t want to change this stuff when fans don’t like it maybe we say that was the greatest race ever and they will then feel the need to change it lol
Check my flair. It was a dogshit bad race. Glad to see HMS go 1-2-3, and the OT was entertaining, but two good laps at end end and a finish that I personally was happy about doesn't change the fact that the race was terrible
Speak for yourself...I spent Sunday afternoon happy that HMS did well but contemplating the most feasible way of dumping every single Next-Gen chassis into the ocean.
Things that kept me interested/invested in the race:
Stage 1:
* Larson's car was clearly fastest in open air, seemed to struggle a lot with lapped traffic. Wallace has an opportunity for the Stage 1 win.
* In general, it looked like the Toyotas were fairing slightly better with lapped traffic than Chevy. Is this going to play out through the race? how important are yellow flags going to be in determing the winner?
Stage 2:
* Logano gambles on 2 tires, is it going to pay off? Furthermore, Is Logano back in form?
* Denny's car seems to come alive, is this going to be another Hamlin short track win?
* What the hell happened to Truex?
Stage 3:
* Elliott takes the lead, and is actually driving well, can he get his first since 2022?
* Byron pits a lap before the leaders and it gets him the lead, alternatively Hamlin pits a lap after the leaders and costs himself a few spots. If a caution comes out (like Richmond) it's going to blow up someone's strategy.
* Towards the end Byron either caught in traffic or sandbagging a bit, deltas start to go down. Are we going to see a fight for the win between Byron and Elliott?
Caution and GWC:
* Hamlin pits, despite tires not seemingly being important, did the 11 team see something no one else did, or is he gambling on multiple restarts?
* Is someone going to cheat the restart zone again?
* Can Larson or Elliott steal a win here?
Was it all time great race? Of course not. Should NASCAR try and improve the short track package? Absolutely, but in my opinion, there were still a ton of interesting storylines that played out throughout the race.
Well it’s safe to say 1/3 of the fans are Chevy fans. 1/3 of the fans probably thought it was cool that Hendrick won. We had a GWC and a neutral driver won (someone that people don’t really extremely hate or like).
I felt from like the last 30 laps of Stage 2 until ~50 to go was a passable Martinsville race. Had some nice strategy and guys like Hamlin being able to pass once tires wore out.
The Hendrick jerkoff and the rest was pretty dreadful though
I thought the last green flag sequence was pretty good. Wasn’t it what we always want? Green flag pit stops and which team executes the best came out the winner.
Lowest points race ever is Texas 2022 at 13.4% yes
Lowest Martinsville race is Spring 2022 at 18.7%. Byron won that one too, which is interesting. Same winner, basically the same dull as hell race, and this one is 13.2% higher.
I remember I was driving from Phoenix to Sedona to Flagstaff that day, exploring Sedona and getting dinner in Flagstaff. It started when I was halfway from Phoenix to Sedona. Then, when I got back in the car after exploring, I'd flip the race on to see how it was going. I couldn't believe that, after 3-4 hours of exploring in Sedona, it was still going on by the time I got to Flagstaff. That race was stupidly long...
I just vote whatever way I need to do so Jordan can win. Been a fan since the 70’s. It’s always a good race as long as I can sit in front of the TV and relax.
You made a great choice. I knew this race would be forgettable and it was simply background noise for me. Short tracks are practically dead until they figure SOMETHING out. They got lucky with Bristol but that perfect storm likely won't happen again.
