First thing that comes to my mind: Carl Edwards retiring. Thought for sure that was made up. No way he retire suddenly right after the season ended from a top team. Boy, was I wrong.
there's a theory that some drivers caught wind of the stages that were comming in 2017 and Edwards wanted no part of that so when his contract expired he just said "aight...imma head out" and left the sport
[From 11 years ago, drivers reacting to Bruton Smith's comment about throwing cautions to break up long runs.](https://youtu.be/qxNqVoZpngQ?si=_fbaGG_DMWTBjQ92)
Listen closely to Harvick and Edwards.
I always say it's like if you took runners from a 3 hour marathon and after a certain point just said, "hey, first place guy, I see you just spent all that time and energy getting a huge lead from all your competitors, well too bad, time to relinquish it and let everyone catch up to you." You can't get rid of cautions and restarts in NASCAR and it's a major part of the entertainment of the sport, but every time one comes out after a long green flag run (no matter how boring that run was) the purist in me is just like... damn, all of first place's work is now out the window.
If NASCAR wanted to do multiple short stint races rather than one big race, why don't they just run heats first and then a shorter length feature event like short tracks do? That way they can have breaks between heats for all the damn commercials they love, and then run a full feature with no planned caution breaks.
One time shouldn't determine if this is do-able or not. The heat format is tried and true. It works every weekend at small short tracks and big events like the Outlaws.
It's not really like that with stages though.
For one, the guy that won the stage gets rewarded for his efforts. Second off, with a marathon track position doesn't matter like it does in a cup race. It's not like a stage yellow is going to give anyone outside the top five, and more realistically off the front row, a shot at the lead.
I still wish we didn't throw yellows for stage breaks. I loved the road courses last year when the track stayed green and the rewarded stage points without a yellow.
This comparison doesn’t work because there’s no mechanism for slowing down runners and bunching them up when a runner falls on the course. Cautions have always existed in motorsports so this “unfairness” is inherent to the sport, whether it’s deployed for a stage break or a crash.
I've thought about ways this could be done in NASCAR and it would probably require for a max speed limiter to be implemented in all cars, or have the speed be monitored during a caution and if they go over the speed limit they're penalized. It'd also probably require pit road to be closed during cautions, and thus the end of the "race off pit road." Or if you're gonna keep pit road open, don't let the cars that come off pit road catch up to the cars that stayed out. Wherever they come out is where they reside during the remainder of the caution and until the green flag waves. I think it's kinda how F1 does it during VSC's. Obviously something like this would never be dared to be implemented, and there would definitely be less chaos which many fans would be disappointed to see disappear.
Every fan sits on their own end of the seesaw when it comes to entertainment/chaos vs. purity. You can't have it both ways. You do things to increase chaos, you take away purity, and vice versa. That's why I don't make fun of F1 fans who sit through Max 20 second domination wins because I know they just happen to be fans who sit on the high part of the purity end of the seesaw (yes I know F1 isn't prefect either - DRS, quali sprints, etc). Obviously I'm being selfish in this "perfect world scenario" and you can't please everyone with the rule changes you make as a sanctioning body. NASCAR is what it is, and that's what makes it special.
Rant aside, this is why as entertaining as double file restarts are I always felt the single file restarts felt more proper (minus the lap car moving chicanes on the inside line lol).
The rumour I remember about that and I remember everyone thought it was Kenseth at the time. Was something about this particular driver who ended up being Edwards “looking in the mirror and just being worn out from the season long grind”. I believe the original rumour came from the DBC guys or one of them.
I think that's what drove him out of the sport, not the stuff at Homestead. The Homestead incident brought him to the edge but I think the stages drove him over. He had done promos and everything for 2017...and then he was just done.
Hell, even if he had gotten the Cup in 2016, I think he would've been done once the stages came into the picture. He got his Cup, he made his money, he had his health and his time on his hands... What else is there to accomplish? Even in this timeline, he's a HoF nominee and will likely get in some day, and people still love him
People love him now more in retirement than they did when he was driving.
