2018 NASCAR Discussion threadNASCAR 

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Spencer Gallagher is retiring from active competition after this season to run the GMS Xfinity effort.

This guy is three months younger than I am, I hope he succeeds, but FFS that's young.
 
BKGlover
Spencer Gallagher is retiring from active competition after this season to run the GMS Xfinity effort.

This guy is three months younger than I am, I hope he succeeds, but FFS that's young.
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Not surprising, since he has plenty of options in the family business aside from driving. Not too different from someone like Ricky Hendrick who retired young to work for the team. Could tell his heart wasn’t in it after he was suspended since he’s only made sporadic starts since then. I assume Brian Scott is also working at Shore Lodge nowadays as well.
 
Martin Truex could be eliminated today. Right on the cut line and has an ill handling car.
 
The penalty on the 4 was...ahem...suspicious to say the least. And you know NASCAR would’ve thrown a caution to make the points “dramatic” at some point if the 9 wasn’t leading. But other than that, good on him I guess.

Blaney can only blame himself for running into the wall and missing the cut.
 
I wish I remembered I was watching the race on recording before I viewed this thread.

Oh well, congrats to Chase & the 9 team. It was an ok race from what I saw, I was busy cooking all afternoon.

Impressed by SHR having all 4 cars in the round of 8 as well.
 
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My congratulations go out to all winners from last weekend, especially Mr. John Hunter Nemechek from the XFINITY race at Kansas.

We have this host of races coming up before Championship Weekend:

* Martinsville (Trucks, Cup)
* Texas Motor Speedway (Trucks, XFINITY, Cup)
* Phoenix/ISM Speedway (Trucks, XFINITY, Cup)

Short track, intermediate, and one-mile. Three different parts of the United States. What do you say we further whittle down the contenders from the pretenders? Let's see who all are great (or maybe lucky) apart from those who are good enough. Or... we can always ditch the Chase format and go back to a more proper Championship format!


Either way, get ready for Martinsville this weekend! Good luck to all remaining Championship hopeful drivers and their teams.
 
LOGANO BUMPS TRUEX IN 3!!! PUSHES HIM WIDE!!! TRUEX AND LOGANO DRAG RACE TO THE LINE!!! THEY TOUCH!!!! LOGANO WINS IT!!!!! LOGANO IS GOING TO HOMESTEAD!!!!
 
Never been a fan of Truex since I think he’s a mediocre driver who’s lucked into being part one of the greatest teams in NASCAR history but I gained respect for him today. Those last few laps of him racing Logano side by side are what NASCAR is all about. Just sucks when people don’t race you how you race them.

The villainous Logano of 2014/2015 made a comeback today. Now we need someone to fill the role of Kenseth at Homestead (even though I’d rather him win it than Chase)
 
Bump and grind has always been the way of it at Martinsville and other short tracks. That's how NASCAR, the fans and drivers like it. Joey was merely doing his job, and doing it well. I'm happy for him to "be the villain" if it'll add butts to seats. If the fans had wanted a Gaston and Alphonse "after you" act replete with string back gloves, they would have gone to the SCCA amateur races.
 
No doubt it was a fair move and doing what he's paid to do just not smart at this point in the season. The move paid off but it was inches from not working out at all. Like I said, Joey should be very scared.
 
The unwritten driver's code is that you race others the way you want them to race against you. Truex ran door-to-door with Logano for 5-6 laps or so, and never shoved him out of the way. He raced him clean, cleared him on the last lap, and Logano just shoved him out of the way in the final turn. I can see why Truex is disappointed. He was not treated the same way he acted. Logano has just invited Truex to treat him later the way he was just treated. Knowing Joey, he will whine about it later when it happens to him, conveniently forgetting that he did it first. Truex set one expectation, and Logano just set his.



In Truex's post-race interview, he even referred to the last lap from the 2017 playoff race at Martsinville, where he said he could have moved Kyle Busch, but did not. I went back and looked, and he's not wrong. Busch washed up in the last corner, and Truex simply drove under him, but never touched him.



If anything, I think the way Harvick beat Kyle Busch at New Hampshire earlier this year will become the new norm. Shove them WAY out of the way with 7 laps to go, and drive off out of the reach of retribution. Martin would have been better off to use this approach, other than putting the giant bullseye on his back bumper for the final race.

 
MustangRyan
The unwritten driver's code is that you race others the way you want them to race against you. Truex ran door-to-door with Logano for 5-6 laps or so, and never shoved him out of the way. He raced him clean, cleared him on the last lap, and Logano just shoved him out of the way in the final turn. I can see why Truex is disappointed. He was not treated the same way he acted. Logano has just invited Truex to treat him later the way he was just treated. Knowing Joey, he will whine about it later when it happens to him, conveniently forgetting that he did it first. Truex set one expectation, and Logano just set his.