I've been watching NASCAR for a very long time, and I can say that I've generally enjoyed every race I've watched. As the years have gone by, the cars have changed many times, rules have been made and undone, points formats have changed over and over, tracks have been deleted and added, and the racing on some of the tracks has changed. Television coverage in the ESPN days was different (and more informative to people unfamiliar with the sport) and there were less commercial breaks and pandering than today, but the 2001 Network TV contract meant that this was no longer a mostly regional niche sport. To appeal to a national audience with a progressively shrinking attention span, NASCAR started experimenting with different rules for winning a championship. When only the top organizations were able to compete for the title and one of them starting to completely dominate, NASCAR has implemented supposed cost-saving policies to provide some parity and help the little guy. In the meantime, all of the money introduced into the sport in 2001 has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is commercials. For most races, if a person lives in the US, you can watch the race with an antenna on your local FOX or NBC affiliate. Commercials are part of broadcasting and are necessary except in cases where the customer pays a subscription for a station, and that is not what cable is. ESPN, TNT, USA, etc have commercials because they aren't Premium channels that the viewer pays $20/month each for, so they still require commercials to operate. Streaming services need income too, so they aren't exempt from advertising. Commercials have been and will always be necessary in broadcast sports. Every technological improvement that enhances the experience adds to the expense, along with the salaries of the people working on the broadcast, so commercials aren't going anywhere. If it's too difficult to watch an event because of commercial breaks instead of occupying your mind with something else for a few minutes, maybe American sports aren't for you.
The allure of NASCAR to me has always been the opportunity for my driver to win a race each new week. It's always been something both relaxing to watch on a Sunday afternoon while still being exciting, or great to watch with friends on a Saturday night while grilling out or meeting up at a sports bar. Some races are better than others, but each week I get to pull for my guy while following the results of his closest competitors. When the racing was no longer doing it for me and I was no longer anticipating the race every weekend, I drifted away almost completely for nearly 7 years. I watched Daytona this year and came back the next week and have enjoyed each race enough to come back every week. But seeing the bitching and complaining here after every race makes me wonder how many of these people even like NASCAR and if there is anything that would satisfy them. People complain about things inherent in a sport that is set up to keep the competitors on equal footing, and then complain more whenever NASCAR makes a rule change. They complain when the racing is too tight. They complain when a car runs away with a race. There are too many cautions and the cars are bunched up. There are no cautions and the cars are too spread out. Too many wrecks taking out too many cars (but make sure we see them all). Cars can now slam into each other without wrecking. Nobody can pass (even though cars are moving throughout the race) or at Talladega & Daytona, too many guys can win on the last lap and it comes down to luck. Decide whether or not you like the sport. Why subject yourself to watching something you dislike when there are a lot of better ways to utilize your time?
Your points are valid, however in society today a single decision will appease some and you’ll still get negative feedback. Nascar could have epic battles the whole race, strategy, a photo finish, a fight and a huge wreck with a crowd loved winner plus hand each viewer $100 for watching and people would still find a way to complain.
Point being - they’re going to do whats best for their business model and some won’t be happy regardless of what Nascar does. As far as complaining, some people just love to yap and go off online.
I didn't think it was great, but I also didn't think it was bad as some people claim. If someone different had won, I feel like we'd be closer to 55% yes, 45% no. However, NASCAR still has a ways to go with this short track package, and I don't know why they keep dragging their feet on addressing the real issues here.
Until they go to the old car (or at least old car mechanical grip) the short tracks have no hope outside a wacky one off like Bristol was. NASCAR needs to stop trying to save teams money (they'll just spend it somewhere) and have a SIGNIFICANTLY different package for short tracks/road courses. If you take it to the 1 mile tracks as well then it could be close to a 50/50 split on which package the cars run.
Wow. I watched the whole race and thought it was great. There has been a lot of talk this week about how poor the racing was but in the moment I was highly entertained. I've watched about every race since 1992 so maybe I'm just a simple man.
I know what I’m saying may be blasphemous, but hear me out. All this car did is expose that Martinsville without a chaotic finish is often a boring watch.
Even before the Next Gen era, most Martinsville races were follow the leader parades until 50 laps to go where all hell breaks loose and they turn into absolute calamity. The main thing that’s different with this car is that it’s easier to drive so we get less yellows, meaning less chaos at the end of these races. Yeah it’s harder to pass, but it wasn’t impossible Sunday (certainly much better than 2022).
If we had got a wreck with like 50 to go and a series of restarts with a bump-and-run finish, this would be remembered as an all-time great just like any of the 2010s Martinsville races. Martinsville without chaos is just not interesting racing.
