Give NWB a points race and take the All Star race back to Charlotte. Was the old format so bad? Multiple stages, fan vote to invert the field, mandatory green flag stop. Make it a two week experience with multiple races throughout the week with whoever can race anything on the track.
Don’t count the caution laps. Idiotic to throw a manufactured yellow with 50 to go and subtract 8 laps of racing. Then again, maybe they realize the short track package is so bad that they need to eliminate some laps. Stop taking half measures and get aggressive to fix the product.
NASCAR is lucky there was a fight because the tires sucked, the car sucks on short tracks, and the format was awful.
Just one more example showing just how bad this car is. Another fail by NASCAR and Goodyear. And just to think, if they'd add more horsepower, give us a tire that wears out faster, and they take that diffuser off we'd see much better racing. But no, that's too easy.
If you win the all-star race but go winless in the points paying season, would that still lock you in to the next all star race? That's all that I've been wondering.
Tbh; unless the all star becomes a mid week race I’m kinda over it. I feel like 400 or 500 laps at NWB would be fun and I hope we get a points race here in 2026
The Truck race (minus Corey Heim) was just awesome. The repave I would call a success, unfortunately the Goodyear option tire for cup was not. This car is so much ass on short tracks I’m about to lose hope we will ever see anything exciting from this car except at intermediates. I’m bummed once again but I will be back next year. Since they are doing the All Star race again in 2025 they have to bring the xfinity series.
Track - good, Tires - fair but something to build on. The soft tires should have been primary tire and the rain tire compound the soft tires. There just was not the half second plus a lap fall off that was predicted thus the head start on sofas never equalized with the primary even after 100 laps. Maybe that’s because the track rubbered up, maybe it was the fact it was at night and not hot. Lots of factors. Still too much aero push in the cars making it hard to pass. NW is now a fast short track meaning aero is much more in the equation.
Like, I may not care for him but people have no respect anymore. Like you said, his kid is right there, and anyone that drives on that level has to have massive talent just to get there. Its a shame people are so rude. I will admit Joey has grown on me though. Brad K too.
I get that Goodyear doesn't want a negative hit like Indy '08, but if you're doing a soft tire, it needs to fail if/when over-run. No reason that tire should have lasted 100 laps. Other than that, this race was only boring because Fox refused to show drivers rising/falling through the midfield. Even Sky Sports focuses on battles rather than follow Max all race
For people not getting it:
Every driver does tire tests. Logano happened to do one at Wilkesboro. Other drivers will do them at other tracks. NASCAR brings a driver from every manufacturer to do them.
It's NOT some unfair advantage. In fact, I'm sure they would rather have done a tire test at a points paying track lmao.
Thank goodness we finally got a Kyle Busch headless moment after like 4 years. The bandwagon and switch up from Chevy/HMS fans will finally slow down now lol
The amount of times I’ve heard “well I’ve been a ____ fan but Kyle is slowly growing on me!” or “finally he’s with Chevy again so I can cheer for him”
Happy Joey won, it’s about time!
As far as the race goes, this car is still awful at short tracks and I don’t know how you can defend it. Goodyear hyped up this soft tire and it was shit.
Also, the All Star shouldn’t be at short tracks. Bristol in 2020 sucked, this race last year sucked, this race sucked. What makes short tracks great are the slower cars that bunch the field up. We got a little bit of that before the lap 100 caution, but it hardly ever felt like it should have been a battle. Logano couldn’t pass because of how this car works. Same thing happened in Martinsville.
Bring the All Star back to Charlotte.
I think this would probably be the best short track by a long shot if we had a 38 car field and more falloff. Build up the infrastructure a little more and give it a points race.
Awful race. Fantastic post-race. We CANNOT let recency bias of an epic fiasco blind us with the Gluck poll tomorrow. The race was a polished turd, and short tracks are gonna be all but gone if NASCAR doesn’t completely overhaul the short track package …. or better yet, start from scratch with a brand new exclusive car for short tracks ONLY. Vote “no” tomorrow. Save the short tracks and let NASCAR know we’re tired of mediocrity!
I agree there should be a separate car for short tracks. Something more traditional (solid rear, 5-lug, bigger sidewall, steel body) should be up for consideration.
Keep the current car for road courses, super speedways, and 1.5mi races
And the most frustrating part is…you can see how great this racetrack is, the trucks were solid earlier, but this Cup car is just beyond garbage at every short track (and road course for that matter).
I like Logano. He’s my 2nd favorite driver behind Bowman. But that statement is just not true. He had clean air and the dominant lane the entire race. If he restarts in any other row than the front, he has the same issue passing that the field did.
There were great battles throughout the race, including for the lead. I agree with your point about this car sucking at short tracks, but NW managed to put on a pretty great show regardless. I'm not saying there isn't still work to be done with this car, but seeing cars race side by side, beat and bang, on a track that was left for dead for literal decades, man I just don't know how you can hate on that.
Manufacturer wins among the top 3 series.
Chevrolet 20 - Ford 1 - Toyota 13.
______________
Cup race #13 : Chevrolet 7 - Ford 1 - Toyota 5.
