From a NASCAR Fan’s View
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It used to be that road races were just weekends to be survived and not many drivers liked having to turn both left and right. Some were often replaced for these races by “ringers” familiar with road racing and sometimes the “ringers” would even perform really well. Other times, well, not so much.
Then some of the NASCAR drivers decided to become proficient at these type courses and fewer “ringers” were called on to fill in for those drivers. These days, however, most, if not all drivers, have improved their skills or have decided to do what they can to make a go of the Road Courses.
That is probably a good thing since there are more road courses in the regular season competition than there used to be. I guess what I’m trying to say so far is that, if you want to be in NASCAR Cup you might as well learn to drive every type of track on the NASCAR Cup circuit. If not, you might be replaced by someone else.
So, do I think there any that should be worried about losing their jobs in Cup? No, not at all… at least in the present status of the NASCAR Teams.
It has been interesting to watch Cup racing this year. For one thing, at least from my view, the Hendrick teams have an advantage over the rest of the field. Does that mean they win every weekend? No, not at all. What it means that they seem to show up with the cars to beat and they have often shown the way and been the ones to beat every weekend. Have they been beaten? Yes, but they could have won almost every race so far this season. Nothing like stating the obvious but leading the way for the Hendrick teams has been two in particular. Of course you already know the names I’m going to say but I have to say them anyway.
Do the names, Kyle Larson and William Byron ring a bell with you? Yeah, I thought that might be the case. I would also add the name of Alex Bowman because he has silently been running consistently well, week in and week out.
Now, their accomplishments have been overshadowed by the penalties handed down by NASCAR for the problem they had with the louvers on the hood a couple of weeks or so age – even though the results are being contested – they went from rating high in the points to falling well back into the field. Personally, I don’t think the way they’ve been running in this early part of the season had anything at all to do with the situation concerning the louvers NASCAR penalized them for. I understand they wanted to make an example of them doing what they shouldn’t have done according to the guidelines set by NASCAR.
As an example of my opinion I would offer the qualifying session and even the qualifying as my proof. Look at which of the drivers won the pole. Yeah, that’s right, William Byron. Even Kyle Larson ran well during the first session but he did lose out of being in the final qualifying session and qualified thirteenth. However, Alex Bowman did qualify sixth for the start of today’s race.
Ok, I know I’ve been neglecting the Ford and Toyota drivers along with a bunch of Chevy drivers but, today’s race will likely do the same thing. If anything holds true from the qualifying sessions, this just might be a race between two people, William Byron and Tyler Reddick. They were both strong performers in practice and qualifying and could relatively stink up the show. I’m not saying they will but I’m saying this could be a race for third on back.
Okay, now that I’ve said that, you already know what I think qualifying has to do with the way the race really goes. You see, I don’t think it will be a race between just two people. I think it’s going to be a race with a lot of give and take and maybe even a surprise winner. There are those drivers I just can’t discount from the possibility of winning or, at the very least making it interesting right down to the final flag. Am I willing to pick winner? No, definitely not but, I am willing to say this could be a very interesting race at a very interesting track. There are a lot of twists and turns ahead for the drivers and teams and strategy is going to play a very important part…
Hey, this is Russ and that’s my view… See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
© March 26, 2023 – all rights reserved
Rusty Norman, Nascarfansview.com and Justafansview.com
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