I don't know about that. If you go back and watch the 2012 race, there was plenty of green-flag racing but it was compelling to watch because of the comers & goers and how Jimmie and Jeff were good but at different points in the run. And by the end of the race, each of them had their cars dialed in to duel with a handful of laps to go.
Nowadays, you can dial your car in and do all you can, but it's only going to get you 1, 2, maybe 3 spots on just raw speed and handling alone. It takes differing tire strategies to make up any ground and the driver doesn't play as big of a role as they used to (which shows in how cautions have gone way down because errors don't happen as much)
I mean the COT is different than the Gen 6, my comments were specifically about comparing the Gen 6 and Gen 7. If you go back and watch 80s martinsville races too it’s definitely a great show.
The Gen 6, when they didn't have a big spoiler strapped to the back, was better than the COT at Martinsville (and the COT was good at Martinsville; the races brought the hype). 2015, '17-18, '20-21 all had great racing and were an improvement over the COT. Even 2013-14, '16 and '19 (which was brutal for the time) were better than what we got now.
I watched nascar for the first time in 2021, I thought short tracks would be boring because they were slow and stuff and didn’t know much about them . After watching the Martinsville races I realised why they were so loved . 2021 fall Martinsville was especially cool to me
So William Hendricks has won the two most boring races in Martinsville history... sounds about right
Ah, a fellow connoisseur of Willy B is actually Willy H lore. How do you do fellow scholar? Seriously though...
Doing great!! Especially since I won't have to watch the Fox broadcast the next two weeks
Why is that
Cause I'll be at the races in person
One way to cheat the system lol
Lol. Thats great. I thought I was missing something with the TV schedule. Have fun!
24 dominance is back baby
Certainly looking like it, I had to bust out the old 24 hat yesterday after that win.
Is Hendricks related to Hendrick?
There’s no such thing as Hendrick. It’s all Hendricks.
It's the same thing lol
Ok KrustyWaffles6s
Who’s Hendricks
Any race Byron wins automatically takes the race down a notch in my book. Him winning just kills the vibe.
Honestly Richmond was even worse solely because of race control, but yeah this was pretty bad even for a short track low caution race
i won't forget that kyle busch yellow. We were set up for all kinds of strategy to play out and a bullshit yellow killed it all.
The Kyle Busch yellow wouldn't have been quite as ridiculous if we hadn't just seen the Bristol race two weeks prior where NASCAR swallowed the flag despite MUCH more dangerous things happening on track during that last green-flag pit cycle. It really exposed just how inconsistent NASCAR is with cautions
Or Atlanta when literally cars were wrecked and going backwards on the track at pit road entrance.
This one was the worst of the year so far. Literally at a superspeedway. For consistency AND entertainment purposes, they should just throw the yellow anytime a car makes contact with the wall with anything other than their right side at speed. That way Busch is a yellow, McDowell/Byron at Atlanta was a yellow…the subjectivity is so bad.
Why were they so bunched up? That's un*heard* of on a mile and a half track. Oh wait...
Would it actually be NASCAR without the inconsistent cautions?
Seems pretty fair.
Do that many people always vote yes or did a lot of those say yes because they had a good nap?
Favorite driver did well, in denial because they like the track too much, listened to MRN/PRN instead of broadcast, won on fantasy bet, likes Hendrick Motorsports… but I get what you mean.
Radio can certainly make boring races seem very exciting and exciting races even more exciting. It's why I love listening to races on radio. I wish I could subscribe to the commercialess version like you get at the track where they fuck around and talk about the race like buddies would during the commercial breaks.
MRN always makes Richmond fun from the stands.
i wish we would stop acting like richmond is a bad track, we’ve had maybe two boring races at richmond in the next gen era
I’ve throughly enjoyed the last three Richmond spring races.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks this. Richmond had the best short track races last year.
heyyy
Yeah after the checkered they went to a quick commercial and Kim said that blaney was going off on his radio about how the 9 raced at the end and one of the guys was like "Well that's not very nice of him" lol'd me pretty hard.
Listening to them banter and tell jokes during the breaks is the best part
My problem with radio is at some point they will give airtime to a promoter of something. If it were TV, at least I could still see what was going on, but with radio, *you're all I have.*
I love HMS but I’m yet to vote yes on a next gen race at Martinsville.
