Thinning the Herd

It has struck me more than once while watching Sprint Cup action at Thunder Valley, a.k.a. Bristol Motor Speedway, that a wonderful venue for race watching provides fans a limitless opportunity to watch just about everything but, well, racing.

Saturday night at the Sharpie 500, 160,000 people watched Mark Martin completely dominate the race but, basically, lose it to the track. While taking nothing away from Kyle Busch’s late push that kept him slightly ahead of Martin for the final 67 laps, it was a logjam of traffic back on Lap 317 that turned the race. That’s when Martin, with a large lead, pulled up behind backmarker Kasey Kahne, who was down two laps. Martin waited forever behind Kahne but couldn’t pass him. Eventually second-place Jimmie Johnson caught up to Martin and, providentially, chose the correct lane that resulted in a pass of the leader. Busch’s march to the front soon followed. But as I said, I’m not here to discuss Busch’s race-winning merits.

I’m here to throw down the gauntlet: chop the field at short track races. Now, I like the three-ring circus environment accompanying short-track racing like everyone else; every seat in the house takes in the whole race, not just the section of the track where you’re seated. But packing 43 sardines into a tin can doesn’t make them taste better. There’s just more of them. Speeds at Bristol only slightly surpass what you and I achieve on the interstate. But the worst part from the viewers’ standpoint is the perpetual pack of cars at the rear of the field, affectionately known in the trade as backmarkers. In my humble opinion, no backmarker should ever determine the outcome of a race, but that’s exactly what Kahne did to Martin at Bristol, albeit unintentionally. Poor Kahne. He had absolutely nowhere to go. At Bristol, the high line on the turns, though frequented by the occasional Earnhardt Jrs. of the sport, is the only out-of-the-way lane at Bristol. That line, however, feeds out onto the primary racing line on both straightaways, a formula for inevitable mayhem, not unlike Darlington. That mayhem occurred with 62 laps remaining, when a multiple-car wreck took place as a result of the pack trying to go three wide, trying for four, down the back straightaway.

Basically, the cars are all held hostage at Bristol: Too many cars crammed into too small a space. Any movement at all is rarely made without peril, stupidity, or blind luck. Seldom is racing skill employed; just survival techniques.

Sadly, a frustrated Martin, halted on track with the rest of the field by a red flag near the race’s end that would only allow for four green-flag laps to close it out, could be heard plaintively from the cockpit of the 5 car: “Why do they have to wreck?!,” Martin said wearily over his in-car radio. “I just wish we could’ve raced for it.”

On that note I would ask NASCAR: Why not cut the field for races at Bristol and Martinsville? Forty-three cars can’t maneuver on a short track, much less really race. (I don’t want to hear this who-shot-John stuff about sponsor money.) It’s rush-hour traffic on a half-mile oval with no place to go. That’s not racing. Six cautions, including the red flag, in the final 42 miles? I’m with Martin. Why can’t they just race? Thin the field for the short tracks.

Read Alan Ross’ article “Leaping Lords,” on receivers Larry Fitzgerald and R. C. Owens in the current issue of Lindy’s Pro Football 2009 Preview at newsstands everywhere. E-mail: alanross_sports@yahoo.com© Sportland 2009