“The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to unload my next pick for the “most disappointing” race of 2015.
Welcome back to this special edition of The White Zone. Today, I’ll be giving you my fourth-place pick for the most disappointing race of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
I’ll remind you that this is not a collaborative effort among the Speedway Media staff. This is solely my opinion. Also, this is not – I repeat, not – a list of the worst races. This is a list of races I considered to be disappointing. The definition of disappointing is “failing to meet expectations.”
In other words and without giving away any spoilers, there may or may not be a race or two on this list that I considered good overall, but still left a bad taste in my mouth.
Yesterday, I kicked off the list by putting the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway in the number five spot.
Without further ado, let’s get this countdown restarted. Hopefully, nobody jumped it.
#4 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Leading us to the green flag at number four is the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Hey, I didn’t say they would all be points races.
Now I’m not one of those people that either buy into or ridiculously hype up the All-Star Race. I tend to set my expectations at a below average level.
Truth be told, I thought the race overall was okay. It’s nothing that we’ll look back on 10 or 20 years from now and say, “That 2015 All-Star Race truly was one for the ages,” but it was one that you can pull up on YouTube and say, “It was okay.” I also thought the racing was actually good at times after the restarts. It was also a plus that the leader on the final restart in the final segment didn’t just pull away as had become the norm in the last few years. Granted, the leader on the final restart (Denny Hamlin) did win the race, but the second-place driver (Kevin Harvick) was able to run him down. Unfortunately, Harvick made a mistake with five laps to go, lost touch with Hamlin and had to settle for runner-up.
There was one major flaw I found with the race. That flaw is the location of the race. I love Charlotte, but it’s just not conducive to holding a shootout style race like the All-Star Race. There’s also just too much lost potential holding it at the same track every year. I do think it is time to find a new location for the All-Star Race. I’d be for rotating it between Charlotte and Darlington Raceway.
So while it wasn’t a bad race by any means, the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race is still disappointing enough to take the number four spot on my list.
Do you agree with my list? If not, what should’ve been in this spot? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll be back tomorrow to give my number three pick.