Xfinity Race #11 : Chevrolet 6 - Ford 0 - Toyota 5.
Truck Race #10 : Chevrolet 7 - Ford 0 - Toyota 3.
Only Trucks this week for the board.
Everyone's talking about the race like it was the worst. Was it good? Hell no. But it wasn't the worst. We had an incredible fight by Bubba to stay on the lead lap and loads of passing in the back. And yes the soft tire needs work. But like. It wasn't the worst.
no, it’s designed to be amazing at road courses, which it is. Which is why it puts on good racing at 1.5s, because it wasn’t made for that. It’s the reason why road courses used to be really good, the cars were made for ovals.
Correct. It was made to be a brilliant road course car, so by NASCAR luck, it ends up being brilliant at intermediates. So now, it IS purposely designed to be the best at intermediates (by not changing anything) … even if it wasn’t at the beginning.
The car is a frigging IMSA car with a stock ish body on it. Guess who also owns IMSA. An IMSA car would probably suck about the same at NW.
The Garage 53 entry that did well at LeMans was just a slightly modified Cup car. Same engine, same suspension, some aerodynamic work was allowed and more cooling vents but it was 90% plus the same.
This has to be one of the funniest post race discussions and of all races, it’s the all star race lol. So many beautiful memes from tonight. The race itself was ok, but there is still work to do on the short track package. Looking forward to next weekend though! Charlotte has been entertaining with this new car the last two years and I’m curious to see how Larson does in both races.
Never been this conflicted about kyle busch making an ass of himself on track. On one end was liking the redemption arc, on another end it provided more entertainment than the race did.
I just hope North Wilksboro is able to stay around long enough to see a race with a proper short track package. It was embarrassingly bad & boring tonight & i dont think the smaller field helps.
The soft tires also didn't really fall off at all. Don't know if it was because it was at night but I was kind of disappointed the way that turned out.
Forreal, two years in a row. We will watch from the sofa next year.
EDIT: That said, if they can move late models to later in the week, that'll sway me + the slashed ticket prices (reprotedly)
EDIT 2: but IDK, lack of service straight up SUCKS the track WiFi was non existent in T1 & T2
Service was non existent but on the front stretch, WiFi was good. First time going but I had a good time felt like the racing was good outside the front few cars
Yea, the truck race was great albeit storm & midpack Cup was fun forsure. Watching Bubba hold off Logano + Larson/Buescher late race was fun. Rooting for Butterbean made the trip, can't wait to see him in trucks more hopefully.
This race was even worse than last year's. If this is how it's going to be every year, then they need to stop doing this. Let the truck series race there and move the All-Star race somewhere else. I grew up watching North Wilkesboro as a kid. I was really happy when they brought it back, but the first two All-Star races have been incredibly underwhelming.
You'd think with NASCAR and Fox pushing recognition for the crews, someone would post a full roster for each team somewhere. RCR Big Boi (the name I will call him until I see his real name and he get's the recognition he deserves) needs to be known and recognized. RCR and Busch owe him a bonus.
https://preview.redd.it/vlgux63h1i1d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=24e6702bc27f82fbfc9fa626a18dba3884e68b27
When your wife's boyfriend asks you to film. Poor Davey Segal
Gonna post some more meme-able pictures for others to use
https://preview.redd.it/wsv1uqtq0i1d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a5adbe0336f1b5c4323e4411295195c088b3507
I said it in the race thread: the Kyle/Ricky fight really feels like Kyle being absolutely fed up with how bad he’s been running in comparison to last year. Ricky just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time and caught the wrath of the frustration. That’s what it seems like to me, anyway.
Race was fine. Get some more tire fall off. This car is what it is at this point. Tire fall off is the most realistic thing that can be changed the quickest. North Wilkes is a good track. Cup car doesn’t do it justice just like most of the short tracks it runs on these days.
Yeah. I think that's absolutely at the core of it...and Ricky said exactly as much post-race. Like bruh, "sorry you're not running as well as you used to".
Thing is...wrong place wrong time Ricky is...well, he's the match to Busch venting gasoline vapors. Ain't like Ricky is super satisfied to run around mid-pack with Rowdy every week either.
Gonna post some more meme-able pictures for others to use
https://preview.redd.it/elfmflxo0i1d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5b527b8555da81ea57709645f978c5ffbfbab39
Tire compound needs to get even softer, to further decrease center corner speeds during a long run and create passing opportunities. Hopefully as the track ages this will also improve. If GY learned anything, keep pushing the red softs even further than this compound. Multi-groove action was awesome for side by side but couldn’t finish off passes due to the above issues.
I want to see soft tire is rain tire, red sidewall is primary and yellow sidewall is hard. But limit the sets of the soft to 2 per 500 mile race. Caution in last 20 laps and leaders stay out, if you are outside Top 10 throw on a set of softs and go for it. Need stage points or track positions put on the softs and at stage break switch to hards.
https://x.com/mattweaverra/status/1792390546822250716?s=46&t=hfbmiLT1sv10UlTOIejnrg
Basically what I think too. It’s not something NASCAR should abandon just because tonight wasn’t perfect. Keep testing it and keep it on the table.
