ShareThisNASCAR's Chase for the Cup was designed to give the sport a playoff feel.
So what did Talladega's "playoff" last Sunday feel like?
Well, if had been a football game, the two teams would've spent three full quarters and 10 minutes of the fourth taking a knee for three downs before punting. Then with time running out they'd both be so busy scratching and clawing at each other the flags would fly constantly and there would be no flow to the action.
That's not what fans want to see, but that's what they got at the venue once known as "NASCAR's Most Competitive Track." And that's what they're always going to get with restrictor plate racing.
This brand of competition is dicey. Some fans like it because it ensures a huge crash that gathers up cars by the dozens. But now that NASCAR demands that drivers "play nice," the rubbernecks don't get to see the carnage until the race is almost over.
Of course calling it a race these days is a bit of a stretch. It's more like a really fast parade lap where the guys simply go 'round and 'round for three hours before it's time to go three and four-wide.
There was a time when Talladega races were fun for the fans, even if the competitors didn't share that view. Now it's not much fun for anyone.
"We go through this every year," said Jimmie Johnson, who is all but certain to win his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup crown. "You guys try to find new ways to have us answer the same question about the restrictor plate racing. Yeah, we have the steering wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal and all that kind of thing. But until somebody really has a chance to sit in these cars and understand how tough it is, it's easier to say these things from the outside.
"Inside the car we're racing. We're doing our thing. We mind our manners during the race, single file, and everybody was probably disappointed in that. Then we get racing in the end, and you have the big wrecks. There's not a new angle. The only way we avoid this, if anybody wants to avoid these big wrecks and this type of racing, is to eliminate the need for restrictor plates."
Yeah, well, that's where you have a bit of problem. The only way NASCAR would put the plates back in the cupboard is for the tracks at Talladega and Daytona (which holds the four plate races each year) to do some serious bulldozing. And that's not going to happen until and unless paying customers stop paying and thus stop being customers.
"At some point when the fans dislike it, I guess we'll make a change, and we won't have this stuff," Johnson said. "But until then, we're a product of what the fans want to see."
It's naïve to think that fans don't enjoy spectacular crashes, because many do. But beyond that they want to see good, competitive racing from the moment the pace car pulls off the track until the checkered flag waves.
Plate racing offers a pound of flesh to wreck fans, but those who want four hours of action simply aren't getting it.
I'm not sure they ever will again at Talladega.
(Contact Scott Adamson at adamsonl(at)independentmail.com.)
(Scott Adamson is sports editor of the Anderson Independent-Mail in Anderson, S.C.)
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