July 24, 2012
By Doug Demmons
Call them the Dirty Dozen.
They're the approximately 12 drivers who started and parked during Sunday’s Nationwide Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.
Approximate because a couple of the 12 drivers who were in the garage by Lap 47 may or may not have intended to race on to the end and may or may not have been hampered by legit mechanical problems.
The rest of them caught an S&P virus that seems to be spreading.
NASCAR doesn’t keep records for start and park. It barely acknowledges its existence. But Sunday might have been some kind of S&P record. By Lap 60 there were only 30 cars left in the race.
Apparently a plague of mechanical misfortune struck Sunday at Chicagoland -- vibration, overheating, clutch, vibration, overheating, vibration, rear gear, ignition, handling, handling, engine, engine, transmission. Those were the official reason listed for the teams that were out early.
Back in the day -- before parts and pieces were as reliable as they are today -- that wasn’t so out of the ordinary. Races were 500 miles just to see who could make it that far without breaking down.
Now the race is to see who can get to the garage first. The winner on Sunday was Jeff Green, who edged Carl Long with a Lap 4 park.
Green’s last-place finish padded his all-time NASCAR Nationwide Series lead in that category among all drivers. Through May he had 31 of them.
It’s an old problem and ranting about it sometimes feels like beating a parked horse. But a dozen start and parks? Seriously? Is that something that should continue to be tolerated?
Whenever I rant about start and parks I get a litany of excuses about why the poor S&P drivers have to do what they do.
Do you want to drive all these competitors out of the sport?
No, just out of a series they are ill-equipped or underfunded to compete in. If they cannot afford to compete in Cup, go to Nationwide. If Nationwide is too much, try Trucks. If Trucks is too pricey, try ARCA or Grand-Am or late models. Compete where your budget makes you competitive.
But they have to start and park to keep their teams going.
I can tolerate an occasional start and park by a team that mostly runs full races but has limited sponsorship and wants to try to stay in the top 35. My objection is with teams that start and park as a business model.
But drivers have to do it in order to stay visible.
This is the “out of sight, out of mind” argument, which has some validity. Drivers who lose good rides need to stick around the garage area every week in order to find a new quality ride. So they drive for S&P teams until something better comes along. But that doesn’t happen very often. besides, which is more impressive to a team owner in need of a driver for a good ride -- a guy who dropped down to a lower series and kicked butt or a guy who proves how good he is at parking?
Without the start and parks there would be short fields.
So what? Full fields only exist for a couple of laps at the start of each race. There is nothing magical about the number 43. It isn’t built into any TV contracts. The Nationwide field could be cut to 40 or even 36 cars without any loss of quality.
But even if NASCAR wanted to get rid of S&P teams how do you come up with a rule to accomplish that?
Good question. S&P can’t be legislated away. Unless NASCAR wants to tear down every early exit car to see if the reported vibration was legit (which they surely don’t) there is no way to tell if parking was by choice or chance.
But there are other ways to discourage starting and parking -- or, rather, to encourage start and park teams to compete more. Here’s a few I’ll call the Start and Park Reform Act of 2012:
1. Lift the ban on testing enough to provide special test dates during the season to single-car teams. The expenses of the single-car teams could be paid either by NASCAR or with a luxury tax on teams with more than two cars.
2. Redistribute the way the purse is doled out. The difference Sunday between Jeff Green in 43rd place and Kyle Busch in 27th was $2,213. The amount of money a team could make by staying out isn’t always enough to cover what it would cost to be able to do that.
3. Impose a general luxury tax on multi-car teams. Teams subject to the tax could avoid paying it by sharing resources and information with one or more single-car teams.
4. Impose penalties on persistent start and park teams. A team that fails to complete a certain minimum percentage of the laps over a five-race period would be suspended briefly.
5. Hold a new contest for unsponsored teams. NASCAR loves contests like Dash for Cash, so here’s a new Dash for Cash. For each race in the first half of the season, teams that have no primary sponsorship for that race can enter a special contest. They will be competing against each other for the highest finish. The winner each week gets a cash bonus. Whoever has the highest average finish at mid-season gets the big prize -- a primary sponsor recruited by NASCAR to finish the season.
There’s no way to make start and park go away for good. But it can be ameliorated. It can even be made into something interesting with a little creative thought.
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 ALABAMA MOTORSPORTS
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
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