Sheesh, what a shame, the sport had some real potential of interest coming to it last year when they changed the aero-package to make it more competitive, but now they've blown it by going back.
Just to clear up some of you misplaced beliefs. The changes that were made for restrictor plate races was for the complete opposite reason you've spewed here. Over the last few years, no matter how good a driver was, ALL the cars would be bunched up in a pack lap after lap, after lap. Whoever won the race needed help from other drivers (via an aero push). Sure it made it exciting and the crashes were the equivilent of the special effects in a Speilberg movie, BUT IT WASN"T RACING.
This year's changes have put the race back into the hands of the drivers. Sure, if your team doesn't field a good car, you're not gonna win. But thats part of racing - getting the set-up right, and having the engine builders and crew chief get the most HP out of it, while still having it last 500 miles.
What we saw this week was that the better handling cars, and better drivers were in contention. Unlike years past, where you used no breaks and just put the peddle to the metal all the way around the track, sometimes going four wide down the track - a 20 car wreck just waiting to happen.
By the way, your rich versus poor complaint does not become you. I thought Liberals were the ones always spewing money envy. BTW, in case you haven't noticed, some of the wealthier teams have not been competitive recently. Jack Roush spends as much money, if not more, than any other team, yet Jarrett, Martin, J. Burton and Kurt Busch were horrible last year (in comparison to expectations). The new Dodge operation under Everham has unlimited money, yet they managed only one win last year. Granted, it was a start-up operation, but that proves my point, that its not necessarily money, its the operation and personnel.
Gordon lost his entire crew and crew chief a couple years ago. Hendrick Motorsports still spent the same amount of money and some. But Gordon had a couple down years until they got a team re-assembled and developed the chemistry needed to win - and he did.
So if you hate it so much, don't watch. But thats no reason to poison other peoples potential for becoming interested in the sport and learning the finer points of car set-up, pit strategy and what merely constitutes good or bad luck.
For Pete's sake, you codify my point better than I did. Last year's aero package put more emphasis on ON-TRACK race competition and obviously more emphasis on set-up changes during the race. It brought the sport to the track. It caused driver skill to be more crucial than ever before in NASCAR history. It did EXACTLY as you said, all the money that went into teams, engineering, etc, which prior to last year was THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of Nascar basically stopped. It meant that the teams were inextricably tied to their driver's skill and their crew cheif's ability to make decisions and adjust the car for that very competition day. Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, had virtually the same chance, but skill seperated the field more times than engineering off the track, and it made for GREAT COMPETITIVE RACES.
It wholly pissed off teams and sponsors that poured money into off-track engineering and advantages that had nothing to do with driver skill. They asked the question over the winter- what good does it do us to pour all this money in there if that doesn't matter anymore- we want some sort of consistency.
Now, and watch what will happen today at Daytona- Labonte- the WC champ from 2 years ago- he'll be right back up front... he's not the greatest driver, but he's got the off-track support to allow a not-so-great driver to actually become competitive.
In short, what is back to happening is that driver skill is less important, the "race", if you want to call it that anymore, has been returned to a few guys going around in single file for 500 miles, and nothing much of anything happens.
Whoa... I'm thrilled... dam this is exciting... maybe I'll put a couple of marbles in a garbage lid and make them go around for three hours and get that same sensational entertainment feeling.
It ain't racing, it's advertising.... too bad, it had a great chance, but NASCAR caved to the money... a dam shame.