Kyle Busch was hit with a wave of backlash when he griped about drivers who lack the experience to race at NASCAR’s top level.

This was last fall, after the opening race of the playoffs at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when Busch ran into the back of Garrett Smithley, who was 12 laps down.

“We’re at the top echelon of motorsports, and we’ve got guys who have never won Late Model races running on the race track,” Busch fumed. “It’s pathetic. They don’t know where to go.”

Busch’s point was lost in his delivery and he was quickly painted as an entitled champion driving for an elite team who just wanted a backmarker to get out of his way. Smithley and other lesser-known drivers from underfunded teams quickly defended their right to race in the Cup Series.

Busch’s argument — that there should be standards to be among the top 40 NASCAR racers each week — was never actually addressed. And here we are again: Quin Houff, in his 35th career Cup start, made a late mistake Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway that not only scrambled the finish but altered the playoff picture.

Houff tried to dive onto pit road but hit two other cars he did not see, bringing out a caution with 29 laps remaining in the race. Several contenders had pitted and dropped a lap off the pace because of the untimely caution. That paved the way for Richard Childress Racing to grab its first 1-2 finish since 2011 when Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick held off the rest of the field. Dillon now has a coveted spot in the 16-driver playoff field.

Houff posted a video on social media explaining “we were trying to get to pit road and I didn’t get called off in time and the guys that were committed underneath me were already there, and that’s my fault. I had a spotter mirror there that we use in the window on the left side of the car, and it had fallen off so I couldn’t see out of that. So, rookie mistake.”

The error highlights NASCAR’s loose approval process for drivers. The series does have standards – a driver must be 18 to compete full-time in one of the three national series but 16-year-olds can compete in Truck Series races on road courses and tracks 1.25 miles or less in length – but approval beyond that comes from NASCAR officials.

James Davison, who has five career starts in the Indianapolis 500, was not approved to make his Cup debut at Talladega Superspeedway in June. He had never raced a stock car on an oval track and NASCAR delayed his debut a week until the series moved to Pocono Raceway.

Houff, meanwhile, has a sparse NASCAR resume. He had five starts in ARCA and 10 in the Xfinity Series before earning a part-time Cup ride last season. The 22-year-old Virginian was parked for being too slow in his fourth Cup race and didn’t finish higher than 28th in 17 starts. He is full-time this season for StarCom Racing and was a career-best 23rd at Indianapolis but has yet to finish on the lead lap this season.

Brad Keselowski, a former series champion who was not affected by Houff’s crash Sunday, noted it had the unintended consequence of creating a dramatic finish.

“There’s the entertainment way to look at it and say that probably created a more entertaining finish,” Keselowski said. “So if you like chaos, then that was good.”

The flip side, he said, was the expectation that drivers are racing against “peers of similar talent levels.” The incident, for example, came at the expense of Ryan Blaney, Keselowski’s teammate, who had led 150 laps only to find himself trapped a lap down because he’d pitted before Houff crashed.

NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Scott Miller said officials plan to speak with Houff before Thursday night’s race at Kansas Speedway.

“Got to do better than that,” Miller said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Every decision that’s made out on the race track is an instantaneous, spur-of-the-moment decision, but I think that nobody could argue that wasn’t a poor one.”

The pandemic has forced NASCAR into a frenzied return to racing in which events are held on one day without practice or qualifying. That lack of track time is hampering young drivers, perhaps Houff included.

Keselowski has suggested a ladder system to develop drivers as they move up to Cup. NASCAR has no such system and, as long as a driver is approved to race by the sanctioning body, a car owner can make any sort of deal with anyone trying to compete in NASCAR. Some of the smaller teams fill their seats with drivers who bring sponsorship dollars, and not talent, to the organization,

“I would like to see drivers be able to graduate into this level and equally I’d like to see them be able to be removed from this level when they have repeated issues,” Keselowski said. “I have seen in the past where drivers that have had this issue multiple times somehow are still here, where I think they should effectively be placed in a lower series or asked to go back to a more minor-league level to prove their salt.”

Clint Bowyer argued a ladder system into Cup does exist but the economy has accelerated the promotion rate.

“Just because you have money or whatever else, you shouldn’t be able to just buy your way onto the race track,” Bowyer said. “I don’t like having guys that just show up and race every now and then at this level of racing. That’s not right.