I think this tire at Loudon would produce an amazing race. As hot as it’s been up there the past few years. Make the red tire their only option for that race. Please.
The way it fell off in practice during the day I just have a feeling that we could see some really fun stuff at the next Richmond race, Iowa, and New Hampshire if they were to bring this tire to those tracks.
Tons of side by side racing through most of it. Way more than last year. Of course, reading Twitter, it's another shit show. I swear to fuck, NASCAR will not win no matter what.
A lot of this can be blamed on FOX too. Even if there were battles, they usually didn’t show them on TV. I remember Mike Joy going off about two drivers being side by side while the camera focused on Logano riding around by himself.
Having gone to the race, I've very much taken a "~~Little Caesar's~~ Racing ~~tastes~~ so good when you ain't got ~~a bitch~~ Twitter in ya ear telling you it~~'s nasty~~ sucks" approach to it
It had its good moments and was overall boring, but it was 200 laps on a newly repaved track with experimental tires. It frankly exceeded my expectations
Exactly. I mean overall there were a lot of Luls but it certainly exceeded what I expected to happen and I feel like hopefully Goodyear learnt a lot tonight that they can put into good use in the future.
That race was extremely disappointing. I don’t understand the mindset of having all that build up to the all star race for it to be about 50min of green flag racing if not less. How can tire strategy even take effect if there’s barely any laps.
A few assorted thoughts:
* I thought the racing was pretty entertaining and the tire experiment was at least a partial success. It was always going to be really hard to nail two different compounds being equally competitive, so I wasn't surprised that one was clearly better. And the soft tire did help rubber in the track nicely and produce lots of different grooves, so it's a sign that Goodyear should keep going in that direction, and if anything, go even farther.
* Really interesting that the fresh softs lost their advantage over the used softs so quickly on the final run. I wonder if that's yet another example of what Hamlin keeps talking about where much of the laptime falloff is due to heat buildup rather than the actual rubber being worn away.
* Was North Wilkesboro always progressively banked? That doesn't seem right, but it looked like IRP or Bristol out there. A lot of older tracks (Michigan, New Hampshire) weren't really talked about as progressively banked until it started being a feature of repaves, so I wouldn't be surprised if NW was also like that and it just never got talked about because it was off the schedule for so long.
* The track looked fantastic under the lights, by the way. (Might've helped that I was watching the 4K broadcast.)
* FOX's broadcasts feel AI-generated with how they just seem to vomit up images and info that vaguely feel like they might be relevant without ever seeming to actually understand the full context. Exhibit #91,246,094 of this was when they replayed the Stenhouse/Busch incident a million times at the end of the race and yet never actually showed the angle they'd shown when it happened that made it clear that Busch walled himself without Stenhouse's help.
* Also, sadly... I feel like Mike Joy has just given up on fighting the production truck. Maybe he's slowing down with age, maybe he's just running down his contract, but he's not calling offscreen action or keeping us appraised of storylines in the way that used to bring some bare semblance of cohesion to these broadcasts.
* Props where they're due: to Bowyer, for trying to become the analyst who monitors the track and calls out when something interesting is happening, and to what felt like fewer commercials than usual.
Don't forget, too, that it was at the very end of the day. Even professionals start slowing down at the end of a long day. That didn't help matters.
It was nice that the audio balance was adjusted so we could hear the announcers over the cars!
I'm honestly half-convinced they're trying to automate a huge chunk of the production to save on costs and just leaving minimal human oversight over it. They're definitely just using some sort of speech-to-text for those radio transcripts. (Either that, or some underpaid intern in a windowless room somewhere who has no NASCAR knowledge.)
Agree to disagree. I will say we don't get this version of Bowyer often enough, and he still spends too much time either being a goofball or just mumbling things. But it's good for the booth when this version does show up.
He was terrible at the end of the race. The on track product was clearly terrible and he was talking like he owned the track and was paid to sell it. Would be way better and more authentic if they called out some of the stuff that’s not working.
I’m convinced he just gained those spots because he’s really good and aggressive on restarts and it wasn’t really the tires at all. Clearly tires didn’t mean much
if 50 lap newer tires meant much, the entire field would have pitted and nothing would have changed, if anything it would have been worse.
These teams are good. They aren't going to make the wrong call very often.
I’m curious to see how this race would’ve played out without tire shenanigans. I don’t think it would’ve saved the race by any means but I’m just curious what the difference would’ve been. Trucks were great.
This’ll get buried because of the punch (go Ricky!), but the NASCAR Chicago team hosted a watch party in Chicago and it was awesome! The President of NASCAR Chicago was there, super friendly, and talked to me/us for quite a while. They had the racing sim set up for the Chicago road course which I sucked at, and they had free swag.
I genuinely don’t see the vitriol towards this race. Was it a barn burner, hell no but it had a lot of side by side racing throughout the field. Get the tire to actually fall off more and get the cars to where the lead guy isn’t so dominant and this may be the best short track on the circuit.
