NASCAR: Low downforce needs to return
Many people that don’t watch NASCAR think its a bunch of left turns for three hours every Sunday, and not much else happens. Maybe they’ll stick around for the accidents here and there, but other than that they don’t take it very seriously. This is actually the furthest thing from the truth. The amount of G forces the drivers take going through each corner, being able to work the brakes heading into corners and getting back into the throttle coming out of them, slipping and sliding on 60 lap old tires, that's what stock car racing is all about. However, NASCAR has been in a conundrum in recent years. Ever since Brian France took over as CEO of the sanctioning body in late 2003, he has consistently pushed for an entertainment direction rather than focusing on the racing itself.
It started with the Chase for the Nextel Cup at the time that was introduced in 2004 and slowly began to snowball from there. Introducing a brand new “Car of Tomorrow” to the cup level in 2007, implementing double file restarts in 2010, adjusting the Chase format multiple times up until 2013, a spike in “debris” cautions, NASCAR seemed more focused on putting on a show than an actual race. In 2014, the sport introduced an entirely new knockout style playoff format where 16 drivers qualify for the 10 race “postseason," and four are eliminated per round until we get to the final four, who race for a winner-take-all championship in the finale. Yet again, another step away from pure racing and a step closer to straight up entertainment.
The sanctioning body doubled down on this stance in 2017, when they introduced “stage racing," which is breaking each race into thirds and throwing a mandatory caution at the end of each stage. This format of racing has many flaws, including pretty much eliminating any long green flag runs over 100 laps and eliminating any sort of strategy in almost all instances because teams know they’ll be at least two guaranteed cautions per event. After France stepped down as CEO of the sport following a DUI arrest in 2018, there was hope that things would start to get better. Many old fans had become increasingly sick of the gimmicks, which had left TV ratings at an all time low for many races that year, and it seemed unlikely that things would get any better anytime soon.
It was assumed that France was the problem, and that once he left things would start to return to the pure racing many of us fell in love with NASCAR for. Instead, new leadership have somehow made things even worse. In 2019, a brand new 550 horsepower, high downforce package was revealed that many people in the industry were hyping up to provide “pack racing everywhere” throughout the season. Instead of the traditional high speeds NASCAR had become known for over the years, the engines were neutered so top speeds were about 20 miles an hour slower and drivers could run full throttle in the turns instead of having to use the brakes. NASCAR was hoping this would make the racing better, but instead its made the racing the worst its ever been.
The drivers don’t like the rules package, many fans have spoken out against it, and overall it's been an absolute disaster for the sport. This is why, in my opinion, for the final year of the current Gen 6 car, the sport needs to return to high horsepower, low downforce racing full time in 2021. So far there’s been two races with the low downforce package ran this year, and according to Jeff Gluck’s good race polls on Twitter, the fans clearly have enjoyed those events much more than with high downforce package. If the drivers prefer low downforce and the fans prefer low downforce, it seems like a rather clear decision for NASCAR to make to bring that package back one last time for next season before they roll the next generation car out in 2022.
Photo Credit: Jayski.
