Alright, bare with me here y’all.
There’s a lot of places I could start with what I think of the Busch Clash, the Budweiser Shootout, the Sprint Unlimited or whatever name it had to change to to go along with a sponsor change.
I’m only 23 years old, so my memories of a Saturday night ‘shootout’ at Daytona really only get the back end of the era where racing for $1 million was a big deal.
Over time, more than any race on the schedule in my opinion, the Clash has lost a lot of luster. It didn’t have the same, big race feel that it did in my younger years.
That could have something to do with more disciplines of racing getting popular. There isn’t the thirst for more racing when Supercross, IMSA, the Chili Bowl and World of Outlaws have all already run marquee events to start their year.
But more importantly, the small-portion Saturday night race that didn’t hardly anything to the season unless a team tore up their car wasn’t anything to make appointment television. It got worse when it wasn’t held at night.
The road course helped fix that issue, but what NASCAR is attempting to do with the LA Coliseum this weekend has the potential to be a Winter Classic type of event for the series.
It’s a crazy thing to imagine, especially when the first rumors of such an undertaking rose to surface last year, but the time has come to see if it comes to fruition.
NASCAR is going to race in a football stadium.
For some reason, that’s brought on a lot of doubts on if the sanctioning body can put on an entertaining product. I think its foolish to doubt that they can.
Think about where some of the most entertaining races have been across recent years in the sport: short tracks. NASCAR knows what its doing in that case and they’ve alleviated potential issues that could arise on Sunday.
Caution laps won’t count for the 75-lap A-Main on Sunday night. There will never be more than 24 cars on the track at the same time so that cuts out almost half of the on-track risk of something going wrong.
You just pray and hope there isn’t any issues with the new cars or the track that was built – and I’m going to be honest, none of us are smarter than anyone in charge of building either of those.
This was and is the best thing to happen to this race.
Not only will it bring the uniqueness aspect, but this is a race that casual fans can tune into that isn’t a Daytona 500 that might be delayed by rain or wrecks throughout the afternoon.
It’s already shown the proof in the pudding with its ticket sales – 70 percent of the crowd that has purchased seats have never been to a NASCAR race, according to the series.
This is the type of event I would tell my friends to give a shot if they’re trying to get into the sport.
So when we strap in on Sunday to watch this bullring-style, short track pre-season race designed to draw in new fans in the sport, give NASCAR a chance to do something cool.
I think they’ll rock it on Sunday.