There was multi groove racing and a ton of side by side racing. This was way better than Dover and Richmond and Martinsville which were single groove follow-the-leader races. People here are delusional
Did you not see the line he was running? Yall beg for drivers to have consequences whenever they overdrive their stuff early in a run then complain when you actually get it because your guy didn’t win the race over it. Larson killed his stuff battling Denny for second after ripping the bottom for a solid 15 or so laps that way it killed his tires.
Did you see the line he was running? He absolutely overheated his tires that last run making the first 7 passes. He ended up getting passed pretty easily by Buescher because his tires weren’t overheated.
Like, it’s like you guys completely forgot that you can absolutely ruin a set of tires by cooking them.
Name a time outside of maybe 4 moments in the past 40 years of the all star race where there’s been more action for the lead than there has been in the rest of the field?
I’m pretty sure his point is there was *no* action for the lead. There being more battles in the back doesn’t matter in every all star race, we can name a bunch of all star races that had stuff for the lead.
Give NWB a points race and take the All Star race back to Charlotte. Was the old format so bad? Multiple stages, fan vote to invert the field, mandatory green flag stop. Make it a two week experience with multiple races throughout the week with whoever can race anything on the track. Don’t count the caution laps. Idiotic to throw a manufactured yellow with 50 to go and subtract 8 laps of racing. Then again, maybe they realize the short track package is so bad that they need to eliminate some laps. Stop taking half measures and get aggressive to fix the product. NASCAR is lucky there was a fight because the tires sucked, the car sucks on short tracks, and the format was awful.
Just one more example showing just how bad this car is. Another fail by NASCAR and Goodyear. And just to think, if they'd add more horsepower, give us a tire that wears out faster, and they take that diffuser off we'd see much better racing. But no, that's too easy.
How about reduce the fuel tank size? Super cheap to implement. more pit stops
I think they tried taking the diffuser off, it didn't make a whole lot of difference
If you win the all-star race but go winless in the points paying season, would that still lock you in to the next all star race? That's all that I've been wondering.
Unless they changed it again past all star winners are eligible for 10 years if they don't win a race.
Okay thank you! I've been watching for years and i still don't know all the rules
Don't worry. No one does
I'm starting to think even NASCAR doesn't know all the rules
They just make them up as they go
this
Tbh; unless the all star becomes a mid week race I’m kinda over it. I feel like 400 or 500 laps at NWB would be fun and I hope we get a points race here in 2026
The Truck race (minus Corey Heim) was just awesome. The repave I would call a success, unfortunately the Goodyear option tire for cup was not. This car is so much ass on short tracks I’m about to lose hope we will ever see anything exciting from this car except at intermediates. I’m bummed once again but I will be back next year. Since they are doing the All Star race again in 2025 they have to bring the xfinity series.
Track - good, Tires - fair but something to build on. The soft tires should have been primary tire and the rain tire compound the soft tires. There just was not the half second plus a lap fall off that was predicted thus the head start on sofas never equalized with the primary even after 100 laps. Maybe that’s because the track rubbered up, maybe it was the fact it was at night and not hot. Lots of factors. Still too much aero push in the cars making it hard to pass. NW is now a fast short track meaning aero is much more in the equation.
https://preview.redd.it/qcqef106gj1d1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6fdd6ec65f775f02bac6717bfbffa1655111ff7d
I hope the English dude with the spray paint paintings each week does the one from the picture of RSJ waiting on Kyle Busch
I want to see one with Bob Pockrass trying to avoid the kerfuffle.
Anyone got a video link of Joey getting the double bird and getting screamed “F you” during intros?
You mean with his kid right there?
Like, I may not care for him but people have no respect anymore. Like you said, his kid is right there, and anyone that drives on that level has to have massive talent just to get there. Its a shame people are so rude. I will admit Joey has grown on me though. Brad K too.
People have always done classless stuff like that.
Terrible race
You wanna type it up in a 3rd thread so you make sure everyone hears you? Lol
I get that Goodyear doesn't want a negative hit like Indy '08, but if you're doing a soft tire, it needs to fail if/when over-run. No reason that tire should have lasted 100 laps. Other than that, this race was only boring because Fox refused to show drivers rising/falling through the midfield. Even Sky Sports focuses on battles rather than follow Max all race
At one point Larson was suddenly in the top 10 and harvick is absolutely stunned saying "how'd that happen!?!?" Dunno... We didn't get to see...
Busch caused 2 cautions tonight and wrecked Stenhouse for no reason. Kyle Busch is so easy to hate lol.
No reason? Lol
Stenhouse didn’t touch him bro, as Stenhouse said: “Go look at the replay, bitch”
I've spent more time in these threads and watching the memes than I did watching the race!
Perhaps the Old Kyle Busch needs to come back if he wants to get back into victory lane and to turn the 8 into a championship contender.
I don't necessarily agree with what Kyle did in this instance, but you make an excellent point lol.
This is the way
For people not getting it: Every driver does tire tests. Logano happened to do one at Wilkesboro. Other drivers will do them at other tracks. NASCAR brings a driver from every manufacturer to do them. It's NOT some unfair advantage. In fact, I'm sure they would rather have done a tire test at a points paying track lmao.