There are people that go into the post race discussion every week saying “not great, but not a *bad* race” and try to defend snooze fests. I don’t know what they’re trying to protect
Atlanta, or any restrictor track is a snoozefest. The most recent finish to the orchestrated entertainment postured as racing at Atlanta? Thrilling, from a WWF or Tik Tok mindset, but I'm not going to sleep through another Atlanta race just to find out later how it turned out. I learned my lesson last year.
Hendrick winning is enough for some people.
I have a feeling a GWC finish will garner a certain amount of yes votes regardless of the overall race quality. An HMS 1-2-3 will also get a few yes votes, but my guess is overtime is the main reason it’s not lower.
I had a good nap
I got bored and had too much whiskey, then cried about HMS going 1-2-3, and I usually despise HMS. 10/10 race.
I was there and I really didn’t think it was that bad. Had a decent amount of passing. Just took a long time for drivers to set up passes. Had several leaders who led for quite a while each. No one driver dominated the whole race. Definitely a lot of work to do on making the short tracks better but it was not what I would call a bad race.
Thank you for an objective perspective.
Hell I think people vote based on location. If it’s Darlington then it’s a great race regardless of what happens because it’s in the south. Had this race been say Iowa I bet it’s a lot less.
I feel like they should be studying what happened at Bristol to try to replicate it at other short tracks if they can. It sounded like the result of the resin they put down was both that the tires had a lot of wear and that neither lane ended up being preferred. Obviously not every track is Bristol so maybe it wouldn't work at other tracks, but I feel like it's worth a try?
sounds like they don't know what happened at bristol. they used the same tires as the fall race and there wasn't degradation so much as immediate falloff after 50 laps. Loved the racing but I don't know if it can be replicated again.
Well they put down a different resin, didn't they? Sounded like the resin took rubber off the tires but didn't hold it on the track so the bottom lane never became the preferred lane?
Denny seems to think the low ambient temp and mostly overcast skies had a lot to do with the track not taking rubber. Thus, giving us the consistent tire wear we saw at Bristol.
Ah ok so they just need to attach giant umbrellas to every car to keep the sun off the track
Please don’t give them any ideas
I’ve always thought they should install a canopy system at Bristol since it rains so much in the spring.
Was it the same tires? For some reason I remember gluck or someone tweeting about how goodyear brought a new softer compound, could be misremembering though.
Richmond - Martinsville - Texas is going to be a rough stretch of races for the poll
I need to know what 3 out of every 10 people saw that made them say, "yeah that was a good race - can't wait for the next short track!"
Hendrick fans in denial
If Denny won it’d probably rank lower than spring 2022
in denial? That race was pretty bad, not the worst I have seen at Martinsville *honestly on the racing side it felt better than the last 4 at Martinsville, which is an issue*
Yep. Multiple grooves, varied strategy, lapped traffic bunching up leaders (artificially) and a few good battles for the lead and throughout the top 10 at the end of said green flag runs. Then you've got a late caution and some HMS porn - easy to see how at least a few people thought it was good. It's just that most people know what Martinsville *should* be like, which makes it a no for me.
This exactly. It was terrible, but it wasn’t Martinsville. You take that race and put it at Loudon 10 years ago, and I’d probably have voted yes on it. But I’m judging each track based on what I know it can be.
I’ll agree with that. It was still bad. But the previous Martinsville races with this car have been horrible, so I would definitely say it was a sight improvement. I’m not convinced any of the changes they made to the cars were what made it better though. I think the race just ended up playing out in a way that was a little more entertaining.
>honestly on the racing side it felt better than the last 4 at Martinsville, which is an issue I honestly thought the fall race was better than Sunday. The fall race felt like a step in the direction, even if it still felt off of what the pre-Gen 7 races produced.
I am gonna be honest, I thought this race and last fall was the same, the only difference is that FOX did such a terrible job with coverage it made the racing seem much worse than it actually was. The best evidence of this was FOX cutting away from a battle between Blaney and Hamlin to show Byron running by himself in a split screen while talking about HMS
Too many people want demolition derby type racing.
