Back in 2003, the format was 40/30/20, as stated in the article. This year, it's 50/20/20/10; four segments with a set of criteria that includes two mandatory 4-tire pit stops, one in the middle of the first segment and the second before the final 10-lap shootout. The eligibility rules have actually been tightened some, in that winners from as much as 10 years prior are no longer welcomed with open arms. What used to be the Budweiser Shootout or Busch Clash is no longer about pole winners, so all of the guys that were removed from this eligibility list were added to that one. Who's surprised...really?
2011 Format follows:
• Segment 1: 50 laps with a mandatory green-flag pit stop on Lap 25 at which time teams must pit and take on four tires. Following the end of Segment 1, the caution flag will be displayed for an optional pit stop.
• Segment 2: 20 laps with the caution flag displayed at the end of Segment 2 for an optional pit stop.
• Segment 3: 20 laps with a 10-minute break at the end of Segment 3. Teams may make normal adjustments to their cars during this break. The finishing order after the third segment determines the field’s lineup for the pace lap prior to the start of the fourth segment.
• Segment 4: Once the field takes a lap behind the pace car, all cars must enter pit road for a four-tire stop. The order in which the cars exit pit road is how they will line up for the 10-lap shootout with only green-flag laps counting.
Sound like fun? Yeah, sure it does...NOT. I kinda liked that elimination thing they did years back, where the slowest cars in one segment didn't get to race the next. It was like knock-out qualifying in F1. Must have ruffled the feathers of some big sponsor whose car got scratched, so we don't do that anymore. Gotta keep those sponsors happy...and donating to the cause.
In any case, I think I've made the point that I don't much care for this particular fiasco much at all, no matter who is in it, who wins it or under what format it is run. The bottom line is, it's phony to the core and always has been. We don't see a race run by "Saturday night rules" and haven't since 1986, and that's probably because no one misbehaved or made much of a race out of the first two. What we generally see now is a wreck-fest in the final segment, regardless of how many segments are run or what their duration might be. Then, the inevitable penalties fly, in a race that is supposed to be "no holds barred." Thanks but no thanks!
The Dog and Pony Show We Call “The Winston”
Welcome gentle readers, to another of my annual lectures. We all have our pet peeves, and over the years, this has become one of mine.
We are now in mid-April and making ready for Easter Sunday, one of the few weekends of the year held sacrosanct by NASCAR. (Unless of course, there is a race to be made up) A trip to California and back will bring us to the merry month of May, regarded in other circles as the prime time for auto racing. So why is it that Winston Cup racing holds only two races in the venerated month of May?
What's that you say? There are three weekends of racing? Not really, dear friends. This May we'll travel to Richmond, and then the drivers and crews get a week off for Mothers' Day because they all have Mothers. After Mom has been regaled in proper fashion and probably left to do the dishes, it's off to Charlotte (No Lowe's for this Lady) for the NASCAR fiasco of the year. Yes folks, it's that fan extravaganza known as "The Winston." This dog and pony show came into being back in 1985 as the brainchild of the late T. Wayne Robertson, President of Sports Marketing for R.J. Reynolds. T. Wayne envisioned a very special contest, for race winners only, that would pay a huge amount of money ($200 thousand the first year) to the winner. It would be run under "Saturday night rules," meaning there were none to speak of, and The Winston would travel in rotation, to every track on the Winston Cup circuit. That worked for two races.
The first year, The Winston debuted at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Ol’ DW won it, though there were many questions at the time about how legal that win might have been. The second year, it traveled to Atlanta International Raceway and was won by the hometown favorite, Bill Elliott. (Heck, he won everything on a Superspeedway that year). After that, some fast talking and perhaps the greasing of some palms brought the circus right back to Charlotte, where it has languished over the years as the bastard child of H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler, President and General Manager of the Speedway. In fact, two years ago, when NASCAR thought it might be a nice idea to go back to the original policy of moving the thing from year to year, the entire city of Charlotte went into collective cardiac arrest. I have no idea how much palm grease it took that time, but to date The Winston remains in Charlotte.