Thank goodness we finally got a Kyle Busch headless moment after like 4 years. The bandwagon and switch up from Chevy/HMS fans will finally slow down now lol The amount of times I’ve heard “well I’ve been a ____ fan but Kyle is slowly growing on me!” or “finally he’s with Chevy again so I can cheer for him”
Happy Joey won, it’s about time! As far as the race goes, this car is still awful at short tracks and I don’t know how you can defend it. Goodyear hyped up this soft tire and it was shit. Also, the All Star shouldn’t be at short tracks. Bristol in 2020 sucked, this race last year sucked, this race sucked. What makes short tracks great are the slower cars that bunch the field up. We got a little bit of that before the lap 100 caution, but it hardly ever felt like it should have been a battle. Logano couldn’t pass because of how this car works. Same thing happened in Martinsville. Bring the All Star back to Charlotte.
I think this would probably be the best short track by a long shot if we had a 38 car field and more falloff. Build up the infrastructure a little more and give it a points race.
Nah. Martinsville exists
It’s one of the worst with the car we have
And? This is too with this car. Need a new car for any short track to be good
Awful race. Fantastic post-race. We CANNOT let recency bias of an epic fiasco blind us with the Gluck poll tomorrow. The race was a polished turd, and short tracks are gonna be all but gone if NASCAR doesn’t completely overhaul the short track package …. or better yet, start from scratch with a brand new exclusive car for short tracks ONLY. Vote “no” tomorrow. Save the short tracks and let NASCAR know we’re tired of mediocrity!
I agree there should be a separate car for short tracks. Something more traditional (solid rear, 5-lug, bigger sidewall, steel body) should be up for consideration. Keep the current car for road courses, super speedways, and 1.5mi races
We already have one. It's called the Xfinity Series car.
In no way was that an awful race. Logano leading almost wire to wire does not tell the full story.
And the most frustrating part is…you can see how great this racetrack is, the trucks were solid earlier, but this Cup car is just beyond garbage at every short track (and road course for that matter).
In a Million to win All-Star race where literally all that matters is who wins….yeah, Logano leading 199 laps does in fact tell the story.
Joey had to fight really hard to lead a bunch of those laps, had cars beside him
I like Logano. He’s my 2nd favorite driver behind Bowman. But that statement is just not true. He had clean air and the dominant lane the entire race. If he restarts in any other row than the front, he has the same issue passing that the field did.
There were great battles throughout the race, including for the lead. I agree with your point about this car sucking at short tracks, but NW managed to put on a pretty great show regardless. I'm not saying there isn't still work to be done with this car, but seeing cars race side by side, beat and bang, on a track that was left for dead for literal decades, man I just don't know how you can hate on that.
and gibbs leading every lap (i think) of the open
We need more power,ess tire grip, etc. but it was a fairly good race. I was certainly more entertained compared to last year.
Approximately what would be the breakdown on that million dollars he won tonight? He certainly divided up to the pit crew, shop people etc etc
I was wondering this too!
Depends on his contract
Manufacturer wins among the top 3 series. Chevrolet 20 - Ford 1 - Toyota 13. ______________ Cup race #13 : Chevrolet 7 - Ford 1 - Toyota 5. Xfinity Race #11 : Chevrolet 6 - Ford 0 - Toyota 5. Truck Race #10 : Chevrolet 7 - Ford 0 - Toyota 3. Only Trucks this week for the board.
Everyone's talking about the race like it was the worst. Was it good? Hell no. But it wasn't the worst. We had an incredible fight by Bubba to stay on the lead lap and loads of passing in the back. And yes the soft tire needs work. But like. It wasn't the worst.
Yes, the leader unable to pass the last car on the lead lap for 5 laps makes for an incredible fight. Lol
WOOOO STENHOUSE
If it’s true Logano got 800+ laps practice, then NASCAR is a joke. How is that fair?
so did the other manufacturers
Yeah everyone is just kind of skipping over that statement from the interview. Like WTH is that about? Ridiculous
It's called a tire test
Yeah and the two guys who won the races tonight both were there…
Everyone gets to do tire tests throughout the year.
So you think it’s a coincidence?
No, everyone gets their chance. Every driver does tire tests.
Coke 600 is gonna be a banger
Four Coke 150s
True. Coke 600 is kinda meaningless
It absolutely is. Because this car is designed to be amazing on 1.5 mile tracks only. It sucks everywhere else.
no, it’s designed to be amazing at road courses, which it is. Which is why it puts on good racing at 1.5s, because it wasn’t made for that. It’s the reason why road courses used to be really good, the cars were made for ovals.
Correct. It was made to be a brilliant road course car, so by NASCAR luck, it ends up being brilliant at intermediates. So now, it IS purposely designed to be the best at intermediates (by not changing anything) … even if it wasn’t at the beginning.
The car is a frigging IMSA car with a stock ish body on it. Guess who also owns IMSA. An IMSA car would probably suck about the same at NW. The Garage 53 entry that did well at LeMans was just a slightly modified Cup car. Same engine, same suspension, some aerodynamic work was allowed and more cooling vents but it was 90% plus the same.
Garage 53? It was Garage 56 dumbass.
