First five races are most critical
But the more crucial issue is what happens in the first five races of the season, not just at Daytona. There's a lot at stake for everybody.
These first five races are critical for Penske Racing because Sam Hornish Jr. has to keep his nose clean and get some good finishes so he can stay in the top 35 in the owner standings, otherwise that points trade he and Kurt Busch pulled off will have been for naught.
Toyota has to prove itself with Joe Gibbs Racing. Gibbs' cars have been fast at Daytona International Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway in testing, but that new combination has to prove it works.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has to get up on the wheel and prove himself too, so does Dale Jarrett before he retires.
For guys outside of the top 35 in the owner points, those first five races are going to be crucial as they try and get enough points so that when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rolls into Martinsville Speedway they are locked in and don't have to worry about qualifying on time for races.
I was looking at the testing speeds from Daytona and Las Vegas yesterday and one of the things that's pretty obvious is the "Go or go homers" are all going to be a lot better than they were last year. But they're in the same situation they were in last year, except that they're all faster.
Maybe qualifying together will help them out a little bit; going out last could be a big advantage at some places. But the problem they have is there are 12 or 15 of those drivers and you've got to be among the fastest seven or eight, depending on the past champions' provisional, to get into the show every week. I could envision a qualifying lineup of 12 go-or-go-homers in the first 12 spots. If that happens, at least two drivers are going to have a top-10 qualifying speed but still won't make the race. That's the battle they face this year.
Last year they were sort of separating themselves — some teams were a little better than others. This year it looks like all the teams have helped themselves and the competition between the "Go or go home" guys is tighter.
I think it's going to be fun to sit back and wait for those guys to go and see who can bump into the race. It'll almost be like the old bump days for the Indianapolis 500. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch. Not so much fun for the guys that are going to get bumped out.
Those guys are going to compete against each other; they're just better than they were last year and the "Go or go homers" are going to send other "Go or go homers" home.
For that bunch, the thing about the first five races is that you have to make all the races if you want to have a fighting chance at breaking into that threshold. You can't miss a race during that span, nor can you withstand a hundred point penalty. If you get a penalty or miss a race, you can forget about the top 35 — that's something you've got to keep an eye on.
Also, you've got to keep your nose clean for those first five races, which are contested at a variety of tracks: 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway, 2-mile California Speedway, 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway, 1.54-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway and .533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway.
While we are on the subject of the different tracks we race on, let's just say hypothetically this new car goes to Daytona and it's not a great race, maybe the race just isn't that exciting. The next track you go to is California and historically that's not been a good race — it's 500 miles, it's a fuel mileage race, you get all strung out and we don't see a lot of side by side racing there. If that happens, people are quickly going to start murmuring "Uh oh, this car ... they've gotta do something to this car." You go to Vegas, the third race of the year, and that's a track I think this car would be happy at. It's got some banking, it's fairly new, it's got a lot of grip, the tires are a little bit better this year ... so by the third race maybe the car will come around and you'll be able to see some better racing.
Hypothetically, let's say we go to Vegas and the racing's not good again. Now you gotta go to Atlanta Motor Speedway for another 500 mile race. Atlanta better produce a good race because you're at the fourth race of the year and if this car isn't producing pretty exciting racing by then people are really going to start complaining. The drivers, the fans, and everybody else is going to start complaining about this car and what're they going to do to it in order to adjust it to make it better.
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Bristol — how in the world could Bristol not be exciting? But that last race at Bristol last year just wasn't that exciting. I guess you had to be there. It just wasn't that exciting watching it on TV. Maybe if I'd have been in the stands I'd have felt differently.
I could go on and on, but as you can tell, there's a lot at stake during the first five races — for the racers and the sport itself. And that's the reason why we went out to test in Vegas and California this week. When we leave Daytona and we go to California and Vegas, NASCAR's got their fingers crossed and they're giving the guys every opportunity to get these cars to where they'll put on a good show. If they don't, look out. There's going to be some very unhappy campers.
By the way, a couple of things that come to mind that I'd like to see NASCAR consider:
One of the things I'm in favor of and one of the things the fans have told me they would like to see is the scoring lines that are in the race track, that freezes the field, when the cars are on the track and the field is frozen. My friends tell me that they want to know if that's where they froze the field, where is that line? I think in most cases there is 8-12 of them, maybe more, around the racetrack. I'd like to see NASCAR either mark the line across the track, or put a dot on the wall, or something so me as an analyst, you as a fan can say "OK, so-and-so was ahead when he got to that line, or so-and-so passed so-and-so before he got to that line." I think it would help all of us feel a little bit more confident sometimes when the caution comes out where everybody is if we knew exactly where those lines were.
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Racing is all about lines. You've got lines that show you what lane you're supposed to be in, you've got lines that show you your pit box, you've got out of bounds lines, you've got pit road speed lines. Lines are very important and I think it'd be really helpful to the fans and to the media and everybody else if we knew where those lines were around the race track. Instead of wondering and guessing and saying "well how do they know?" if they put the lines down it gives us all something to look at and something else we can second guess ... but nonetheless like in any other sport, the lines are critical and I think those scoring lines need to be identified.
In closing, testing in Vegas is over and now we get to make the trip over to California Speedway in Fontana, Calif., to see how this new car performs there. But I think you can already see that the fastest drivers during the Daytona test were toward the top of the list in Vegas and will likely be up top at California.
When you get to Vegas and the tracks like that, where the cars are unrestricted and it comes down to who has the best handling car and who can hold it wide open the longest, I think you can see that it shuffles around and the cream always rises to the top.
Testing shows you right off who is going to be good everywhere, and not just at Daytona or good every now and then but who is going to be good everywhere.
I'm going to keep an eye on it the next few days and see how the testing turns out, and then I'll be able to make some good predictions about what's going to happen as the season gets rolling.
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