Anyone watch the Daytona 500?

Did anybody watch the race? Anyone gonna watch the season? Like to hear some thoughts

I'm a huge F1, ALMS, and Champ Car fan (still don't really car for the IRL formula). I've never really been a fan of NASCAR because of how it seems to be more about "entertainment" than true racing, but I watched the beginning of the Daytona 500 since I'm in a bit of an auto racing withdrawl. Once I heard they were throwing a "Competition Yellow Flag" after 20 or so laps, I turned it off. That's not racing; it's like saying WWE Smackdown is real fighting.

I watched it and I intend to watch the season. It was nice to see Kenseth win, its just a shame that Earnhardt decided to get stupid and crash Vickers right in front of the whole field.
He ended up taking out Kyle Busch in the process, who had the dominant car. I felt bad for Vickers, Busch, Hamlin and everyone else who got taken out in that wreck.
IMO, they should have given Earnhardt a 5-lap penalty. In the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, the same kind of wreck happened and the driver who caused it was penalized 5 laps.
Not that NASCAR is going to penalize Earnhardt though, he is their golden boy and they want to see him win.

The reason for that is because they were having issues with the tires blistering, which made it unsafe.

Also, it has rained the night before, which washed all the rubber off the track and made it nearly impossible for the teams to know how to set the cars up for the conditions. That caution was done for safety reasons to give the teams a chance to check their tire wear. Doing that is better than just letting things go, having someone blow out a tire and wreck a lot of good cars in the process. Just as you could say thats not, "real racing" you could say the same thing in F1 with their traction control and semi-automatic transmissions.

No TCS anymore, actually.

As for NASCAR, I think its the most boring form of racing I've ever seen. You might as well flush your toilet 500 times and watch the water swirl repeatedly around the inside of the bowl.

I can understand if there are issues with tire safety, but it makes absolutely no sense to bring the cars in to give teams a chance to change their setup. Part of racing at this level is knowing how the car will change given different track/weather conditions and adjusting accordingly during the race. It also involves managing the car's performance when your setup is not ideal. That's just simply part of every form of racing. Teams shouldn't be allowed a re-do because of track conditions; you should have to adapt without help form the officials.

As stated above, Formula 1 no longer uses traction control or any driver aides. I agree that when they had TC and only had to plant their right foot coming out of a corner, the racing was not very entertaining since driver skill was not at a premium. As for the gearboxes, at the type of speeds that F1 cars run (not top speed but accel./decel.) it'd be near impossible to have a conventional clutch and shifter. Maybe a sequential shifter like the old CART/IRL days, but using a clutch would be out of the question.

What I can't figure out is this. They knew the rain was coming and pretty close to the time when it was coming. Why couldn't they just start the race an hour or two early. The word would spread very quickly and I doubt many of the fans just show up at the green flag anyway. It is the biggest race of the year and they only race 3/4 of it?

Many times through the year, golf starts earlier than normal because of weather in the area so they can be sure and get it finished.

That's racing. People that aren't as familiar with racing and all that's involved usually dont' realize how much strategy from the pit lane influences who wins. Rarely does the fastest car on track win the race; it's almost always the person that manages speed the best. That being said, if they knew when rain was coming, the question shouldn't be why didn't they start the race earlier but why didn't teams plan for the end of the race to be when the rain was coming. The better the team, the better they are at adjusting to changing conditions (ie. why "Competition Yellow" makes no sense).

Yea, these competition yellows are completely ridiculous. I went to the chase race in Dover, and it was such a clean race that there was only 1 wreck and like...5 cautions, and most of them were competition yellows. I dont agree with that, but when it comes to early stoppage, they should have waited about 2 hours before actually calling the race..instead of 20 minutes.

I never understood how watching cars just drive in hundreds of circles is entertaining, or how it could be considered a sport.

Yep, I was there and have been every year since 1985, always a good time!

I didn't watch the Daytona 500 this year.......I watched the Daytona 380.

If you've ever driven a race car, felt the g-loads, and understood how much strenght and stamina it takes to drive one, you'd understand that it's more of a sport than most things we consider to be. It's a ton more physical than something like golf is.

You're probably right; NASCAR just isn't something that I can appreciate like I can with, say, tennis or golf.

NASCAR restrictor-plate racing (Daytona, Darlington, Talladega, etc.), at least to me, are extremely boring to watch. Instead of there being a true racing line around track that it fastest for the cars to run, there is no line and instead the cars just run around the track like a swarm of bees. In case you are unfamiliar with this, on long, highly banked superspeedways like the ones I mentioned earlier, NASCAR mandates that all cars run "restricotr plates" on the carborators to restrict airflow into the engine. This drastically cuts power to the point that all the cars easily top out on the track and can't do anything other than run in a huge pack. They are not running on the edge like other series are (or even like NASCAR is at other non- restictor plate tracks). The only passing in when cars draft together to cut their aerodynamic drag, helping them gain a bit more speed than the otehr cars. The fastest car isn't the one with the best driver or the best setup; it's jsut the driver that's lucky enough to be in teh right place at the right time.

Some people find this type of racing more entertaining since the cars are closely bunched up instead of spaced out, but to me it just makes the passing meaningless and the winner just be the person that was lucky enough to have the drafting work in his favor. Some people like it because there is a ton of passing back and forth, but I'd rather have a handfull of meaningful, exciting passes than 2 crappy ones every lap. Eddie Irvine, former Formula 1 driver was once asked about the lack of passing in F1 compared to other racing series. He said (I know the quote isn't exact), "Would you rather f^^k one 10 or ten 1's?"

I highly disagree with your statement about restrictor plate making the field completely balanced. The car with the best handling, that can hold the best line, is the one that will be the fastest. Also the one with the fastest crew will help loads.

And to the person that said they don't see how Nascar is a sport or how it takes skill: honestly you probably agree that bumper to bumper is a pain, as most people do. Take bumper to bumper going 200 mph 6 inches from a wall, in a car with no airbags. Sounds to me like it would get fairly interesting, as long as no one gets hurt.

At restrictor-plate tracks, "handling" means next to nothing outside of how much the driver has to work the wheel to keep from hitting the cars around him. The cars are running flat out at full throttle the entire way around the track, so there isn't any scrubbing of speed (understeer/"tight") or lifting when the rear wants to step out (oversteer/"loose"). The ONLY way "handling" comes into play is how comfortable it makes the driver while running in the pack. On tracks when the driver has to lift going into the corner and then pick up the throttle coming out, handling is everything. It determines when and where the driver can pick the throttle back up, how the car will react when he does pick it back up, and how much speed the driver can carry out of the corner and onto the straight. On a track like Daytona, the only way to pick up any speed is by drafting. I'm not saying the setup doesn't matter, but I am saying that the difference between a great setup and a mediocre onw is next to nothing on a track like Daytona.