Lack of practice rears ugly head
Do the Sprint Cup team owners who thought NASCAR’s decision to ban most tests this year was a great idea still think so in the wake of Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout wreckfest?
A good chunk of the money they may have saved by not testing at Daytona and other tracks this winter now has to be used for repairing or replacing machinery lost in the carnage.
The lack of practice seemed readily apparent to anyone who watched the non-points race. Virtually all of the cars appeared to be out of control on every lap as they danced around on edge on every lap.
Four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon described the activity on the track as “crazy,” which summed it up quite nicely. “It was absolutely madness out there,” he went on. “These things have turned into bumper cars because of the way the draft works and the way these things drive.”
Fans of bumper cars and demolition derbies may have enjoyed the night, but it certainly didn’t showcase the skills of drivers often hailed as the world’s best.
But it’s hard to blame the drivers. Even those who’ve managed to test at venues that don’t host races in NASCAR’s major series haven’t had the opportunity to run side by side with other cars to get a feel for how they might behave in packs – especially not at a place such as Daytona.
And arguments that the ban on testing simply shows which drivers are talented and which aren’t don’t really wash. You can’t show how good you are if you’re caught up in a wreck caused by someone else. There were plenty of drivers who fell by the wayside Saturday night because of someone else’s slip.
NASCAR’s decision to ban testing didn’t cost the sanctioning body anything, but it could wind up costing teams all the money they save – and possibly much more.
And do officials really want their most-watched event of the year – next Sunday’s Daytona 500 – to look more like amateur night at the local dirt track than one of the premier events in all of motorsports?
