Speedway Motorsports executive Marcus Smith will have his hands on a competition caution trigger but beyond that and the usual million-dollar prize, there isn’t much hype surrounding the NASCAR All-Star Race this year.
For much of this century, the annual summer exhibition event has allowed NASCAR the opportunity to experiment with various rule packages or technical concepts, while also differentiating it from the rest of the schedule.
There was a bit of a missed opportunity for the All-Star Race this year as NASCAR pitched to teams an outlaw rules package race but couldn’t agree on what parameters that would include.
The gist of the idea was that teams could do whatever they wanted from a set-up standpoint as long as all the components remained compliant to the single source supplied regulations.
It was ultimately rejected by the teams because they felt it would encourage expensive decisions that would render their cars immediately obsolete and needing to be replaced. A single NASCAR NextGen car costs $350,000 to construct.
Read more: Hamlin on why teams rejected the outlaw rules race
So, in the absence of no unique rules package this year or no option tires like last year, there is a sentiment out there that this particular iteration was something of a missed opportunity to learn some things.
Chase Briscoe of Joe Gibbs Racing wishes something had been tried this weekend.
“I feel like this is a race where, even if we don’t do ‘run what you brung,’ we should be doing something,” Briscoe said. “Take the tapered spacer off or take the whole underbody off – something for a drastic change to see what happens.
“If it’s terrible, it’s terrible. If it’s great, then we learned something. We’ve done that with the tires a little bit but we haven’t done it with the car yet. Obviously, they’ve said they’re not against (changing) the tapered spacer off (for a horsepower increase) so let’s do it or take the whole underbody off, let’s do something kind of out of left field to see if it will help what we do everywhere else.”
Briscoe said the All-Star Race ‘is the ultimately place’ to try such a concept.
“What is the identity of this race if we’re not,”Briscoe asked. “I guess it’s that we race for a million bucks but I would like to see us try something.”
His teammate, Christopher Bell, echoed that sentiment.
“I was bummed that we didn’t get to do the ‘run what you brung’ thing,” Bell said. “I thought that was really cool. I understand the reasoning behind it, and how it does make it a really expensive event but I genuinely enjoy trying different things.
“I, obviously, haven’t been around the sport for that terribly long, but at Texas Motor Speedway, we tried a different package a few years ago. Here, we had the option tire, which I’m not a big fan of but I think it is a good event to try that. I would have loved to try something and see if you hit on something. I think this and the Clash are two events that are great opportunities to try and improve our sport.”
Joey Logano of Team Penske said he is always an advocate of sporadic change.
“I like changing things and I think from also my perspective is — as we’ve stayed with the same rules for a couple of years — the cars are all running the same speed,” Logano said. “Now everyone’s developed a setup, that’s pretty similar at every track we go to, so the whole field’s qualifying in the same speed bracket.
“Someone new looking in might think that must be a heck of a race but how do you pass the guy, and it ends up being a parade. We have to have someone be faster to create passing so we need to be trying some things to create some differentiation in our cars right now.”
After three years of All-Star Races, Brad Keselowski feels like North Wilkesboro would be better served as a points paying race.
“I think if it was a season race and you had thirtysomething cars on the track, the racing here would be extraordinary,” Keselowski said. “But that isn’t what we have right now so we have to play the cards we are given.
“I do like that this track is aging and is starting to develop a second lane, at least in Turns 1 and 2, so that should play out nicely.”
So is that making Wilkesboro a 37th points race or move the All-Star Race?
“Probably would do something different with the All-Star Race,” Keselowski said. “I personally would like to see the All-Star Race either return to Charlotte (Motor Speedway) or go to the Nashville Fairgrounds or something to that effect, with this place becoming a points race.”
Denny Hamlin says the status quo right now makes the All-Star Race just kind of feel like a normal race.
“I don’t know how we stack up to other sports’ All-Star Games,” Hamlin said. “From a ratings perspective or what a regular season game looks like, ours is the same. It’s a normal race weekend.
“The purse could certainly afford to get updated with he times because if you don’t win it, it’s not really a financially good deal to even come here. But if there’s any sport that can get more out of its stars, because we don’t have to worry about injuries, we can just put it all on the line for this specific moment, right?”
And to that point, Bell doesn’t agree that this is just another race because of that million dollar payout.
“The format is very unique, and the purse is as well, so we won’t race like it is any other event when the green flag drops,” Bell said. “That is one thing that really took me by surprise whenever I got into the Cup Series is – the All Star race is not just another race. Everybody is more aggressive here than what you see at a normal Sunday Cup race. Everyone, I think, has that win it or wear it attitude, and it races differently because of that.”
