January 14, 2010
By Doug Demmons
It turns out that Regan Smith was right after all.
Smith, you may recall, got to bask in the glory of his first-ever NASCAR Sprint Cup victory for all of about two minutes at the end of the fall Talladega race in 2008.
After beating Tony Stewart to the line Smith learned that his victory was taken away because he had passed Stewart below the yellow out-of-bounds line at the bottom of the track.
No champagne in Victory Lane. No glory. Just a tail-end-of-the-lead-lap penalty and a round of attaboys for giving it his best shot.
Turns out he made his move on Stewart a little early -- about two years to be exact.
That’s because NASCAR is now seriously considering conceding that the yellow-line rule wasn’t such a good idea after all.
That’s right. When the Cup Series returns to Talladega in April, it could very well be no holds barred. Instead of the Aaron’s 499, it could be the Dodge City 500.
NASCAR is very seriously considering cutting the restraints they have built up over the years on drivers in an effort to make Talladega safe -- because in the process of making Talladega safer -- they made it boring.
The yellow-line rule is just the start. The rigid enforcement of the no-bumping-in-the-turns rule that NASCAR announced in the drivers meeting in October is also about to get tossed under the bus.
And those wings on the backs of the COTs? The COTs that were so carved in stone just a few months ago that complaining further about the COT was considered a huge waste of oxygen?
They’re gone too.
All of a sudden the COT is no longer sacred. All of a sudden nothing is sacred. All of a sudden everything is looking rather expendable.
The reason, of course, is obvious -- thousands of empty seats week after week, track after track. Even at Talladega, where the racing is supposed to be not for the faint of heart.
And TV ratings that are sliding almost as fast as Jay Leno’s.
In that kind of atmosphere desperate measures become plausible. And thus NASCAR is about to unleash its drivers at Daytona and Talladega. NASCAR is going to boost engine horsepower by opening up the restrictor plates and then get out of the way.
Bump drafting in the turns? Great. Push drafting? Even better.
A mad dash on the final lap coming through the tri-oval at Talladega with cars flying through the grass for a four-wide finish?
Priceless.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
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.
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