2015 NASCAR Season Thread

[sportzfan]

Pocono needs a second date because it's such a unique track, Dover, and a few of the other 1.5 mile triovals need to lose their dates to make for more unique styles of track and racing

[jc...]

COTA would be great for stock cars, because it wasn't designed for stock cars.

[RyanMcD29]

See, I hate giving up a date at Pocono because it's one of the only independently run tracks on the circuit, but it just doesn't produce that great racing. I'd say swap one of the Pocono dates with Road America, as well as give up one of Kansas' races to Montreal or Austin because YOU'RE GETTING A SECOND RACE BECAUSE YOU BUILT A TRACKSIDE CASINO!!! is the worst excuse for giving a second date ever, especially for probably the blandest track on the circuit. And as long as it's one of the first races in the Chase to avoid a leaf problem or a freak cold snap, Watkins Glen would be my choice for a Chase road course. But yes, more road courses and a road course Chase race, please.

[dfwabel]

I think NBC may have to revert to those Eli Gold taped segments on "NASCAR by state" tonight.

[mcj882000]

Can somebody tell me why this race was run on a Sunday night? They had to have known there'd be a decent risk of a long delay like this happening...

[Mrittenhouse84]

It was run on Sunday night because it is NBC's first race back, and they wanted to avoid going head to head with local affiliates broadcasting local fireworks.

from Jayski,com

• Why the Coke Zero 400 was run on July 5th and not July 4th? For 29 years, the summer race at Daytona International Speedway was a part of the nation's birthday. The event was always run on Independence Day, no matter what day of the week. The race was in the morning, and the drivers and their families were celebrating on the beach by late afternoon. The tradition that began in 1959 ended in 1988 when the event was moved into prime time on whatever Saturday was part of the holiday weekend. Now it has been moved once more, to Sunday night, to accommodate the return of NASCAR to NBC.
  Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBC Sports Group, said the change was simply about audience. "The Fourth of July is annually the lowest night of television watching of the year - fewer people watch TV that night because they are all out watching fireworks," Lazarus told The Associated Press on Saturday. "In order for us to start our relationship with as big a splash as we can, we wanted to give ourselves the best chance and opportunity to have a big audience. It was simply math." The switch still comes with challenges. By moving it to Sunday night, the race now goes head-to-head against the United States playing in the Women's World Cup final. NBC's pre-race show begins at the same time as the game, but the race doesn't actually go green for another 78 minutes. Lazarus anticipates, barring overtime and penalty kicks, only about 35 minutes of direct competition. He is hopeful, though, that World Cup viewers will flip to the NASCAR race when the game ends. "It's a mixed blessing - it will bring a lot of different people to the television set," he said. "We're hopeful, if we continue to market, that we'll get some people who wouldn't be home watching TV to transfer over and check us out."
  Although both NASCAR and Daytona officials signed off on the switch to Sunday, it's not the most ideal situation for track President Joie Chitwood. Running the race a day later hurts attendance because campers usually return home on Sunday, and now the World Cup likely will cut into viewership. Chitwood understood NBC's desire for the Sunday night race, but is thankful the race will return to Saturday night in 2016. "In our conversation with them, it was just the one time," he said. "We all talked about what we could do special for NBC, and this was one of their components, and it made a lot of sense when we sat down and really talked about it. When you look at what they've done with 'Football Night in America,' they are just knocking it out of the part. They've really captured that. Hopefully, they can sprinkle a little bit of that magic on this event this Sunday. I don't think anybody a year ago, though, knew about World Cup soccer, so that's the way the breaks are."(see full article at the Associated Press)(7-5-2015)

[sportzfan]

Such an exciting race. Sorry for the way it finished but glad everyone is okay after a wreck like that. I'm just really glad that that there was real racing during the entire race and not just follow the leader during the race. Also the commentators were really great, especially the guy who came over from the camping world truck series commentators (forget his name at the moment) he just has such a voice that really brings excitement to a race as a play by play announcer.

[sc49erfan15]

If you stayed up to watch it, you caught a hell of an ending.

Wow. I just can't get over how I went from "holy , Austin Dillon is dead" to "holy , Junior's crew is giving thumbs up, at least he's ok, but he's got to be hurt" to "HOLY HE'S WALKING AWAY?!?" in 15 seconds.

Hopefully no one in the stands was injured.

[raysox]

Word is there is 3 fans injured. Here's an Instagram video about 20 feet from Dillon flipping into the fence

https://instagram.com/p/4yQbB5zLHe/?taken-by=dylan27w

[DCarp1231]

Excited that Dale Jr won, but it's even better to know Austin Dillon is okay! Wishing a speedy recovery to the 3 fans injured in the stands. Daytona has definitely done a great job making the race track safer for the drivers and fans.