“You don’t just show up and line up against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. You shouldn’t be able to do that against Stewart-Haas Racing or Joe Gibbs Racing or anything else.”

source: AP

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A report in AP states that it’s music to NASCAR’s ears: the stock car series is set to return to Nashville, Tennessee in 2021.

Nashville Superspeedway will hold a Cup race for the first time next season, ending NASCAR’s decade-long absence from the track. The Nashville track is owned by Dover Motorsports, Inc., which has held Cup race weekends each year since 1969. Dover will give up one of its dates and move it to Nashville for an expected late June 2021 race weekend.

Nashville Super speedway held Xfinity and Truck events from 2001 until 2011.

The idea to return NASCAR to Nashville took root after a successful blowout last December for its season-ending awards celebration. There were burnouts on Broadway, a party with country music star and NASCAR fan Blake Shelton and a NASCAR-themed night at the Grand Ole Opry. Buoyed by the excitement, Dover started discussions with NASCAR and its TV broadcast partners about running a race at the Superspeedway.

“Especially after the awards banquet, it was, how do we get to Nashville as soon as we possibly can?” Dover CEO Mike Tatoian told The Associated Press. “It made it a fairly easy discussion that it was through Dover Motorsports.”

The 1.33-mile concrete track was built in 2001 by Dover Motorsports and hosted NASCAR and IndyCar events until 2011. The track is situated on approximately 1,000 acres just outside Nashville, and currently has 25,000 permanent grandstand seats and lights for night racing.

There’s plenty of work ahead: Tatoian said giving the track a modern makeover would cost at least $8 million to $10 million and he’d like to fit capacity at the 25,000-50,000 mark.

He also expected to hire a full-time staff that will operate independently of Dover. NASCAR eyed a date of June 20, 2021.

Tatoian said he’s hopeful the Truck, second-tier Xfinity Series and IndyCar could again find a home on the Nashville schedule.

Dover tried to cash in on the NASCAR boon of the late 1990s and early 2000s and had invested at one point more than $100 million in building the Nashville track to go with Dover and in its portfolio and tracks it owned in the St. Louis and Memphis areas.

“The thought at the time 20-something years ago was that if NASCAR was going to have an expansion, which at the time was the right time to be thinking, we wanted to claim those markets,” Tatoian said. “It didn’t happen. It just never lended itself to move one of our races at that time. So in 2011, after 10 or 11 years of operating, we decided it was time to shutter the operation. But we held onto it, fortuitously, just in case there was ever an opportunity in the future to do what we’re doing now.”

Dover has sold nearly 300 acres of property near Nashville Superspeedway since 2018 for nearly $10 million.

The shift to Tennessee is one of the first major signs that NASCAR truly intends to shake up its traditionally stale schedule. The sanctioning body is expected to make significant changes to its 2021 schedule, which could include more short tracks, mid-week races and doubleheaders.

The industry got an unexpected preview of what could lie ahead when the coronavirus pandemic forced a massive shakeup to this season’s schedule. NASCAR has already run five Cup events since the season resumed May 17.

Dover, the site of two NASCAR weekends each year since 1971, was scheduled to hold a race in May this season until the coronavirus pandemic forced a postponement. Dover is expected to run Cup races on Aug. 22 and 23.

“It looks more and more like we’ll be hosting a doubleheader,” Tatoian said. “That’s a strong scenario and that’s what we’re focused on.”

Dover is scheduled to keep a May date in 2021. Tatoian said the potential of Dover losing a race had Nashville did not work was never discussed.

The Cup Series ran 42 times at the old Fairgrounds from 1958 through 1984, and the lower-level Xfinity and Truck Series last raced there in 2000. NASCAR also used to host an annual “Sound and Speed” event that mixed its stars and country artists at events around Nashville until 2010.

Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano are among the drivers who won races at the Superspeedway.

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Chase Elliott collected the checkered flag and soaked in the sounds of fans in the grandstands. The spectators at Bristol Motor Speedway surged to the fence, chanted “USA! USA!” and celebrated NASCAR’s most popular driver.

Cue the siren at the Dawsonville Pool Room — another Elliott is an All-Star winner.

Chase Elliott joined his father, Hall of Famer “Awesome” Bill Elliott, as winner of NASCAR’s annual All-Star race, earning the $1 million prize Wednesday in front of limited spectators at the Tennessee track.

