A lot of turmoil is going on in NASCAR today. Despite the 2016 season showing a huge upswing in the quality of racing, it seems to be a long time before the Sprint Cup Series will begin selling more tickets and seeing their ratings boost. The XFINITY Series is beyond broken, a joke of its former self. The Camping World Truck Series, despite having some of the best racing in NASCAR, is running low on sponsors and money.
Never fear, the K&N Pro Series is here.
No needless rules are in place like caution clocks and the like. Cup drivers rarely make appearances in K&N events. True up-and-comers in the sport compete here, with true underdog organizations fielding entries like Rev Racing and Bill McAnally Racing (BMR). The venues they race at are normally grassroots short tracks, although the occasional major venue like Watkins Glen and Phoenix are thrown into the mix.
This is where NASCAR can truly be NASCAR and keep in touch with its roots as an old-fashioned sport.
The XFINITY Series boasts the moniker, “Names are made here” on the countless commercials on FOX Sports 1. Considering that division’s state, that’s an easily disputable claim. Names are being made in the K&N Pro Series, like Todd Gilliland (son of Sprint Cup driver David Gilliland), Gracin Raz, Noah Gragson, and 2013 “Survivor” contestant Julia Landauer, who pilots the No. 54 for BMR.
One of the reasons that this series has been able to thrive and stay on as a valid NASCAR series is because of the fact that major personalities usually stay out of it as well as the fact that there’s a lack of companion races with XFINITY/Sprint Cup events. Something else that helps the series stand out is the fact that although major sponsors like NAPA, Toyota, and Rheem can be seen on some of the cars, it’s a series that does advocate smaller sponsors to adorn the cars as well. This gives the series a grassroots vibe, where local fans and companies can take part in the NASCAR experience without having to shell out big bucks.
The most love this series gets is recorded showings on NBCSN and FS1, believe it or not. But on the upside of things, maybe that’s for the best. Back when the Sprint Cup Series was the Winston Cup Series, they faced the same treatment of race recordings while racing on shorter tracks where the racing was truer and purer. Plus, back then, the sport was more fan-friendly. Drivers interacted with fans on a simpler level, and the fans, in turn, got their money’s worth in terms of racing and driver interaction.
That sounds a lot like the K&N Pro Series today. It’s easily accessible and more oriented toward the fans of true NASCAR racing. Things may be going south in the upper echelons of the sport, but it’s good to know there’s still one good thing going on in NASCAR.
