“The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I want to unload on the races I considered “disappointing” this season.
I welcome you to this special edition of The White Zone. For the next five days, I’ll be counting down my picks for the five most disappointing races of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
This list is not a collaborative effort among the Speedway Media staff. It’s all my opinion. Also, this is not – I repeat, not – a list of the worst races of 2015. Without giving anything away, there may or may not be races on this list that I personally considered good. My definition of a “disappointing race” is one that leaves a bad taste in my mouth when it’s over.
This list will take place over the course of the next five days. Today will be pick number five, tomorrow is four, Wednesday is three, Thursday is two and Friday will have the dishonorable mentions and my pick for the most disappointing race of 2015. There’s a good chance that opinions will differ on the placement of races in this list. As such, if you feel that one race should be in a different place or one race should have made this list, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Without further ado, let’s get this countdown on the track.
#5 Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway
Kicking off the list in the fifth spot is the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
This was NASCAR’s second attempt at using the high-downforce package. The first attempt at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a big disappointment. Now to be fair, Indy is far too flat to run that much downforce. So logically, the higher banked turns at Michigan would seem to be a better fit for this package.
The result of the second test was a big fat fail. The racing was single-file for most of the 200 laps and the only exciting parts during the race were the restarts. But even the restart excitement died out after half a lap. While cars could pull up to another car, the wake produced by the leading car created a wall that made it next to impossible to pass the car ahead. In fact, the only time the lead changed on the track was during pit cycles.
In all fairness, though, I set my expectations low for this event. It played out largely the way I expected it to play out. It was almost to the point that I considered just putting this race in the dishonorable mentions. What made me put this race on this list was the number 3,886. That was the total number of green flag passes in the race. That number is significant because it was one less than the total green flag passes in the race at Michigan in June. That’s right, the race that went the entire 200 lap distance had one fewer green-flag pass than the race that was cut short by torrential rain.
All of the above is why I’m giving the number five spot on my list to the Pure Michigan 400.
Do you agree with the placement of this race? Leave your thoughts below. I’ll be back tomorrow with my number four pick in my countdown of the most disappointing races of 2015.