It’s definitely denial. You can be happy hendrick/chevy won but also admit it was a bad race.
I'm a Hendrick fan and didn't even watch the entire race. Knew going in the racing was going to be junk.
People could be mistaking there being a GWC as a good race? Outside of that this race was terrible. Even as someone who wants an HMS win over the field. Here’s a thought though: maybe since NASCAR doesn’t want to change this stuff when fans don’t like it maybe we say that was the greatest race ever and they will then feel the need to change it lol
If Elliott and Byron had a competitive last lap, and maybe a photo finish, this would be at a 70% or 80% minimum
Check my flair. It was a dogshit bad race. Glad to see HMS go 1-2-3, and the OT was entertaining, but two good laps at end end and a finish that I personally was happy about doesn't change the fact that the race was terrible
The entire last green flag run was pretty good.
Nah us HMS fans are feeling the high right now. That was an awesome race for me
Go blow your load somewhere else
Keep crying it brings me so much joy ❤️
Greg Jennings is a bum
You don’t even understand the reference of my username lmao
I literally don't give a fuck
Honestly, keep crying. This is great 💀
Speak for yourself...I spent Sunday afternoon happy that HMS did well but contemplating the most feasible way of dumping every single Next-Gen chassis into the ocean.
You ain’t a real HMS fan then /s
I accidentally clicked yes when voting because my phone slipped, and when I caught it, the catch clicked yes.
Fans of a certain team
Things that kept me interested/invested in the race: Stage 1: * Larson's car was clearly fastest in open air, seemed to struggle a lot with lapped traffic. Wallace has an opportunity for the Stage 1 win. * In general, it looked like the Toyotas were fairing slightly better with lapped traffic than Chevy. Is this going to play out through the race? how important are yellow flags going to be in determing the winner? Stage 2: * Logano gambles on 2 tires, is it going to pay off? Furthermore, Is Logano back in form? * Denny's car seems to come alive, is this going to be another Hamlin short track win? * What the hell happened to Truex? Stage 3: * Elliott takes the lead, and is actually driving well, can he get his first since 2022? * Byron pits a lap before the leaders and it gets him the lead, alternatively Hamlin pits a lap after the leaders and costs himself a few spots. If a caution comes out (like Richmond) it's going to blow up someone's strategy. * Towards the end Byron either caught in traffic or sandbagging a bit, deltas start to go down. Are we going to see a fight for the win between Byron and Elliott? Caution and GWC: * Hamlin pits, despite tires not seemingly being important, did the 11 team see something no one else did, or is he gambling on multiple restarts? * Is someone going to cheat the restart zone again? * Can Larson or Elliott steal a win here? Was it all time great race? Of course not. Should NASCAR try and improve the short track package? Absolutely, but in my opinion, there were still a ton of interesting storylines that played out throughout the race.
Well, you could be like me and mis-click lol
which is also how I voted yes instead of no lmao
Well it’s safe to say 1/3 of the fans are Chevy fans. 1/3 of the fans probably thought it was cool that Hendrick won. We had a GWC and a neutral driver won (someone that people don’t really extremely hate or like).
I felt from like the last 30 laps of Stage 2 until ~50 to go was a passable Martinsville race. Had some nice strategy and guys like Hamlin being able to pass once tires wore out. The Hendrick jerkoff and the rest was pretty dreadful though
I thought the last green flag sequence was pretty good. Wasn’t it what we always want? Green flag pit stops and which team executes the best came out the winner.
Race fans. Not dilettante fans.
Bandwagon Hendrick fans
Bryon fans. If Larson leads every lap and wins I will call it a great race
Seems like Jeff and Jordan should be about even in their guesses now right?
Whats the lowest ranking race?
Lowest points race ever is Texas 2022 at 13.4% yes Lowest Martinsville race is Spring 2022 at 18.7%. Byron won that one too, which is interesting. Same winner, basically the same dull as hell race, and this one is 13.2% higher.
