Embarrassment

What a PR embarrassment this week has turned into for NASCAR.

First they changed the rules in the middle of the season on the Nationwide Series in an effort to reduce Toyota dominance in NASCAR’s second series, then they suffered through one of the worst races in the history of stock car racing on one of the biggest stages of the year.

First the Toyota situation. On Tuesday, NASCAR issued a technical bulletin requiring all engines with a cylinder bore spacing more than 4.470 inches to use tapered spacers with smaller holes. The change is expected to reduce the Toyota engine of about 15 horsepower. The intent, of course, is to ‘level the playing field’ in the Nationwide Series, one where Toyota had won 14 of 21 races. Problem is, this mid season rules change is patently unfair to Toyota, especially in a situation in which they were following the rules to the letter of the law. Fan feedback on Sirius NASCAR radio was running overwhelmingly on the side of Toyota. In this day and age where the rules seem to constantly change and teams have a hard enough time following the ones they know exist, changing the rules in mid season is not only unfair, but sends a bad message about the sanctity of the rules. If you want to make a change for next season, fine, but to ‘dumb down’ the competition in mid season is wrong from every standpoint of fair competition.

Next nightmare for NASCAR was yesterdays running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. I’ll spare any description of just how bad this race was, but suffice to say it was a debacle that we haven’t seen on the track since 2005 in Charlotte. One can point fingers all you want, but it’s fair to say that both Goodyear and NASCAR share in this nightmare. Both organizations should have been more diligent in assuring there was a tire that would have held up. Of course, calls for Goodyear’s ouster from the sport have already started, or should I say have gotten louder since Atlanta this past spring. As I have stated before, I have no problem with bringing in another manufacturer, however I still fee strongly that whoever makes tires for NASCAR needs to be the only one making tires for NASCAR. Having 2 or more manufacturers during a single season or single race will do nothing other than cause a dangerous level of competition, where safety is compromised in the name of a softer, faster tire.