Some Say The Cup Series Racing (Gen-6 Car) Will Be Getting Better

I don't know about you, but the racing seemed on par or maybe a bit sub-par from Las Vegas last weekend.  I've always enjoyed the racing action from Las Vegas, but then the nature of the beast changed when they repaved and reconfigured the track.  It became more of a down-force track, in my humble opinion.

But be it as it may, it seemed that the racing for the checkered flag was again a lone car holding off a smaller pack behind them as Matt Kenseth gave himself a birthday present and won the race.

But there is a strong contention that say that the car will get better and is getting better with every race.

I had been listening to Dave Moody and Angie Skinner on SiriusXM when a caller said that he's done watching the racing because the new Gen-6 car did not seem to make anything better.  He said something to the effect that there's no point in watching Talladega, considering how the car looked at Daytona.  (Paraphrased from memory)

Boy was he in for it!

Dave Moody first said that there were only two races (This was before Vegas ran last weekend) run with the new car and that every single race will see an improvement on the car.  Because face it, when you do something, do you do it to the best of your ability and try to improve on it every time you try?

I like Moody's enthusiasm and I love his well-grounded take on issues that get distorted by fan emotion.  But I had a quite disgruntlement about the "only two races" statement.  That, and I'm not seeing any news where NASCAR is making any real changes to improve or change the new car.  Well, unless you count drivers like Denny Hamlin getting fined for even mentioning the COT from last year.

Technically, Moody is right.  There have been only two points races with the new car.  But if you count the Sprint Unlimited, the 2 Daytona qualifying races and the Daytona 500, adding those to Phoenix, I have personally seen FIVE races with the new car.  I was a little disappointed in Dave Moody's funnel vision on the technicality, but then again, he's a well-grounded traditionalist about how racing is for the points in a season.  And his focus is on those points.  Hence, I get where he came from.  There were 2 points races.  I just don't agree with the argument angle with that particular caller.

He and Angie both backed the premise that everyone is working to make the car better with every single race.  In that, I believe he meant the united effort of all the teams and NASCAR.

But for me, I see the teams as having to struggle with and work within the confines of what the head office of NASCAR gives them.  I've also seen single file winners at every racing event so far. 

For me, I think whatever change takes place to help more side-by-side checkered flag winning moments, might just be changes that get handed down from the top office and not from within the teams.

It still seems that if a car gets into clean air, they are gone!  And maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that one of NASCAR's premises with the new car was to eliminate the clean air advantage?  I could be mistaken there, and that's fine.  There's a lot of hope and hype that came with the new Gen-6 car and a lot of conjecture tossed out via many websites and radio shows.

But clean air is clean air.  If you give 43 teams large boulders with wheels, the lead rock will still have the benefit of clean air and that lead boulder is still going to chop up the air for the cars behind them.  No matter what NASCAR does.  You can't defeat physics.

But enough on that... 

I'm sticking with Moody's take where I hope that things will improve, because the last two seasons of racing built up an appetite for close finishes that warranted office chatter the following Monday.  So far, I haven't seen that, but I think Bristol, for me, will be the make it or break it weekend.

If the winner at Bristol is again all by themselves while the pack is jockeying for a place in line for 2nd through 5th, I think my official disappointment of the season will start to form a club.  But I seriously am not expecting that.

But hey, at least the cars on-track look like their street models!  That's something cool!  And the drivers have extra levels of safety installed.  Again, something great to see.  But so far, the racing at the end of an event, hasn't been the top-notch fun I've seen from the previous years. 

--  Bruce, AKA, BruSimm