The Allstar race

As usual, last night I watched the NASCAR all-star race. It used to be called The Winston and now it's called something else much longer. Every year this once-exciting race just gets harder and harder to watch. It's become a wreck fest with interminable delays between the segments. It's just not fun anymore. The race consists of three segments and after the first segment the friggin' stinkin' Red Hot Chili Peppers played a song. Not only that, in a race that is short and brings out aggressiveness in the drivers they used a hard tire that seems designed to best serve long green-flag runs. Like restrictor plate racing, it's almost like NASCAR intentionally designed this race to have a big wreck. I guess aggressive driving and an inverted field wasn't a good enough guarantee, NASCAR made sure they got "the big one" with an inappropriate tire. I don't know if I am going to even bother next year. Last night was the second race in a row at Charlotte that sucked.

If it hadn't been for Robby Gordon driving in the open I might have fallen asleep before the end. His blatant disregard for his, or anyone else's, race car was truly a sight to behold. Three wide in turn one? Let's give it a shot. I was half expecting him to get his right side tires up on the wall and pass like he was Tom Cruise in "Days of Thunder."

It really is time to change the nature of this race and I have the perfect idea. I think they should leave Charlotte and take the race to Bristol. They should then completely change the format. They should run a series of ten to twenty lap shoot-outs and invite everybody: Busch drivers, Craftsman Truck drivers and a few regional champs to duke it out with the big guys. You could do it like the U.S. Open, if you have success at a high enough level then you can bring a car and test your mettle with the best. Each heat would have one or two Cup drivers and they would be on the pole, everyone else behind them would scramble for the last transfer spot or two. Heck, you could do this over two nights. It would be huge and could attract race car drivers from all over the country like the Daytona 500 used to. Just imagine a two night stock car shoot out championship at the coolest race track in the world? Surely there would be a Cinderella or two and people go crazy for those kind of competitors. I really should be in charge.