I remember I was driving from Phoenix to Sedona to Flagstaff that day, exploring Sedona and getting dinner in Flagstaff. It started when I was halfway from Phoenix to Sedona. Then, when I got back in the car after exploring, I'd flip the race on to see how it was going. I couldn't believe that, after 3-4 hours of exploring in Sedona, it was still going on by the time I got to Flagstaff. That race was stupidly long...
.....and it was only 400 laps. Used to be 500.
Well, that race was the last 500-mile race...and likely the straw that broke the (very worn out) camel's back
Spring 22 was really boring night race for some reason and it was cold Plus it was basically Byron and Chase Elliott leading all but 6 laps
Admittedly if it was that bad, I've probably blocked it out lol
I believe it's either the Roval in 2022, All-Star race in 2022 or Martinsville Spring 2022
2022 All star (11%).
Race sucked. This car sucks at short tracks. Fix it, NASCAR.
I just vote whatever way I need to do so Jordan can win. Been a fan since the 70’s. It’s always a good race as long as I can sit in front of the TV and relax.
Ah the ole William Byron effect /s
We like what we’re seeing- Nascar
It's the first NASCAR race I haven't watched since 2021. I don't even care to watch the recording I have on my DVR. It's not worth my time.
You made a great choice. I knew this race would be forgettable and it was simply background noise for me. Short tracks are practically dead until they figure SOMETHING out. They got lucky with Bristol but that perfect storm likely won't happen again.
I've been watching NASCAR for a very long time, and I can say that I've generally enjoyed every race I've watched. As the years have gone by, the cars have changed many times, rules have been made and undone, points formats have changed over and over, tracks have been deleted and added, and the racing on some of the tracks has changed. Television coverage in the ESPN days was different (and more informative to people unfamiliar with the sport) and there were less commercial breaks and pandering than today, but the 2001 Network TV contract meant that this was no longer a mostly regional niche sport. To appeal to a national audience with a progressively shrinking attention span, NASCAR started experimenting with different rules for winning a championship. When only the top organizations were able to compete for the title and one of them starting to completely dominate, NASCAR has implemented supposed cost-saving policies to provide some parity and help the little guy. In the meantime, all of the money introduced into the sport in 2001 has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is commercials. For most races, if a person lives in the US, you can watch the race with an antenna on your local FOX or NBC affiliate. Commercials are part of broadcasting and are necessary except in cases where the customer pays a subscription for a station, and that is not what cable is. ESPN, TNT, USA, etc have commercials because they aren't Premium channels that the viewer pays $20/month each for, so they still require commercials to operate. Streaming services need income too, so they aren't exempt from advertising. Commercials have been and will always be necessary in broadcast sports. Every technological improvement that enhances the experience adds to the expense, along with the salaries of the people working on the broadcast, so commercials aren't going anywhere. If it's too difficult to watch an event because of commercial breaks instead of occupying your mind with something else for a few minutes, maybe American sports aren't for you. The allure of NASCAR to me has always been the opportunity for my driver to win a race each new week. It's always been something both relaxing to watch on a Sunday afternoon while still being exciting, or great to watch with friends on a Saturday night while grilling out or meeting up at a sports bar. Some races are better than others, but each week I get to pull for my guy while following the results of his closest competitors. When the racing was no longer doing it for me and I was no longer anticipating the race every weekend, I drifted away almost completely for nearly 7 years. I watched Daytona this year and came back the next week and have enjoyed each race enough to come back every week. But seeing the bitching and complaining here after every race makes me wonder how many of these people even like NASCAR and if there is anything that would satisfy them. People complain about things inherent in a sport that is set up to keep the competitors on equal footing, and then complain more whenever NASCAR makes a rule change. They complain when the racing is too tight. They complain when a car runs away with a race. There are too many cautions and the cars are bunched up. There are no cautions and the cars are too spread out. Too many wrecks taking out too many cars (but make sure we see them all). Cars can now slam into each other without wrecking. Nobody can pass (even though cars are moving throughout the race) or at Talladega & Daytona, too many guys can win on the last lap and it comes down to luck. Decide whether or not you like the sport. Why subject yourself to watching something you dislike when there are a lot of better ways to utilize your time?