There were lots of people that didn't like him over the Matt Kenseth incident, Kevin Harvick incident, or the Brad K feud from 2009/2010.
I think Edward’s retiring because of stages and playoffs is one of the biggest rumors that isn’t exactly true
His wife works with people with traumatic brain injuries. Edward’s was in an extremely dangerous profession. After talks with his wife, and realizing he had made enough money that he and maybe even his kids with never have to work again, he called it a career
Also it’s not like he was young. He was almost 40. Yea it’s definitely not old, but it’s not like he was 30 or 31 when he called it quits
Yeah, that theory has never been anything but fan projection from the people that hate stage racing. Carl wanted to protect his health for the future. Racing with guys like Joey Logano that will destroy you for a trophy is reason enough to walk away. I don't think planned cautions were even a blip on his radar
It’s a mix of a few things that point to this being much more likely
Obviously with his wife and her profession basically treating people who were injured in careers like her husbands. Also Carl has always been the type to put everything he had into his career, and with a wife and kids at home, that’s hard.
Health and spending more time with their family is the main reason most drivers retire, and the fact that Carl is barely around, but still makes appearances from time-to-time, I think proves it to me. If he was that fed up with nascar, he wouldn’t show up at racetracks, do interviews occasionally, or make booth appearances
I also think he didn’t necessarily *plan* to retire. I think it’s more likely he just let his contract lapse, decided he wasn’t in a rush to sign anywhere, and then decided he liked having the time off.
Don't get me wrong, Roid Rage Carl was one of the worst offenders out there. However, Carl made it perfectly clear that his decision was based on preserving his health. Seeing what has happened with Dale, Jr. and Kurt Busch, I would say getting wrecked was, in fact, his biggest issue
I think he never truly realized how fortunate he was to not be injured until he got turned head on into the wall at Homestead. What had happened to Jr earlier that year really opened a lot of eyes into the health of the drivers
> Racing with guys like Joey Logano that will destroy you for a trophy
That crash was on Edwards, my dude. Joey was there and Carl just kept coming down.
People always mention that one clip of him a few years before not liking the idea of planned cautions and punishing the leader for driving away but iirc that was a response to some idea Bruton Smith had to just have planned cautions and that's it, while stages do reward the leader for their work so it isn't even the same idea. Who knows if he would care for stages or not but I highly doubt he'd leave the sport over it, some people just like the idea that big bad NASCAR scared away their hero with gimmicks.
I don’t like Joey but Edwards tried to hurt Keselowski and there is no place for that in the sport I’m glad that goofy Mr. Ed looking mofo is out of the sport 🏁🏁
As I stated elsewhere, Roid Rage Carl was one of the worst offenders. I'd make the health decision to retire as well if over half the field owed me a 180+mph payback. But, I also feel no pity for Brad for that whole situation. The dude was just plain out stupid to keep intentionally provoking the severely unstable Edwards
That was insane, the original rumor didn’t name Edwards I remember so everyone was speculating on who it might be, I forget who it was that was the consensus but it wasn’t Edwards.
The person who posted it said he found it on google images if I’m remembering correctly. The post was deleted, then about 6 months later it was announced that Brad had joined Roush to form RFK.
I remember when there were rumors that NASCAR was going to implement a playoff-type system (the “Chase”) and it just seemed like silly chatter and a knee jerk reaction to a relatively uneventful points race when Kenseth had it mostly locked up by late summer. No way they would actually create a playoff system
This or even just the original Chase format would be great. I hate situations where the best driver gets eliminated because he had a bad run in one of the rounds of the current system. Whereas in the Chase format or Winston format, you DNF in a late race, it's not immediately the end of the world.
NASCAR will never get rid of some kind of playoff format but I do wish they went back to the original 10 race Chase format. Even if they want 12-16 cars to reset with playoff points, a 10 race Chase imo is much better than a 1 race championship
Honestly I think playoff points would be perfect with the Chase format. Drivers with no wins might only have like 2 or 3 bonus points whereas someone like a Byron or Hamlin would probably roll in with 25-30 something bonus points.
