“The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to say that I’ll give the clock a chance.
I’m sure for a lot of you, the biggest lightning rod that stood out on the first day of the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour was the caution clock for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Truth be told, when I heard about the caution clock, I was spending my time thinking of how I’d rip this apart and call out someone in the offices at Daytona Beach. Now that I’ve had a few hours to mull it over and while I still don’t like the idea, I’ll begrudgingly give it a chance this season.
I’ve become more lukewarm to the idea now after hearing Vince Welch had done the math on how many races would’ve been affected last year had this rule been in place. Just a quick aside: If you’re one of those people who wastes his/her time adding up the points to determine the champion with no Chase system every single freaking year, you don’t get to say what Welch did was a waste of time.
He said that of the 23 races last season, nine would’ve been affected by this new rule. None of them, however, would’ve been affected more than once.
Also, Truck races aren’t known for having long green runs. They tend to be pretty caution-heavy. They’re also pretty damn short. Plus as I remember, in the early days of the Truck Series, they used to stop the race halfway through to take a break.
Now while I’m the farthest thing from a racing purest, I still have my version of what I’ll tolerate changing and what I feel needs to stay put. I understand that things will always change in NASCAR. I get it. I really, really do. But I’ve always followed that statement up with that if we’re going to make changes, they have to make sense!
Yes, it’s gimmicky. I still don’t like it, but I’m willing to give it a chance because I know change is always inevitable. I wasn’t too keen on the elimination format when they announced it, but I gave it a chance and I love it!
So in conclusion, I’m willing to give it a chance and I would urge the rest of you to do so as well. If you don’t like it because it’s too gimmicky, I understand and completely sympathize with your judgement. But if you’re just going to complain about it because it’s different, then I kindly suggest you go to that corner of the internet that fondly remembers your utopian NASCAR that never existed.
My plane is about to take off, so I must wrap this up. Until then, I’ll leave you with this fact. Odontophobia is the fear of teeth.
The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the writer and may or may not represent the views of Speedway Media.