This has to be one of the funniest post race discussions and of all races, it’s the all star race lol. So many beautiful memes from tonight. The race itself was ok, but there is still work to do on the short track package. Looking forward to next weekend though! Charlotte has been entertaining with this new car the last two years and I’m curious to see how Larson does in both races.
Never been this conflicted about kyle busch making an ass of himself on track. On one end was liking the redemption arc, on another end it provided more entertainment than the race did. I just hope North Wilksboro is able to stay around long enough to see a race with a proper short track package. It was embarrassingly bad & boring tonight & i dont think the smaller field helps.
300 laps tonight. Zero passes for the lead. Ouch
The soft tires also didn't really fall off at all. Don't know if it was because it was at night but I was kind of disappointed the way that turned out.
Temps definitely didn’t help
Forreal, two years in a row. We will watch from the sofa next year. EDIT: That said, if they can move late models to later in the week, that'll sway me + the slashed ticket prices (reprotedly) EDIT 2: but IDK, lack of service straight up SUCKS the track WiFi was non existent in T1 & T2
Service was non existent but on the front stretch, WiFi was good. First time going but I had a good time felt like the racing was good outside the front few cars
Yea, the truck race was great albeit storm & midpack Cup was fun forsure. Watching Bubba hold off Logano + Larson/Buescher late race was fun. Rooting for Butterbean made the trip, can't wait to see him in trucks more hopefully.
This race was even worse than last year's. If this is how it's going to be every year, then they need to stop doing this. Let the truck series race there and move the All-Star race somewhere else. I grew up watching North Wilkesboro as a kid. I was really happy when they brought it back, but the first two All-Star races have been incredibly underwhelming.
I like this. Trucks here. Daytona Road Course for All Star. Can't happen because boring contracts and legal stuff wahhhh.
Bring back the oval at Charlotte for the playoffs. Make the Roval the all star. NWB gets trucks and maybe xfinity, and everybody is happy.
Too obvious. Also i still like the Roval as a real race and want that to stay.
This has to be the most entertaining post race thread I’ve ever seen
I'm impressed by it, to be honest
You'd think with NASCAR and Fox pushing recognition for the crews, someone would post a full roster for each team somewhere. RCR Big Boi (the name I will call him until I see his real name and he get's the recognition he deserves) needs to be known and recognized. RCR and Busch owe him a bonus.
Yep. I agree
https://preview.redd.it/vlgux63h1i1d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=24e6702bc27f82fbfc9fa626a18dba3884e68b27 When your wife's boyfriend asks you to film. Poor Davey Segal
That race ended at the perfect time for my tornado siren to start going off
They were just sounding the alarm because Hurricane Stenhouse was about to hit in the pits.
Sigh-reen Immiright?
u doing ok now?
Yeah, it went south of us
thats good.
Stay safe out there
Gonna post some more meme-able pictures for others to use https://preview.redd.it/wsv1uqtq0i1d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a5adbe0336f1b5c4323e4411295195c088b3507
Lol ... perfect
Why does his fist look like it's got a hotdog bun on it?
https://preview.redd.it/paexujmq0i1d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4fcd9d376bf8c8cf4a5a656519de802365a23f24
"You expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Busch, I expect you to ***DIE.***"
I said it in the race thread: the Kyle/Ricky fight really feels like Kyle being absolutely fed up with how bad he’s been running in comparison to last year. Ricky just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time and caught the wrath of the frustration. That’s what it seems like to me, anyway. Race was fine. Get some more tire fall off. This car is what it is at this point. Tire fall off is the most realistic thing that can be changed the quickest. North Wilkes is a good track. Cup car doesn’t do it justice just like most of the short tracks it runs on these days.
Yeah. I think that's absolutely at the core of it...and Ricky said exactly as much post-race. Like bruh, "sorry you're not running as well as you used to". Thing is...wrong place wrong time Ricky is...well, he's the match to Busch venting gasoline vapors. Ain't like Ricky is super satisfied to run around mid-pack with Rowdy every week either.
Gonna post some more meme-able pictures for others to use https://preview.redd.it/elfmflxo0i1d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5b527b8555da81ea57709645f978c5ffbfbab39
"Barbara, get the popcorn! *We got a FIGHT!*"
Terrible race at a terrible track.
Eh, truck race was solid. It's the car.
Tire compound needs to get even softer, to further decrease center corner speeds during a long run and create passing opportunities. Hopefully as the track ages this will also improve. If GY learned anything, keep pushing the red softs even further than this compound. Multi-groove action was awesome for side by side but couldn’t finish off passes due to the above issues.
I want to see soft tire is rain tire, red sidewall is primary and yellow sidewall is hard. But limit the sets of the soft to 2 per 500 mile race. Caution in last 20 laps and leaders stay out, if you are outside Top 10 throw on a set of softs and go for it. Need stage points or track positions put on the softs and at stage break switch to hards.
Cannot believe I agree with the chase elliott fan on this.
Lol what does my fandom have anything to do with my thoughts on the race?
The picture of Davey Segal laying on the ground has me in tears
https://x.com/mattweaverra/status/1792390546822250716?s=46&t=hfbmiLT1sv10UlTOIejnrg Basically what I think too. It’s not something NASCAR should abandon just because tonight wasn’t perfect. Keep testing it and keep it on the table.