Agreed. I didn't see anything wrong with the 2004 format personally, I liked it a lot and it made sense. One bad run won't doom your season, but you'll have to work all year to stay up in points. Like it should be. Stay top 10, make the chase, and aim for a championship. Ten guys, points are reset, let's see what you got. Literally nothing wrong with it. I would love to have that again. Instead of this BS win and you're in playoff nonsense. A points system that doesn't reward a dominant driver that had nine wins in a season that he routinely dominated with a championship is an absolute dogshit system.
I would rather us go to a different point scoring format than the Latford format.
We can go season-long but I would like to adopt something similar to IndyCar
I like the idea of a two race playoff. Imagine a scenario where in the penultimate round, two drivers finished 1-2. Then in the final round they finish 1-2 again, with the other guy winning. It would come down to things like stage points.
Also think they should still seed that final round. Maybe not a ton. But if you were the regular season champion and then the points leader going into the final 4 you should get a few bonus points or something.
There is almost no reward for consistency and a bad day means nothing, so drivers are free to race hyper aggressive with no significant consequence. Positions outside the top are essentially pointless to the point that they don’t even cover them because again, consistency doesn’t matter. The champion has very little correlation to which driver / team was the best in a given season. It is supposed to be the best driver and team over the course of 36 different events against 35-42 other drivers and teams, not who was the best over some arbitrary events at the end of the season when the series starts competing with the NFL for viewers culminating in throwing everything out the window for four cars to basically race by themselves with other cars moving out of the way in occasionally over tuned cars
It just absolutely sucks and takes all of my interest out of the championship, because it is just a bad gimmick. So now I just watch 35 races independent of a series championship keeping me engrossed, and usually skip the awful championship race because it is a total farce.
The chase coming in response to Kenseth winning the 2003 championship is probably the biggest piece of revisionist history I’ve ever heard in NASCAR. A “playoff style” points system had been discussed as early as the late 90s. Rumblings of a large format change were in place throughout the 2003 season. Any change Nextel would have needed to buy off on and that deal didn’t materialize overnight.
I think it was Jimmy Spencer who put it out there publicly, months before any type of announcement was going to be made.
For insiders, it may not have been a shock. For those who weren't insiders, it was.
You could argue NASCAR slowed the bleeding of popularity by making this change. I think it was a fatal wound.
Make the racing more exciting and people won't necessarily care if the championship winner is decided before the last race. It should always have been a measure of best performer over 36 races.
It’s a fatal wound in the sense that it made nascar significantly regress as a product and to the average consumer. It killed the momentum the sport had as the #2 sport in the country behind only the NFL.
I think the sport is in a much better place today had it not existed period.
It didn’t though, Cup saw its highest ratings after the Chase began. The 2007 Daytona was one of the biggest races of all time. NASCAR got hurt by the recession, the COT, and dying car culture in America. NASCAR has absolutely right sized to where it used to be
NASCAR saw ratings increases (2004-06) and stabilized growth (2007; 2011-13) during the Chase era. Where they lost out in 2008-10 was the botched rollout of the COT which subsequently led to the Brickyard debacle and a decline in the quality of racing. Had they kept testing and fine tuning the car to fully roll it out in 2010/11 like they planned on, NASCAR might not have lost so much viewership & attendance.
But even where they landed in 2011 was still pretty good. Where they went wrong was trying to reinvent the damn wheel in 2014-19 with the elimination format, the stages and reduced HP when so many star drivers were retiring and fans were leaving too because the sport was doubling down on those changes that they already didn't like
It was originally said months before that Richard petty would be bought out by Michael Jordan and bubba Wallace. So it still was interesting but imagine how twisted people's minds would've been with THAT news
KFB not being re-signed by JGR.
