- 5,629
- North Carolina
- Droptop2001gt
The racing was boring. They can advertise that the winner gets a million dollars, but that was a hell of a lot bigger prize in 1992 than it is today. All of the cars that were in contention are already driven by multi-millionaires. What would it take for them to knock in the fenders to try to win, $5M?
They can't ever seem to find a gimmick that works, and just plain racing is boring when track position is king, tires don't matter, and no one can pass the leader.
The old invert the field trick was nice 25 years ago, but crew chiefs today would just game the system to try to start 1st after the last field inversion for superior track position. They would either all try to run last in the first segment, or if only the top 12 got inverted, they'd all be racing to be in 11th/12th at that moment.
My favorite idea was a five segment race with no more than 18-20 cars:
Segment 1: about 25-30 laps at a Charlotte-sized track, or about 45-60 laps at a Richmond/Martinsville/Bristol sized track. At the end of the segment, invert the full field and then open pit road. With the field inverted, the slowest cars move to the front, and will need fresh tires to stay there. The fastest cars will definitely take tires, since they are now in the back of the pack to start the next segment, and the gimmick will incentivize them to pass as many cars as possible. I guess they could gamble on 2 tires to move up in the field on pit road, but the rules package I'd use would make that a huge gamble.
Segment 2-4: repeat segment 1.
At the end of segment 4, place all cars in order of highest average finish in the first four segments. Any ties are broken by highest single segment finish, then second best segment finish, etc. The idea is to make every driver need to continually pass other cars to increase their starting position in the final segment, and to continually move the fastest cars to the back of the field after each segment.
Once the cars are in order, open pit road.
Segment 5: 15-20 laps at Charlotte, or 25-40 laps at the smaller tracks. Yellow flag laps don't count.
The tires need to be soft and have good, but not severe, fall off. Maybe every team gets one set of super soft tires with extra grip, but more fall off, that they can put on at any point after the race starts. Ideally, the top 4-5 cars should be very conflicted about their pit strategy after the end of segment 4. Also, the cars have full power (No spacer to limit power), half the normal downforce (so they have to really slow down in the corners), and you can actually stick your foot under the nose of the car because there is no splitter.
$5M to the race winner, and 12 playoff points.
It couldn't be worse, could it?
They can't ever seem to find a gimmick that works, and just plain racing is boring when track position is king, tires don't matter, and no one can pass the leader.
The old invert the field trick was nice 25 years ago, but crew chiefs today would just game the system to try to start 1st after the last field inversion for superior track position. They would either all try to run last in the first segment, or if only the top 12 got inverted, they'd all be racing to be in 11th/12th at that moment.
My favorite idea was a five segment race with no more than 18-20 cars:
Segment 1: about 25-30 laps at a Charlotte-sized track, or about 45-60 laps at a Richmond/Martinsville/Bristol sized track. At the end of the segment, invert the full field and then open pit road. With the field inverted, the slowest cars move to the front, and will need fresh tires to stay there. The fastest cars will definitely take tires, since they are now in the back of the pack to start the next segment, and the gimmick will incentivize them to pass as many cars as possible. I guess they could gamble on 2 tires to move up in the field on pit road, but the rules package I'd use would make that a huge gamble.
Segment 2-4: repeat segment 1.
At the end of segment 4, place all cars in order of highest average finish in the first four segments. Any ties are broken by highest single segment finish, then second best segment finish, etc. The idea is to make every driver need to continually pass other cars to increase their starting position in the final segment, and to continually move the fastest cars to the back of the field after each segment.
Once the cars are in order, open pit road.
Segment 5: 15-20 laps at Charlotte, or 25-40 laps at the smaller tracks. Yellow flag laps don't count.
The tires need to be soft and have good, but not severe, fall off. Maybe every team gets one set of super soft tires with extra grip, but more fall off, that they can put on at any point after the race starts. Ideally, the top 4-5 cars should be very conflicted about their pit strategy after the end of segment 4. Also, the cars have full power (No spacer to limit power), half the normal downforce (so they have to really slow down in the corners), and you can actually stick your foot under the nose of the car because there is no splitter.
$5M to the race winner, and 12 playoff points.
It couldn't be worse, could it?
