October 24, 2007
By Chuck Abrams

Chuck Abrams

I read a lot this week that Martinsville was a boring race. Speculation hinged around the drivers being timid with each other -- to too many cautions -- to too long of a race. Oh yeah, and the usual complaints about the race ending under caution.

Personally, the race had some moments that I thought were pretty good and typical Martinsville. The battle between Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson for the lead was as good as a battle for the lead gets. Dale Jr. taking the lead from Montoya was classic bump and run. Drivers were rooting each other out of the way up and down the track.

So from that perspective, it was a pretty good race. As for the record-setting number of cautions, yeah that did get a little old. What exacerbated the problem for me was the never-ending stream of commercials that came with every caution. Several caution periods had to be caught up with since ABC was in a commercial break when the yellow flag came out. While ABC can’t predict when a caution flag will fly, it happened more than once; which is probably just an indicator of how many cautions there were. It is also an indicator of just how many commercials are run during a race these days.

As far as the race ending under caution, it happens. Get over it. Is it the best? No. But the number of races ending under caution has been greatly reduced since NASCAR implemented its green-white-checkers policy. NASCAR gives each race a one time shot to end under green and if a caution comes out during that time, the race ends under caution. I think that is a reasonable and fair policy and really doesn’t need adjusting.

Can you imagine how many additional laps might be needed if cars keep spinning out during a green-white-checkers? Talk about a long race! And then you would have to deal with the issue of fuel mileage. That was not an issue at Martinsville, but it would become an issue sooner or later. No one wants to see a fuel mileage race, especially if it changes the end of a race due to repeated attempts to finish under green.

Which all leads me to the final issue of the length of the race. Yes, it was long and yes, my interest was starting to wane as household projects that were left sitting during the race were coming to the forefront of my mind as the sun got lower and the race got longer.

Do we need a 500 lap/miler at every racetrack in the country? Heck no, especially at places like Pocono and Martinsville. Vastly different tracks and I say no for two reasons.

At Pocono, the race is just a long race twice a year. Those races could be easily shortened and still provide a nice entertainment value to the fans. At places like Martinsville where cautions breed cautions that drag out the time of the event, shortening it would still provide entertainment and not hurt the race at all. In fact, one could argue that shortening a race could entice drivers to be a bit more aggressive in going for a win a bit sooner vs. waiting until the final 100 laps to make things happen. They might still wait 'till the final 100 laps, but forcing that decision to happen sooner would not be a bad thing.

Now, we look in the rear view mirror to see what is coming up on us and lo and behold, it is Atlanta! Atlanta is a great track where the cars can drive at top speed with room for passing. And we are back to the old style cars so data from last year transfers to this year for the last time.

Tony Stewart won this race last year but Jimmie Johnson was second and Jeff Gordon finished fifth. If that scenario were to repeat itself, Smoke would gain only nominally and remain far back of the Chase points leaders. What Stewart should concern himself with more is Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch coming up fast in his mirror. Points will take care of themselves as the drivers are fond of saying, but he needs to stay ahead of the next two in line to have any chance of a top 5 position at the end of the year. Fortunately for Smoke, Shrub and Bowyer haven’t historically had the best of times at Atlanta, but this is a new year and Bowyer is proving he belongs while Shrub is trying to prove a point.

Have fun this week and let me know your thoughts.

Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up.

Feel free to send Chuck your thoughts on this and other race topics at Insider Racing News. The blog at www.turnleftracing.com is down now due to spammers. We will have that back up as soon as we can.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.