In Truex's post-race interview, he even referred to the last lap from the 2017 playoff race at Martsinville, where he said he could have moved Kyle Busch, but did not. I went back and looked, and he's not wrong. Busch washed up in the last corner, and Truex simply drove under him, but never touched him.



If anything, I think the way Harvick beat Kyle Busch at New Hampshire earlier this year will become the new norm. Shove them WAY out of the way with 7 laps to go, and drive off out of the reach of retribution. Martin would have been better off to use this approach, other than putting the giant bullseye on his back bumper for the final race.

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Harvick and Busch made more sense though since they have a history and Kevin knows that Kyle would’ve done the same to him (and Kyle can admit that). Truex wrongly thought that since he and Logano hadn’t had any issues in the past that he’d get shown some respect. Now he will know better for next time. I imagine that if it had been Kyle Busch that Truex was racing this year he would not have hesitated to use the bumper (since Bristol is probably still fresh in his mind). Similarly if it had been Keselowski and Truex racing at the end (and Brad was still in the playoffs) they would’ve raced each other clean.
 
And this is why few people outside of America take NASCAR seriously. It makes a mockery of Motorsport by calling blatant wrecking a 'clean bumper' and celebrating those that cheat to get ahead. And yes it is cheating, because racing is supposed to be a non-contact sport, and if you do make contact you're not supposed to gain an advantage from it. I don't know when and why NASCAR decided that the sport is all about crashing other drivers off, but that isn't racing.
 
JayOTT
And this is why few people outside of America take NASCAR seriously. It makes a mockery of Motorsport by calling blatant wrecking a 'clean bumper' and celebrating those that cheat to get ahead. And yes it is cheating, because racing is supposed to be a non-contact sport, and if you do make contact you're not supposed to gain an advantage from it. I don't know when and why NASCAR decided that the sport is all about crashing other drivers off, but that isn't racing.
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Ha ha, AJ Foyt won by using his fists to beat up all the other drivers before the races even started back in the 50's. When he finally came up against Mario Andretti, it was beneath his dignity since Mario was so small.
 
Americans are quite different than the rest of the world and I doubt NASCAR cares about what the rest of the world thinks. It's a self policing system and it comes down to a decision a driver makes, maybe even hastily, that he has now opened the door for it to come back around. I hate the high road non-NASCAR fans take about it. Stick to F1. NASCAR drivers currently have zero personality except maybe a couple drivers like Kyle Busch, Harvick and maybe Bowyer. The rest are scripted robots. Jimmie Johnson essentially created the robot personality so prevalent today. Zero emotion drivers who seem to be happy losing races. Chase is boring. Kyle Larson is boring and literally showed no emotion after being eliminated from the chase a couple weeks back. Personalities and rivalries are what made the sport entertaining. Now all the young guns are robots who are all friends.
 
Blood Eagle
Americans are quite different than the rest of the world and I doubt NASCAR cares about what the rest of the world thinks. It's a self policing system and it comes down to a decision a driver makes, maybe even hastily, that he has now opened the door for it to come back around. I hate the high road non-NASCAR fans take about it. Stick to F1. NASCAR drivers currently have zero personality except maybe a couple drivers like Kyle Busch, Harvick and maybe Bowyer. The rest are scripted robots. Jimmie Johnson essentially created the robot personality so prevalent today. Zero emotion drivers who seem to be happy losing races. Chase is boring. Kyle Larson is boring and literally showed no emotion after being eliminated from the chase a couple weeks back. Personalities and rivalries are what made the sport entertaining. Now all the young guns are robots who are all friends.
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Gordon created the modern driver image, he just turned into a crotchety old (30-something) man in his later years so people forgot about how vanilla he was in the 90’s. Most modern race car drivers in general all over the world are boring though. That’s what happens when your entire career is basically dictated by corporate whims. Whenever you show personality you’re either penalized, shunned by fans, fired by your team, or left behind by your sponsor.

The overall conservativeness of NASCAR’s audience does them no favours though. Most fans WANT their drivers to fit into that specific mold, even if they say they want otherwise. If you aren’t a robot who thanks the guys back at the shop for working their butts off and we’ll get em next week you’ll be ripped apart on Twitter for being “arrogant”.
 
bloodyboyblue
Gordon created the modern driver image, he just turned into a crotchety old (30-something) man in his later years so people forgot about how vanilla he was in the 90’s. Most modern race car drivers in general all over the world are boring though. That’s what happens when your entire career is basically dictated by corporate whims. Whenever you show personality you’re either penalized, shunned by fans, fired by your team, or left behind by your sponsor.