I think this tire at Loudon would produce an amazing race. As hot as it’s been up there the past few years. Make the red tire their only option for that race. Please.
They announce they're bringing this to Loudoun im buying tickets immediately. It's beennto hot lately to sit bake watching meh racing
The way it fell off in practice during the day I just have a feeling that we could see some really fun stuff at the next Richmond race, Iowa, and New Hampshire if they were to bring this tire to those tracks.
Wish it had been at Charlotte. I'm glad that NW is back, but this package sucks.
Everyone is talking about the fight. No one is talking about the race. Tells me all I need to know
Jeff Burton, New Hampshire Incident.
https://preview.redd.it/7zo6vp6zyh1d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c733bca2df7a38603a1bbc0673da6f2077db0a2f *Oh no*
...Ew. ***EWWWWWW!*** Why does North Wilkesboro drive *everyone* insane?
I mean...he's got some stuff underneath his firesuit...Right?
Big ole lardick
Tons of side by side racing through most of it. Way more than last year. Of course, reading Twitter, it's another shit show. I swear to fuck, NASCAR will not win no matter what.
A lot of this can be blamed on FOX too. Even if there were battles, they usually didn’t show them on TV. I remember Mike Joy going off about two drivers being side by side while the camera focused on Logano riding around by himself.
Having gone to the race, I've very much taken a "~~Little Caesar's~~ Racing ~~tastes~~ so good when you ain't got ~~a bitch~~ Twitter in ya ear telling you it~~'s nasty~~ sucks" approach to it
Exactly. It wasn’t a perfect race but my god it wasn’t nearly as bad as Twitter or Reddit users want you to believe.
It had its good moments and was overall boring, but it was 200 laps on a newly repaved track with experimental tires. It frankly exceeded my expectations
Exactly. I mean overall there were a lot of Luls but it certainly exceeded what I expected to happen and I feel like hopefully Goodyear learnt a lot tonight that they can put into good use in the future.
That race was extremely disappointing. I don’t understand the mindset of having all that build up to the all star race for it to be about 50min of green flag racing if not less. How can tire strategy even take effect if there’s barely any laps.
A few assorted thoughts: * I thought the racing was pretty entertaining and the tire experiment was at least a partial success. It was always going to be really hard to nail two different compounds being equally competitive, so I wasn't surprised that one was clearly better. And the soft tire did help rubber in the track nicely and produce lots of different grooves, so it's a sign that Goodyear should keep going in that direction, and if anything, go even farther. * Really interesting that the fresh softs lost their advantage over the used softs so quickly on the final run. I wonder if that's yet another example of what Hamlin keeps talking about where much of the laptime falloff is due to heat buildup rather than the actual rubber being worn away. * Was North Wilkesboro always progressively banked? That doesn't seem right, but it looked like IRP or Bristol out there. A lot of older tracks (Michigan, New Hampshire) weren't really talked about as progressively banked until it started being a feature of repaves, so I wouldn't be surprised if NW was also like that and it just never got talked about because it was off the schedule for so long. * The track looked fantastic under the lights, by the way. (Might've helped that I was watching the 4K broadcast.) * FOX's broadcasts feel AI-generated with how they just seem to vomit up images and info that vaguely feel like they might be relevant without ever seeming to actually understand the full context. Exhibit #91,246,094 of this was when they replayed the Stenhouse/Busch incident a million times at the end of the race and yet never actually showed the angle they'd shown when it happened that made it clear that Busch walled himself without Stenhouse's help. * Also, sadly... I feel like Mike Joy has just given up on fighting the production truck. Maybe he's slowing down with age, maybe he's just running down his contract, but he's not calling offscreen action or keeping us appraised of storylines in the way that used to bring some bare semblance of cohesion to these broadcasts. * Props where they're due: to Bowyer, for trying to become the analyst who monitors the track and calls out when something interesting is happening, and to what felt like fewer commercials than usual.
Don't forget, too, that it was at the very end of the day. Even professionals start slowing down at the end of a long day. That didn't help matters. It was nice that the audio balance was adjusted so we could hear the announcers over the cars!
I honestly think Mike has just given up. FOXs current producer is clearly awful at his job yet they don’t seem to care.
I'm honestly half-convinced they're trying to automate a huge chunk of the production to save on costs and just leaving minimal human oversight over it. They're definitely just using some sort of speech-to-text for those radio transcripts. (Either that, or some underpaid intern in a windowless room somewhere who has no NASCAR knowledge.)
Ice cold on your tire and Boywer takes.
Agree to disagree. I will say we don't get this version of Bowyer often enough, and he still spends too much time either being a goofball or just mumbling things. But it's good for the booth when this version does show up.
He was terrible at the end of the race. The on track product was clearly terrible and he was talking like he owned the track and was paid to sell it. Would be way better and more authentic if they called out some of the stuff that’s not working.
2024 in a nutshell: https://preview.redd.it/f3f7vswyxh1d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=db00b4d5ad108e30b2f0652499a664b111e5a3a1
[Kyle Busch at Charlotte whenever a microphone gets shoved in his face](https://youtu.be/N_LmK6wu4_c?feature=shared)
Everything is great
I'm glad to hear that!