I don't know if anybody noticed, but while Jr was getting interviewed in victory lane, his voice definitely wasn't the same it usually is... I honestly think when he saw the 3 go airborne, he had a flashback to his father and got scared all over again. The past few seasons at Daytona & Talladega cars have managed to crash into the catch fence and Jr sounded fine when asked about those, but it definitely wasn't the same feeling for him last night/early this morning.

[rvrdgsfn]

All I can is wow. Daytona is one of those tracks that is just amazing. The racing was great & holy cow, the big one. I'm just glad Austin survived, it reminds me of the wrecks that happened to Rusty Wallace, Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart just to name a few. Just to see Austin get out of the car, wave to the fans, NASCAR has come a long way when it comes to safety. I'd even say most racing series have come a long way.

Results from Daytona:

1. Earnhardt Jr.

2. Johnson

3. Hamlin

4. Harvick

5. Kurt Busch

6. Gordon

7. Dillon

8. Newman

9. Bayne

10. Bowyer

Next up is Kentucky, with the new Aero Package

[PSUcelticsWON95]

What an American weekend! Really glad to see Dale Jr get the win, and I'm of course happy to see Austin okay. Such a scary crash, and it's crazy to think that it happened during and after the checkered. It was pretty cool (for lack of a better term) to see Dale's crew rush out towards Dillon.

[Dalcowboyfan92]

Good to see Dillon get out of his car, which looked eerily similar to Kyle Larson's car when he impacted the catch-fencing in the 2013 Spring Nationwide Daytona race.

[dfwabel]

Both Xfinity and Cup races has 25% of the laps run were under caution. This Gen6 car, specifically with restrictor plates, is incredibly hard to pass under green.

This morning's race had 22 lead changes, but the majority of them came when a car stayed out a lap (or two) just to get the additional point.

Sports Media Watch on last night's ratings

[DCarp1231]

This is Jr's uncensored reaction to the crash:

https://youtu.be/n-w_j0YA96Q

[cubsfan2015]

That was a great race. Stayed up to watch it all.

That was amazing and scary at the same time.

I mean,how did that catchfence stay together with a car coming at nearly 180 MPH?

That wreck had the car torn up like Michael McDownell's wreck,the air of Edwards',and the catchfence breaking up like B. Allison's.

That is certainly suprising that he survived that with only with some bruises.This has certainly gotten bunches of media coverage.

On Sunday night,Austin won the Xfinity race and then early this morning,his car is torn up.

What an up and down weekend.

[cubsfan2015]

Bumping for two reasons:
1.The aero package that is used for Kentucky will be used for several tracks this season:
http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/7/7/rules-package-sprint-cup-darlington-low-downforce-kentucky-indianapolis-michigan.html

2.Buddy Baker,1980 Daytona 500 champion,has been revealed to have cancer.

Wish the best of luck for him.

[sportzfan]

Bumping for two reasons:

1.The aero package will be used for several tracks this season:

http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/7/7/rules-package-sprint-cup-darlington-low-downforce-kentucky-indianapolis-michigan.html

2.Buddy Baker,1980 Daytona 500 champion,has been revealed to have cancer.

Wish the best of luck for him.

should have never changed from last years package, it was absolutely perfect, I don't know why they decided to cut horsepower on the cars.

[cubsfan2015]

Bumping for two reasons:

1.The aero package will be used for several tracks this season:

http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/7/7/rules-package-sprint-cup-darlington-low-downforce-kentucky-indianapolis-michigan.html

2.Buddy Baker,1980 Daytona 500 champion,has been revealed to have cancer.

Wish the best of luck for him.

should have never changed from last years package, it was absolutely perfect, I don't know why they decided to cut horsepower on the cars.

Because of "what happened" on Monday morning.

NASCAR is trying to keep everyone safe,on and off the track,so they decided to listen to the drivers.

And the drivers got what the wanted.

[dfwabel]

Bumping for two reasons:

1.The aero package will be used for several tracks this season:

http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/7/7/rules-package-sprint-cup-darlington-low-downforce-kentucky-indianapolis-michigan.html

2.Buddy Baker,1980 Daytona 500 champion,has been revealed to have cancer.

Wish the best of luck for him.

should have never changed from last years package, it was absolutely perfect, I don't know why they decided to cut horsepower on the cars.

Because of "what happened" on Monday morning.

NASCAR is trying to keep everyone safe,on and off the track,so they decided to listen to the drivers.

And the drivers got what the wanted.

I predict tire issues at Indy like 2008.