What Makes A Good Race?

Jim asked an intriguing question in a recent article. What makes a good race?

I’m sure that the answer is different for different people. For some, an exciting finish makes a good race. While ideally, a good race should have an exciting finish, I’m not sure it’s absolutely necessary.

For me, a good race has to have one thing: that’s racing. I want to see drivers running just as hard the first 50 laps as the last 50. I understand why they don’t, I’m just telling you what I want to see.

I cringe when I hear a driver whining to his spotter about someone racing them too hard, too early. Say what?

I’ve seen a lot of races. One that sticks in my mind was a Super Modified heat race at the old Tulsa Fairgrounds track. Two cars separated themselves, and ran the entire race like they were chained together. You could have thrown a blanket over them the entire race.

I guess I favor shorter races, because they have to race hard from the get-go. A 500 mile race that consists of 450 miles of riding around, with 50 miles or so of racing at the end, is not, and never will be a good race for me- no matter how good the finish turns out to be. A good finish perhaps, but not a good race.

It used to be that in a 500 mile race, we at least had the suspense of the equipment staying together for the distance. Now with failures rare, these races are just loooong. In my humble opinion, too long in most cases.

NASCAR used to be in the business of  sanctioning races. Now they seem to be more interested in putting on a show. In the days before television, and with little or no media coverage, when tickets cost 10 bucks or so, races didn’t have to be barn burners. Just watching the locals mix it up with the big boys was enough. Most of these fans saw them once a year.

Now when most fans see all the races, we demand more. When we talk about the current races being less than exciting, someone is
sure to mention that in the old days many races were won with a single car lapping the entire field. Sometimes more than once.

I’ve heard other drivers talk about LeeRoy Yarbrough. They said "He wasn’t much of a thinker. He never had much of a plan. He just started off from the drop of the green, and ran as hard as he could." That’s my kind of driver. Maybe not the one I’d want in my car as an owner. But definitely the kind I want to watch.

When someone started like that, others were forced to race with them whether they wanted to or not. Why would these old timers have wanted to run hard enough to lap the entire field? Simple, once someone got a lap down they were pretty much out of it.
No one was about to slow down on a yellow and let anyone unlap themselves. If they managed to get the field more than one lap down, then they had enough cushion that they could maybe overcome a flat, or some other fixable problem and still win.

Just supposition on my part, but I don’t think these guys raced for points, or worried much about the championship. Most were hungry enough they were racing for money to be able to make the
next race. I’ve only seen one side of this, so I can’t say for sure, but I expect hungry drivers race harder than multi-millionaires.

In today’s NASCAR with the free pass, and now with the wave around (I still don’t understand this one), what’s the point in running hard enough to try to lap the field even if they could? It just seems like the races are so manipulated now with the suspect cautions, and all the charity that it’s hard to take them seriously.
One of the sad things is that there is usually always good racing. If you are there you can pick it out and watch it if you choose. If, like most of us, you watch on TV. We can only watch what they choose to show us.

Given the way things are, do I expect guys to go out and run as hard as they can for an entire race? Nope! but I’d love to.