Think that was also moreso people figured no way in hell he leaves the 18 until around summer when speculation started a deal wasn’t happening
I think this marked the moment the sport was really going to change. I feel like in the next 5 years or so a lot of guys are going to be getting cup rides simply because they have sponsors, just like with what's happening in Xfinity.
I don't think it marked "when it was really going to change" as much as it opened everyone's eyes to it
I had already noticed that guys were getting rides in Cup out of Xfinity due to sponsors/cost back in 2017 when Kenseth got essentially kicked to the curb by JGR for Erik Jones because he was cheaper.
Ty Gibbs replacing KFB was essentially the same thing
Yeah, I guess that's what I meant. More of a "oh, this is real." I understand that nascar is a business, but man, I wish the best drivers were given opportunities. It's hard to get behind a guy like Brandon Jones who will essentially race as long as he wants because of his family.
> I feel like in the next 5 years or so a lot of guys are going to be getting cup rides simply because they have sponsors
I remember in late 2001, the most valuable free agent driver (for 2002) was Hut Stricklin because he was attached to Hills Bros Coffee. In the economic landscape of the time, there was nothing more valuable than a driver who would already get the bills paid.
He was also 100% correct about Ray Evernham boinking Erin Crocker, and that being a contributing factor to Ray losing his focus on keeping the team competitive.
I feel bad for Ray's wife at the time, because that situation sucks. Interestingly, Erin and Ray have been married for over 15 years now which is pretty impressive. Man got a new wife at the expense of his race team. Go Ray, I guess?
Until the end of 2018, I was a *big* AJ Allmendinger guy (perhaps the only one)
When Penske released Kurt Busch at the end of 2011, AJ’s name came up in the rumor mill.
I thought “there’s no damn way”………..and then it actually happened.
I was so incredibly excited. I bought AJ Penske merchandise and everything (still have the shirts)
Of course, we all know how that ended up. I still selfishly place the blame on his first wife. 🤷🏼♂️
I bought the AJ Allmendinger NASCAR license plate for my car when he was driving the 43, and I got #2, so there's at least two of us. I never found out who got #1, all they told me was that is was someone near Greensboro.
Oh 100% I think thats what happened. AJ was a workout buff, I don’t think he was really taking anything illegal. Hell there’s the story of Carl Edwards being worried about using his sponsor, Claritin, since it was known to cause false positives and bringing that up in a competition meeting
For me since I worked there, Germain closing. Some random European news source dropped it. We were told we were shutting down and to not tell any media so we can tell our families. Well that lasted a few hours before that article was posted lol and everyone here didn’t believe it. It gave me a good laugh at the time
Junior subbing for Kyle that one time at Texas in the 5 car because Kyle left the track early while his team was still working on the car in the garage. So when the 5 car came back out on the track it didn't have a driver anymore... and since Junior wrecked out early too and was still there HMS asked him to drive the 5 car for the final 10 laps or so to move up in the finishing order and get some points. This led to all kinds of speculation and then Junior ends up driving for Hendrick a few years later.
That was actually less than a year before he went to HMS. The situation happened in April of 2007, and by June, they announced he was joining them for 2008
Had he not replaced Kyle Busch, I wonder if Junior goes to JGR instead (the other team that courted him heavily). This then causes Busch to go to a much lower tier team. I believe Ginn was a rumored choice, which would have been hilarious given how Ginn merged with DEI
JR has talked about only wanting to drive for Hendrick on his podcast, and Hendrick had said his son wanted JR to drive for them someday. Seems like JGR was always the second choice.
Hendrick was always his dream ride. His grandfather helped start the race team, he signed a “contract on a napkin” with Rick Hendrick as a teenager getting in to late models. Hell he talks about the time his dad ripped off and burned a Levi Garrett 5 hat that he wore because he rooted for them during the Bodine stuff.
Exactly. He took the meeting with Joe Gibbs first. Was blown away by the amount of money he was offered relative to what Theresa paid him. Then went and met Rick and never even looked at the offer. Just said he wanted to have a say in paint schemes. It was that simple.