“Tonight felt like an event again and I felt like we’ve been missing that piece for a couple months,” said Elliott, who won races at Charlotte in the Cup Series and Truck Series with no fans. “It felt good to have NASCAR back. NASCAR is about the fans. I felt like the vibe was back.”

Back in his Georgia hometown, the pool room marks every win by the father or son by blaring its horn no matter the time of day or night.

“I hope someone got a good video of it for me,” Elliott said. “That’s such a special tradition.”

Over in victory lane, the normally reserved Elliott celebrated like never before. He accepted the track’s gladiator sword trophy and waved it in the air, stabbed it toward his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet — he drives No. 9, just like his father did — and pretended to vanquish his foes with it in his celebration.

“What a special race to win. It’s extremely special to join Dad in winning this race,” Elliott said. “To me this is one of the prestigious events on the schedule. There’s a lot of hype around it. It means a lot to me .... you are racing against the very best. To beat the best is always special.”

Elliott won the second and third stages of the event and earned the right to choose which lane he wanted to restart for the final 15-lap sprint to the finish. He picked the outside lane and pulled buddy Ryan Blaney with him on the restart but was never challenged and beat Kyle Busch to the finish line.

Bill Elliott won the race in 1986, the only year it was held at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The race began in 1985 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and was held at that North Carolina track every year but one until it was moved during this pandemic-altered year.

Tennessee officials allowed NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports to sell 30,000 tickets to the All-Star race, so it was moved from Charlotte because North Carolina would not authorize spectators for the race.

“There’s nothing like Bristol,” Chase Elliott said. “There’s no feeling like it. This speaks for itself, Bristol is an electric atmosphere. We’ll take that million dollars back to Georgia.”

It was the most spectators at a sporting event in the United States since March. Because the speedway is privately owned, attendance numbers will not be released, but there appeared to be about 20,000 people in the grandstands. Tickets were on sale through Tuesday evening and still available on Bristol’s website until the deadline.

Bristol, dubbed “The Last Great Colosseum,” can hold about 140,000 spectators. Speedway Motorsports had those in attendance socially distanced through the grandstands and masks were only required upon entrance. Fans were told they could remove them once in their seats.

Following the post-race fireworks, an announcement was made to the crowd telling fans they’d be dismissed by row.

Elliott won in his fifth All-Star appearance and is the 25th different driver to win the made-for-TV race. He and his father join Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. as winning father-son duos of the event.

“Anytime you can join the Earnhardts in anything in racing, and to join Dad in winning this event, that’s not just special. That’s a lot of years and a lot of history. For everything to come full circle like that is pretty dang cool,” Elliott said.

Bubba Wallace was wrecked out of the qualifying race, ruining his shot of racing for the $1 million prize.

One driver advanced into the All-Star race through a fan vote and Wallace had been leading when results were last updated by NASCAR a week ago. After he crashed 17 laps into the qualifying race — which awarded three additional slots to stage winners into the 20-driver All-Star field — he was no longer eligible to win the fan vote.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Clint Bowyer was named winner of the fan vote and NASCAR said he received the most votes even with Wallace eliminated. Aric Almirola advanced by winning the first stage, William Byron for winning the second stage and Matt DiBenedetto for winning the third stage.

Wallace had race-ending contact with the wall when his No. 43 Chevrolet appeared to be turned from behind by Michael McDowell 17 laps into the first stage. He said he didn’t need to see a replay because he knew McDowell’s contact was egregious.

“Just disrespect. When you get hooked into the wall, I don’t even need to see a replay,” Wallace said. “People say he’s one of the nicest guys in the garage. I can’t wait for the God-fearing text that he is going to send me about preaching and praise and respect. What a joke he is.”

A piece of Wallace’s crumpled sheet metal was placed on the back of McDowell’s team truck and Wallace was seen walking away.

Wallace climbed from his car and gave a thumbs-up to a contingent of fans cheering for him. Roughly two dozen organizers from Justice 4 the Next Generation traveled from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia in an effort to diversify NASCAR.

Wallace is the only Black driver competing regularly in NASCAR’s top series, and drivers rallied around him after a noose was found at his assigned stall at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. Federal authorities ruled last month the noose had been hanging since October and was not a hate crime.

source: apnews

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