Manipulating the Race

[Cheryl]

Yesterday, NA$CAR hit another new low in calling "competition" cautions throughout the day.  Besides the one they planned for lap 30, there were claims of debris numerous times when TV didn't even bother to try and show something.  What really bugged me was the one they called in the middle of green flag pit stops which totally changed the complexion of the race.  Conveniently two drivers who are winless this season were in the top 10, when drivers who had strong cars were caught on the tailend of the lead lap or a lap down (Truex, Biffle, Reutimann, Gordon, Hornish, etc).  TV told us that John Andretti had hit the wall many laps earlier, but NA$CAR didn't think it was worth a caution.  Not even when Kurt Busch cut a tire on the debris.  No...they waited until smack dab in the middle of green flag pit stops?  Then later they called caution after caution for "debris."  What I found interesting was a snippet I caught on Speed with Bob Dilner where he was talking about all the tire issues in the truck race and how we didn't see them in the Cup race.  But that the cautions came out at at convenient times so that there were no tire issues.  So was this NA$CAR making sure this didn't turn into another Indy?  Whatever, it just seemed like NA$CAR did everything in their power to manipulate the race.  Now we hear they're definitely going to go to doublefile restarts?  Do they really think manipulating the competition this way is going to make better "racing" or just some twisted sort of reality TV?

Cheryl

[cowboy271]

Without going into our differences over certain restart options; I'd like to express my agreement with you over the manipulation of the Dover race.  I really got frustrated with the "debris" cautions and the timeliness (or lack thereof) of them.  I can understand CASHCOW not wanting an Indy repeat, but all the cautions reeked of another conspiracy on their part.  It seems NASCAR has jumped on the "change" bandwagon, but I'm afraid I've seen enough change for a while.