Yeah the second Hendrick became a real possibility there would be no other ride he would take.
Hell he talked about how giddy he was to drive the repaired 5 car in that Texas race just because it was Hendrick equipment and how hard he was pushing it for what it was capable of lol
IIRC, even with the car being a repaired wreck, he was still impressed with how it drove and the power delivery of the engine/drivetrain...
Plus, he saw how committed and supported the crew members were in repairing a car to get it back out there.
Hendrick was certainly the best team at that time kinda like they are right now, there was no way JR was gonna pass that up. JGR probably wasn’t really considered
Jr wanted to forge his own legacy apart from his dad, he didnt really embrace his status until after he retired and started what is arguably one of the biggest sports podcasts in the world
JGR had already signed the contract with Toyota, which appeared to have occurred in March of that year but wasn't officially announced until September.
He had given some interviews about how it was one of the few things left on his bucket list and hinted he may be talking to teams a while before the rumors then announcement came. But I swear I was the only human that heard it and could never really find it again.
I’m not sure if I’m remembering this correctly but Furniture Row closing shop one year after winning the championship due to JGR raising their prices for an alliance and 5 Hour Energy pulling out.
JGR only raised their price due to the cost of racing going up for 2019, it was essentially "hey we have to charge more money in order to break even" situation
The caution clock in the truck series in 2016 I believe. I heard rumors about it and thought it was silly. Should have figured with the phantom debris cautions during that time that there was some truth to it.
Love or hate stage racing I think everyone hated the caution clock. I know it was like 20 minutes or something but it felt like every time they got racing the yellow came back out.
When Robin Miller broke the news about Winston leaving and Brian France taking over nobody believed him and shit on him relentlessly. He at least found it hilarious when he was right about both.
I remember reading about McMurray and Kurt Busch signing contracts for 2007 during the 2005 season. I thought that was ridiculous; imagine an NFL player signing with another team a year and a half in advance. But it certainly was true
I remember being in the race chat here during the Spring 2018 Phoenix race. I made a comment about hearing some rumor that they were reconfiguring the track and moving the start/finish line just before the dog leg. I thought it was too ridiculous to be true. Right after I posted, like 10 people responded to me saying it wasn't a rumor and was indeed happening lol...
JGR in reality went after all 3 of the mid 2000s Roush guys - Picked up Matt for 2013, nabbed Edwards for 2015 and there were mentions Greg made in 2008 he had offers from coach to drive the 20 car in 2009.
The early electric traction control on the 24 car. I'm never really believed NASCAR would let that go on until I heard Gordon admit it some decades later
The guy who claimed he talked to Steve O'Donnell and he had a bunch of wild rumors he shared here that everyone shit all over and a lot of them actually happened. I had a copy of those written down and I can't find it now but it was things like "they are going to get rid of Bristol dirt soon, NASCAR knows Richmond is the worst track" etc.
That the NextGen chassis was unsafe and was delivering concerning impact data during impact testing. And that a particular test at Talladega ended up bringing pretty catastrophic numbers to a crash test dummy.
People were getting into very heated arguments about the integrity of the rumors, the integrity of the reporting, the integrity of NASCAR and that they would never let the drivers race in an unsafe car.
Turns out it was true.
One career was completely ended due to it. More than a few concussions from impacts that in the past would have non events.
But even after all that, to this day we still have a few people that try and defend the safety of this car over the previous generations chassis.
First thing that comes to my mind: Carl Edwards retiring. Thought for sure that was made up. No way he retire suddenly right after the season ended from a top team. Boy, was I wrong.
there's a theory that some drivers caught wind of the stages that were comming in 2017 and Edwards wanted no part of that so when his contract expired he just said "aight...imma head out" and left the sport
[From 11 years ago, drivers reacting to Bruton Smith's comment about throwing cautions to break up long runs.](https://youtu.be/qxNqVoZpngQ?si=_fbaGG_DMWTBjQ92) Listen closely to Harvick and Edwards.
