Loss of identity?

Despite the allure of Daytona, stock car racing, a specifically NASCAR, was born on the short tracks. Martinsville, North Wilkesboro, Bowman Gray Stadium, South Boston, Hickory … you get the point. If NASCAR had to pick an identity, it would be the aggressive beating and banging of short track racing.

Some of the most memorable moments in NASCAR history have come on short tracks. From Hendrick Motorsport’s first win, to Dale Earnhardt’s “I just meant to rattle his cage,” to Matt Kenseth running Joey Logano into the fence, to the drama between Denny Hamlin spinning Chase Elliott with four laps to go, short tracks create drama. Short tracks are NASCAR.

For a while, NASCAR lost sight of its heritage. The appeal of mile-and-a-half racetracks and westward expansion pulled NASCAR from places like North Wilkesboro and Rockingham to Chicagoland, Kentucky, and Auto Club Speedway, all of which are gone from the NASCAR calendar. In the end, the industry realized the gem it had. Short tracks are the life blood of NASCAR.

To the horror of the everyone in the NASCAR community, the Gen7 car was terrible on short tracks. With the exception of Ross Chastain’s “hail melon” move on the last lap of the Fall Martinsville Race, short track races in 2022 were horrendous. The 2023 season was not much better, even with NASCAR’s attempts to decrease downforce and make the cars more difficult to drive. This year at the Spring Bristol Race, NASCAR caught a lucky break with the unexpected tire issues, which led to a fantastic race. Further, its “Option Tire” experiments at North Wilkesboro and Richmond looked promising. But sadly, the Bristol Night Race, which everyone hoped would resemble the Spring Bristol Race, had virtually no tire wear and even less passing.

NASCAR has an identity problem. Its most popular form of racing sucks.

To put it any differently is to close your eyes, cover your ears, and hope the problem magically disappears. Now, I am not saying NASCAR is ignoring the problem. NASCAR, to its credit, has been proactive in working on solutions to the short track problem. Solutions have not come as fast as many of us would like, and there is still a group of those in the NASCAR community who will not be satisfied until they put 900 horsepower back in the cars. NASCAR has and continues to work on a fix.

But time is running out. We are in the third year of the Gen7 car and the Bristol Night Race, a race that had sold out at some 150,000 tickets in the past, was perhaps the worst short track race of the Gen7 era.

If NASCAR wants to continue its 75-year heritage of great short track racing, it must begin taking bigger swings at fixing the problem. More horsepower may not be the answer to the short track problem, but it should not be off the table. Goodyear may not want to spend a bunch of extra money developing new tires, but if it wants to continue sponsoring the most popular form of motorsports in North America, it better figure out a way to create more tire wear. NASCAR does not have a marketable product without good racing. If the racing is not good, its efforts to capture new markets will be futile.

The Gen7 car has created great racing on the intermediate tracks. But NASCAR must fix its short track product. Fix the short track racing and the fans will come.

Zech Yoder is a local resident, an attorney at Adler Attorneys in Noblesville, and a lifelong race fan.