Amid the bedlam of unintended consequences brought about by an untested format, NASCAR’s All-Star Race was actually a welcome departure.
Yes, it may have been confusing and controversial, but NASCAR’s annual exhibition at Charlotte Motor Speedway produced high quality racing. And that in itself has been a rarity in recent years, with one of NASCAR’s marquee events more often than not a dud.
Before Joey Logano ran down leader Kyle Larson in the third and final segment and completed the winning pass with two laps remaining, it had been seven years since such a moment occurred.
Opposed to recent versions, Saturday night’s All-Star Race did not hinge on track position and a driver using clean air to their advantage. Tire wear became a factor and side-by-side racing was commonplace throughout the field.
“I thought the racing was significantly better than last year,” Logano said. “This race last year, I’d get trapped because all you can do is run the bottom. Run the bottom, run the bottom, and it’s really hard to pass someone because you can’t get clean air.”
Logano’s optimism may be skewed by the $1 million check he collected, but he’s also correct. Nor is he the only driver encouraged by Saturday night’s proceedings.
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Once again, NASCAR’s decision to move fulltime to a low downforce rules package and its continued efforts to make the cars more challenging to drive has largely produced a better on-track product.
“(Logano) could get right up to (Larson),” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “Man, if we were running the 2014 or ’15 package, (Larson) could have went wherever (Logano) was going and kept him about 10 car lengths behind him the whole time.
“So the fact that (Logano) can drive up there right to him and (Larson) can’t do anything about it, we’re going down the right direction with all that stuff.”
NASCAR demonstrated its diligence in continuing the low downforce initiative by unveiling in the week leading into the All-Star Race some tweaks to the current aero package. The results were on display Saturday night.
“We saw a lot of side-by-side racing, saw a lot of (tire) fall-off,” Logano said. “Obviously with so much strategy, a lot of us didn’t know what was going on because there was so much strategy going on in this race, but that’s what it promoted. It promoted a lot of hard racing.
“I thought it was great.”
Ah yes, the strategy component.
If there was a superseding theme from this year’s All-Star Race it’s that teams can and will overthink whatever format NASCAR devises. The near-universal puzzlement that ensued after race-leader Matt Kenseth didn’t make a pit stop within the allotted window sent the event into a frenzy.
Drivers alternated between angry and confused, often in the same breath, as they communicated with their crew chiefs trying to comprehend the scoring snafu. Post-race the indignation continued with Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin among those who expressed their displeasure.
“They ought to go back to the original formats that they started with that are simple and make the cars race better, you know?” Earnhardt said. “Gimmicks and all that stuff, trying to trick up the race is going down the wrong path. The way to make the racing exciting is to make the cars exciting.”
Despite the madness the All-Star Race, as intended, did deliver a memorable event (albeit for some wrong reasons) that won’t soon be forgotten.
“There was a next to last lap pass for the lead — there were several passes for the lead,” Brad Keselowski said. “The last four (All-Star) races, there hasn’t been a pass for the lead in the last 20 or 30 laps. Our fans deserve a better format than that, and they got that.
“I don’t know how you can get much more compelling racing than what we saw today, so they need to get unconfused and enjoy the racing.”