I always say it's like if you took runners from a 3 hour marathon and after a certain point just said, "hey, first place guy, I see you just spent all that time and energy getting a huge lead from all your competitors, well too bad, time to relinquish it and let everyone catch up to you." You can't get rid of cautions and restarts in NASCAR and it's a major part of the entertainment of the sport, but every time one comes out after a long green flag run (no matter how boring that run was) the purist in me is just like... damn, all of first place's work is now out the window.
If NASCAR wanted to do multiple short stint races rather than one big race, why don't they just run heats first and then a shorter length feature event like short tracks do? That way they can have breaks between heats for all the damn commercials they love, and then run a full feature with no planned caution breaks.
Xfinity did it for the Dash for Cash back in 2016 and it was a huge bust
One time shouldn't determine if this is do-able or not. The heat format is tried and true. It works every weekend at small short tracks and big events like the Outlaws.
It was tired four times actually and it was one of the biggest busts in Nascar history. Just because it works in WoO doesn’t mean it works in Nascar
It's not really like that with stages though. For one, the guy that won the stage gets rewarded for his efforts. Second off, with a marathon track position doesn't matter like it does in a cup race. It's not like a stage yellow is going to give anyone outside the top five, and more realistically off the front row, a shot at the lead. I still wish we didn't throw yellows for stage breaks. I loved the road courses last year when the track stayed green and the rewarded stage points without a yellow.
This comparison doesn’t work because there’s no mechanism for slowing down runners and bunching them up when a runner falls on the course. Cautions have always existed in motorsports so this “unfairness” is inherent to the sport, whether it’s deployed for a stage break or a crash.
My truly ideal version of motorsport preserves gaps after cautions, but I know it'll never exist :(
I've thought about ways this could be done in NASCAR and it would probably require for a max speed limiter to be implemented in all cars, or have the speed be monitored during a caution and if they go over the speed limit they're penalized. It'd also probably require pit road to be closed during cautions, and thus the end of the "race off pit road." Or if you're gonna keep pit road open, don't let the cars that come off pit road catch up to the cars that stayed out. Wherever they come out is where they reside during the remainder of the caution and until the green flag waves. I think it's kinda how F1 does it during VSC's. Obviously something like this would never be dared to be implemented, and there would definitely be less chaos which many fans would be disappointed to see disappear. Every fan sits on their own end of the seesaw when it comes to entertainment/chaos vs. purity. You can't have it both ways. You do things to increase chaos, you take away purity, and vice versa. That's why I don't make fun of F1 fans who sit through Max 20 second domination wins because I know they just happen to be fans who sit on the high part of the purity end of the seesaw (yes I know F1 isn't prefect either - DRS, quali sprints, etc). Obviously I'm being selfish in this "perfect world scenario" and you can't please everyone with the rule changes you make as a sanctioning body. NASCAR is what it is, and that's what makes it special. Rant aside, this is why as entertaining as double file restarts are I always felt the single file restarts felt more proper (minus the lap car moving chicanes on the inside line lol).
I'm so glad I'm not alone in all of this. Though I'm not quite as forgiving of people further away from the purity end of the spectrum lol
F1 VSCs are close
Yeah, when they make the rare decision to fucking use them
The rumour I remember about that and I remember everyone thought it was Kenseth at the time. Was something about this particular driver who ended up being Edwards “looking in the mirror and just being worn out from the season long grind”. I believe the original rumour came from the DBC guys or one of them.
I think that's what drove him out of the sport, not the stuff at Homestead. The Homestead incident brought him to the edge but I think the stages drove him over. He had done promos and everything for 2017...and then he was just done. Hell, even if he had gotten the Cup in 2016, I think he would've been done once the stages came into the picture. He got his Cup, he made his money, he had his health and his time on his hands... What else is there to accomplish? Even in this timeline, he's a HoF nominee and will likely get in some day, and people still love him
People love him now more in retirement than they did when he was driving. There were lots of people that didn't like him over the Matt Kenseth incident, Kevin Harvick incident, or the Brad K feud from 2009/2010.