The overall conservativeness of NASCAR’s audience does them no favours though. Most fans WANT their drivers to fit into that specific mold, even if they say they want otherwise. If you aren’t a robot who thanks the guys back at the shop for working their butts off and we’ll get em next week you’ll be ripped apart on Twitter for being “arrogant”.
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Yeah Gordon was pretty boring and I was never a fan. I just think Jimmie took it to the next level. The conservativeness and family oriented nature of NASCAR explains Chase Elliott's popularity. His dad was extremely boring and Chase himself is really no more entertaining than him. Not even just corporate sponsors breathing down your neck but also NASCAR. They have fined drivers for speaking negatively about the cars, leadership etc. They have every right to do so but when Kyle Busch gets pissed off and says something dumb people talk about it and even negative publicity is a good thing. Tony Stewart was one of the great NASCAR personalities for "telling it like it is". Now when someone semi mirrors that, they are a crybaby. I think the fan purge is actually a good thing currently. I'm tired of these fans. Need some new blood.
 
I get the whole "race others how you want to be raced" schtick, but I can't believe Truex didn't expect contact from Logano on the final corner of the final lap at a track like Martinsville.

Curious to see where and when he gets revenge on Logano. Logano is through to Homestead, so doing it at either of the next 2 races won't hurt him.

If he blatantly wrecks Logano at Homestead, he could be parked by Nascar and there goes his championship hopes for this year. Assuming he makes it to the final round, that is.
 
Blood Eagle
Yeah Gordon was pretty boring and I was never a fan. I just think Jimmie took it to the next level. The conservativeness and family oriented nature of NASCAR explains Chase Elliott's popularity. His dad was extremely boring and Chase himself is really no more entertaining than him. Not even just corporate sponsors breathing down your neck but also NASCAR. They have fined drivers for speaking negatively about the cars, leadership etc. They have every right to do so but when Kyle Busch gets pissed off and says something dumb people talk about it and even negative publicity is a good thing. Tony Stewart was one of the great NASCAR personalities for "telling it like it is". Now when someone semi mirrors that, they are a crybaby. I think the fan purge is actually a good thing currently. I'm tired of these fans. Need some new blood.
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The only new blood there is are people like JayOTT though, since race fans aren’t too numerous around the globe like they were back in the day, and most of them regard NASCAR as a joke. Not entirely due to the wrecking people, but also the playoffs and artificial drama which I always complain about. The vast majority of the people wrecking each other has been due to the artificial conditions NASCAR has placed on the competitors. Back in the golden age of NASCAR (90’s and 00’s), I can think of what, less than 5 instances of someone blatantly wrecking/spinning someone (not the same as bumping someone) for a win, one of which (Rudd and Allison at Sonoma) actually resulted in disqualification. Now it happens like 5 or more times a year across the 3 series. I agree with Jay that purposely wrecking people isn’t racing (I’m talking about things like the last few truck finishes at CTMP) But minor contact is part of racing, and the bump n run is part of NASCAR, and that’s the way it should be.

Still, get rid of the playoffs and the drama, and the racing will be cleaner and “better”. And people will start looking at NASCAR as “proper racing” again. Since BTCC and Rallycross and V8s have a lot of rubbing and chaos as well and they’re respected. It’s mostly the gimmicks that have sealed NASCAR’s doom as “entertainment”. Like look at the thousands of people on GTPlanet who all vaguely like “racing” and how few watch or have an interest in NASCAR. These are the people NASCAR needs to be courting. They need to saying “hey, we’re serious racing, but side by side and some rubbing”, not “hey, we’re like baseball or football but with cars” like they have been.

Also, I agree that Bill Elliott had limited personality. When you think about it, most of the old drivers didn’t have much going on off track past the accents. It’s mostly that they just didn’t all say exactly the same programmed phrases in every interview and seemed like real people.

Really though, compare the homogeneity of NASCAR drivers to the homogeneity of country music singers and songs. Same audience, what a coincidence.
 
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bloodyboyblue
Also, I agree that Bill Elliott had limited personality. When you think about it, most of the old drivers didn’t have much going on off track past the accents. It’s mostly that they just didn’t all say exactly the same programmed phrases in every interview and seemed like real people.

Really though, compare the homogeneity of NASCAR drivers to the homogeneity of country music singers and songs. Same audience, what a coincidence.
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It's the same reason slack jawed commentators like DW, Jeff Burton and Jr are in the booth. It's a southern sport and is downright impossible to shed that stigma. So how do you keep the core fanbase while also trying to attract new fans who don't fit the description without southern fans feeling alienated? It's a really a predicament that NASCAR is in.
 

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