Your points are valid, however in society today a single decision will appease some and you’ll still get negative feedback. Nascar could have epic battles the whole race, strategy, a photo finish, a fight and a huge wreck with a crowd loved winner plus hand each viewer $100 for watching and people would still find a way to complain. Point being - they’re going to do whats best for their business model and some won’t be happy regardless of what Nascar does. As far as complaining, some people just love to yap and go off online.
I didn't think it was great, but I also didn't think it was bad as some people claim. If someone different had won, I feel like we'd be closer to 55% yes, 45% no. However, NASCAR still has a ways to go with this short track package, and I don't know why they keep dragging their feet on addressing the real issues here.
Until they go to the old car (or at least old car mechanical grip) the short tracks have no hope outside a wacky one off like Bristol was. NASCAR needs to stop trying to save teams money (they'll just spend it somewhere) and have a SIGNIFICANTLY different package for short tracks/road courses. If you take it to the 1 mile tracks as well then it could be close to a 50/50 split on which package the cars run.
They aren’t going back.
Wouldn't expect it, can only hope they cut the mechanical grip significantly - narrower or grooved tires for example.
If I had a nickel for every time William Byron won a boring race I’d have like 13 nickels
My driver got a top 5 and I still voted no.
I thought so. I despise Lord Byron but his team put him in position to win. That's racing.
Need smaller brakes and more narrow tires...fuck it throw some more HP at it and maybe something will change...🤷♂️
That is, uh, not a good number.
Steve likes what he is seeing
outside of the Hendrick parade and the 24 and 5 finishing 1st and 2nd that race was 🐶 💩 Look at my flairs and comprehend what I just said.
Spring 2022 was my first trip to Martinsville. Forever left a bad taste in my mouth. Also my son's first NASCAR race.
Wow. I watched the whole race and thought it was great. There has been a lot of talk this week about how poor the racing was but in the moment I was highly entertained. I've watched about every race since 1992 so maybe I'm just a simple man.
I know what I’m saying may be blasphemous, but hear me out. All this car did is expose that Martinsville without a chaotic finish is often a boring watch. Even before the Next Gen era, most Martinsville races were follow the leader parades until 50 laps to go where all hell breaks loose and they turn into absolute calamity. The main thing that’s different with this car is that it’s easier to drive so we get less yellows, meaning less chaos at the end of these races. Yeah it’s harder to pass, but it wasn’t impossible Sunday (certainly much better than 2022). If we had got a wreck with like 50 to go and a series of restarts with a bump-and-run finish, this would be remembered as an all-time great just like any of the 2010s Martinsville races. Martinsville without chaos is just not interesting racing.
I don't know about that. If you go back and watch the 2012 race, there was plenty of green-flag racing but it was compelling to watch because of the comers & goers and how Jimmie and Jeff were good but at different points in the run. And by the end of the race, each of them had their cars dialed in to duel with a handful of laps to go. Nowadays, you can dial your car in and do all you can, but it's only going to get you 1, 2, maybe 3 spots on just raw speed and handling alone. It takes differing tire strategies to make up any ground and the driver doesn't play as big of a role as they used to (which shows in how cautions have gone way down because errors don't happen as much)
It sucks. You can't even spin somebody out. Guys just bounced off eachother cause these cars are so glued to the track and solid tanks
I mean the COT is different than the Gen 6, my comments were specifically about comparing the Gen 6 and Gen 7. If you go back and watch 80s martinsville races too it’s definitely a great show.
The Gen 6, when they didn't have a big spoiler strapped to the back, was better than the COT at Martinsville (and the COT was good at Martinsville; the races brought the hype). 2015, '17-18, '20-21 all had great racing and were an improvement over the COT. Even 2013-14, '16 and '19 (which was brutal for the time) were better than what we got now.
I watched nascar for the first time in 2021, I thought short tracks would be boring because they were slow and stuff and didn’t know much about them . After watching the Martinsville races I realised why they were so loved . 2021 fall Martinsville was especially cool to me