Hi everyone. I decided to do something a little different this week and talk about Pocono after the fact. After all, with all of the rain delays and lightning delays and no people in the stands, it was a relatively long weekend at Pocono and not just for the Cup teams. It really was a historic week for NASCAR at Pocono with all of the racing that took place over two days but what’s even more interesting to this fan is how difficult it seems for the drivers to adapt to no fans in the stands.
I have to admit that the racing, at least to this fan, wasn’t really all that interesting. Of course, Pocono is not one of my favorite races to watch nor is it one of my favorite races to talk about. You see I have a long running disagreement with the way they talk about Pocono anyway. Pocono is the only race track that they talk about differently when they come to the turns. They say there are only three. I say there are six. Why do you suppose that is? I assure you, I don’t really know their thinking other than they want to make themselves seem different than every other race track except maybe one.
I do admit that it is a different race track as far as the way that it’s designed. What I find interesting is that, at any other track, when you enter a turn and when you exit a turn, both are numbered as turns. But not so at Pocono! At Pocono, a turn entry and a turn exit is counted as one turn. If you look at a normal oval instead of a triangle you will find they count the turns as they enter, turn one and as they exit, turn two.
I guess if I think it through completely, Pocono is numbered similarly to the Indianapolis Speedway or maybe a Road Course. I guess it could have to do with the straight sections instead of the continuing curve at those two locations. You see, if it were me, I would count the turns the way they count the turns just about everywhere else that you have a continuing curve. At Pocono, there would be six turns. At Indianapolis, there would be eight turns so, as you can see I’m confused when it comes to the way they count turns at these race tracks.
Now, I suppose you’re wondering why I’m taking so much time to talk about the way they number the turns at Pocono and so little time talking about the races. Well I do have a good reason for that and I will share part of it with you. You see, I don’t have a lot of filler information or interest in getting into the inflammatory situations at hand. These are things that have to be handled individually and I don’t like all of the rhetoric that goes along with such volatile things. People can say a lot of things and vent a lot of frustrations but in doing so it seems that very little gets accomplished. I don’t want to get into that.
Watching NASCAR these days has become a lot like what the drivers go through when they climb from their cars after they’ve taken the winning checkered flag. I think I began to lose interest this year when they began to consider iRacing to be simply the same as the real cars being on the real tracks. I do admit, that the iRacing developing team has done a great job of building their program, their graphics and all of the things that they present to make it seem so realistic. To me, it is a great presentation for those that can afford or want to get involved in iRacing itself but it was no replacement in any way for the real racing in NASCAR that was preempted because of the pandemic.
Am I criticizing the iRacers? No, I just don’t think that much of Fox Sports for trying to make it something that it wasn’t. In fact, I think they should have just decided to leave the iRacing as it was and is. It was, and is, a game made for gamers and drivers to hone their skills. It has nothing to do with real, on the track NASCAR racing in any of the series.
Not that it doesn’t require skill which was proven when the NASCAR regulars joined in and had never done it before. It showed how long it takes to develop the skill. I didn’t even have a problem when they had NASCAR drivers join the regular iRacers. I did, however, have a problem when it became sort of a requirement for all, or at least most, of the regular NASCAR drivers to become iRacers. In reality, and from this fan’s opinion and viewpoint, I think they probably did it just because of the loss of revenue because of the loss of the real NASCAR racing. By bringing in the regular NASCAR drivers in larger numbers, they knew more people would watch something that they wouldn’t normally watch. To me that was a cheap shot at NASCAR fans. (Like I said, at least that’s MY opinion.)
We do live in difficult times for now and it is unfortunate that NASCAR and some of the fans of NASCAR have had knee jerk reactions to some of the decisions and things that have happened recently. I don’t criticize anyone, but all of this chaos in so many different areas and ways has caused me to lose interest in the sport that I’ve been a part of for many, many years. I also think that this is a natural progression for me and others. Losing interest has been difficult and maybe even a little hard to admit. I’m not saying I won’t continue watching and even writing about NASCAR but, I am saying it is more difficult to watch a race completely through or even write about it. I find I record more races and speed search through the most boring parts more regularly than I once did or just wait and find out who won later.
I don’t know, maybe I just need a break…
See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
© June 30, 2020 – all rights reserved
Rusty Norman, Nascarfansview.com and Justafansview.com
All audio productions by www.podcastnorm.com and PodCastNorm Productions
All music TwoBuckThemes from Mike Stewart unless otherwise stated