Over the years, the format of The Winston has changed almost as often as the number of times it's been run. Early on, some folks got the idea that there simply weren't enough different winners to make the race viable or interesting, (There were only 12 drivers in the first one) so they dreamed up a companion race called The Winston Open. That race pretty much includes everyone who is not eligible for the other one, and used to provide enough drivers to fill a field of 20 cars. Then it became politically correct to include past Winston Cup Champions, whether or not they'd won a race in several years. Following that logic, past winners of The Winston were also included in the field, along with drivers who had won races in previous years. In fact, in some years one would have sworn that anyone with a driver’s license was eligible somehow.
After a few years, with all those folks included in a "Winners race" there was little use in running the "Winston Open" any longer, so with true NASCAR logic, they added a third race called the "No Bull Sprint. That one was for everyone who didn't win the Winston Open. Are you still with me?
The winner of the Sprint would accompany the winner of the Open in moving up to the feature race, The Winston. This year, they have mercifully lost the Sprint, which never made any sense anyway. While all that was going on, the length of the race, which has been run in three segments since 1987, changed as often as my mind. At present, the count rests at 90 laps, divided into three segments of 40/30/20.
In the early years, the time between race segments could be used to do anything to the cars but a complete engine change. Now, there is a ten-minute break between segments, which can only be used for what is regularly accomplished by these teams in 15 seconds. That's a nice break (Yes, it’s a pun) for the broadcasting network. If they stuff that time full of enough commercials, we actually get to see some of the action on the track. Another new touch is the addition of the "survivor" element. Instead of letting track position dictate, three cars will be eliminated after the first segment, leaving twenty to run the second one. After that, only the fastest fourteen will continue on to segment three.
Enter the ever popular "fan vote" at this point. Just to pique your interest, a portion of the field will be inverted between the final two segments. The number of positions inverted will be decided by the fans at the track. Hello? They will vote for the largest choice available, as they always have. If the highest number is ten, then ten it will be. Why bother, you ask? Humpy believes that it plays well with the television audience. You have to remember, when others were showing cars jumping school buses, Humpy was showing school buses jumping cars. It's a way of life with him!
By the end of the evening, NASCAR will have issued fines or penalties to at least one driver but maybe more. It happens every year! Remember, this started out to be run under those old Saturday night rules. Of course, that only lasted until the third running, when they fined the winning driver but later admitted that it should have been a different driver. Well, there was yellow on both cars.
What we, the fans, are left with is a race that is definitely not about us as it was intended to be. Yes, the big money is still there. It’s up to a cool $million for the winner this year, and $3.5 million in overall purse money. The contestants however, are no longer all winners, as T. Wayne envisioned, nor does the race travel to a track near you. In fact, there is little or nothing left of the original concept of The Winston, except that it pays no points in the Winston Cup chase.
I can hear the dissenters among you saying that for the huge carrot that is dangled in front of the drivers, they race all-out for the win in The Winston. Yep! They sure do! “Hell bent for leather” as they used to say in the old Westerns. That’s because they’re not concerned about the point race or “looking at the big picture.” There are simple ways of adjusting the point system that would ensure that type of racing on a weekly basis, and it boggles my mind that NASCAR won’t consider those changes. However, I digress. That’s another story for another day.
Perhaps I'm just a dreamer, or possibly just old and set in my ways, but when all the smoke and mirrors disappear and the dogs and ponies have been put up for the night, wouldn't this evening in the month of May be a great time to hold a points race? Perhaps at (insert your favorite wish here) Texas, Kentucky, California, Las Vegas, North Wilkesboro, Nashville? Anywhere but Charlotte would be fine. That track already has two races on a schedule that is so full NASCAR is searching for ways to ease it.
Wouldn’t a real race be better than an insipid piece of showmanship and advertising that proves nothing? Barring that, the governing body might even consider moving the schedule around in order to give the drivers a week off (or a rain date) in the middle of that 20-week stretch of non-stop race weekends. Don’t count on seeing that one any time soon.
Think about it. Somewhere a track is going without a race date so that this farcical facade might continue. Is it really worth it?