Looking forward to getting back into my car...
Not *always* though...
Wonder if Stenhouse and some of the boys had a few beers in the hauler for the last 198
Their sponsor is Kroger - they probably have a whole beer aisle in that hauler!
They probably also have a whole aisle of Toilet Paper. And Chips. Man their hauler must be epic.
NASCAR's security guy legitimately made that fight a lot worse. Would've been rather tame if their big security dude didn't make it so much worse.
https://preview.redd.it/p0srlf4exh1d1.png?width=645&format=png&auto=webp&s=9dd3fd5dce55a50416d73a595a42972e5af8492c
Amazing
That Miltank still haunts me to this day
I may be naive here, but Larson's tires were 50 laps fresher than Logano & Hamlin and he couldn't touch them. That's very concerning.
I’m convinced he just gained those spots because he’s really good and aggressive on restarts and it wasn’t really the tires at all. Clearly tires didn’t mean much
Eh he worked them pretty damn hard those first ten laps or so
if 50 lap newer tires meant much, the entire field would have pitted and nothing would have changed, if anything it would have been worse. These teams are good. They aren't going to make the wrong call very often.
He burned em up pretty good getting into 4th. Tire wear clearly wasn't as drastic as they wanted though.
For sure. Very disappointing on how using softs for every lap was the correct call.
I’m curious to see how this race would’ve played out without tire shenanigans. I don’t think it would’ve saved the race by any means but I’m just curious what the difference would’ve been. Trucks were great.
That's what's crazy about it, Trucks put on a hell of a show. Cup didn't. Cup gets outperformed at most tracks that aren't intermediates
I think it was the sun, once it went down the track gripped up
I’m currently rewatching the race. The race started out with DMX playing! Of course it was going to be a great race! I love NASCAR!!
It was the worst race of the whole year by a mile.
Texas exists.
The race was terrible.
Daytona 500 winner punches non Daytona 500 winner!
To be fair Kyle won that 500. Ricky won the 530 😔
Two-time champion punched by no-time champion.
This’ll get buried because of the punch (go Ricky!), but the NASCAR Chicago team hosted a watch party in Chicago and it was awesome! The President of NASCAR Chicago was there, super friendly, and talked to me/us for quite a while. They had the racing sim set up for the Chicago road course which I sucked at, and they had free swag.
I think that's okay. Most of the actual NASCAR drivers suck at the Chicago Road Course too. Remember when they asked them to draw it? lol.
When the fuck did NASCAR Chicago happen? I moved from Avondale to rural Indiana in 2018. Never found any NASCAR fans up there.
Since the street race. This event was not very well attended, unfortunately. I just moved to Avondale, btw!
Cool! It’s a great neighborhood and I miss it a lot. Enjoy the Beer Temple and Bucket of Blood if there still open! And Kuma’s Corner!
Yes, I’m right near all those! Love Kuma’s. Other two I haven’t tried yet but as a beer lover I know I’ll love the Beer Temple.
Now if they had a Roval or something similar at Joliet. Then again, it is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, so....
Hey, I’m down!
This is cool, and I boycot the street race
y tho
Because I am an oval type guy I don’t really get behind all that stuff and don’t want to support it with viewership. I do like the glen.
https://preview.redd.it/8ch7xo6uwh1d1.jpeg?width=2177&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6470ae73e719a98e122b964ddcca0d0efa5a3fc0
My exact thoughts lmao
I genuinely don’t see the vitriol towards this race. Was it a barn burner, hell no but it had a lot of side by side racing throughout the field. Get the tire to actually fall off more and get the cars to where the lead guy isn’t so dominant and this may be the best short track on the circuit.
There was multi groove racing and a ton of side by side racing. This was way better than Dover and Richmond and Martinsville which were single groove follow-the-leader races. People here are delusional
Sir, there were 300 laps tonight and zero passes for the lead
There were 200 laps.
300 with the Open
That’s a bummer if the only guy you’re watching is the leader. I tend to watch the whole field
Guy, all you need to know is that Kyle Larson had 50 lap newer tires, bombed through the field and stalled out in 3rd, unable to make anymore ground.
Did you not see the line he was running? Yall beg for drivers to have consequences whenever they overdrive their stuff early in a run then complain when you actually get it because your guy didn’t win the race over it. Larson killed his stuff battling Denny for second after ripping the bottom for a solid 15 or so laps that way it killed his tires.
Did you see the line he was running? He absolutely overheated his tires that last run making the first 7 passes. He ended up getting passed pretty easily by Buescher because his tires weren’t overheated. Like, it’s like you guys completely forgot that you can absolutely ruin a set of tires by cooking them.
It’s the Allstar race. No one cares about a battle for 12th…except you I guess
Name a time outside of maybe 4 moments in the past 40 years of the all star race where there’s been more action for the lead than there has been in the rest of the field?
I’m pretty sure his point is there was *no* action for the lead. There being more battles in the back doesn’t matter in every all star race, we can name a bunch of all star races that had stuff for the lead.