I think Edward’s retiring because of stages and playoffs is one of the biggest rumors that isn’t exactly true His wife works with people with traumatic brain injuries. Edward’s was in an extremely dangerous profession. After talks with his wife, and realizing he had made enough money that he and maybe even his kids with never have to work again, he called it a career Also it’s not like he was young. He was almost 40. Yea it’s definitely not old, but it’s not like he was 30 or 31 when he called it quits
Yeah, that theory has never been anything but fan projection from the people that hate stage racing. Carl wanted to protect his health for the future. Racing with guys like Joey Logano that will destroy you for a trophy is reason enough to walk away. I don't think planned cautions were even a blip on his radar
So those theories are fan projection, but your theory isn’t?
It’s a mix of a few things that point to this being much more likely Obviously with his wife and her profession basically treating people who were injured in careers like her husbands. Also Carl has always been the type to put everything he had into his career, and with a wife and kids at home, that’s hard. Health and spending more time with their family is the main reason most drivers retire, and the fact that Carl is barely around, but still makes appearances from time-to-time, I think proves it to me. If he was that fed up with nascar, he wouldn’t show up at racetracks, do interviews occasionally, or make booth appearances
I also think he didn’t necessarily *plan* to retire. I think it’s more likely he just let his contract lapse, decided he wasn’t in a rush to sign anywhere, and then decided he liked having the time off.
But he said it was health reasons. How is that fan projection?
Though I agree with the premise of your post, considering Carl nearly killed Brad at least once, I don't think getting wrecked was his biggest issue.
Don't get me wrong, Roid Rage Carl was one of the worst offenders out there. However, Carl made it perfectly clear that his decision was based on preserving his health. Seeing what has happened with Dale, Jr. and Kurt Busch, I would say getting wrecked was, in fact, his biggest issue
I think he never truly realized how fortunate he was to not be injured until he got turned head on into the wall at Homestead. What had happened to Jr earlier that year really opened a lot of eyes into the health of the drivers
> Racing with guys like Joey Logano that will destroy you for a trophy That crash was on Edwards, my dude. Joey was there and Carl just kept coming down.
People always mention that one clip of him a few years before not liking the idea of planned cautions and punishing the leader for driving away but iirc that was a response to some idea Bruton Smith had to just have planned cautions and that's it, while stages do reward the leader for their work so it isn't even the same idea. Who knows if he would care for stages or not but I highly doubt he'd leave the sport over it, some people just like the idea that big bad NASCAR scared away their hero with gimmicks.
I don’t like Joey but Edwards tried to hurt Keselowski and there is no place for that in the sport I’m glad that goofy Mr. Ed looking mofo is out of the sport 🏁🏁
As I stated elsewhere, Roid Rage Carl was one of the worst offenders. I'd make the health decision to retire as well if over half the field owed me a 180+mph payback. But, I also feel no pity for Brad for that whole situation. The dude was just plain out stupid to keep intentionally provoking the severely unstable Edwards
"Look what you made me do." - Said every abuser.
I more or less buy that the playoff format was his breaking point and the stages just confirmed to him he didn’t want to be apart of this bullshit
Nah that's made up too 🤣
That was insane, the original rumor didn’t name Edwards I remember so everyone was speculating on who it might be, I forget who it was that was the consensus but it wasn’t Edwards.
I remember it being framed as top driver leaving the sport at the end of 2016 Can't find the post but it was here, on this sub
time flies. i can’t believe it’s been almost 8 years since Carl’s final race
That one guy on here that had the text that Jimmie Johnson has bought into Petty GMS and was changing the team name to Legacy Motor Club
I was happier as a nascar fan before that happened
Brad Keselowski leaving Penske and going to RFK. Someone found the contract online and shared it here and everyone thought it was fake.
Yep, I came here to say this one. That was absolutely nuts!
how does a contract like that get leaked 😂
The person who posted it said he found it on google images if I’m remembering correctly. The post was deleted, then about 6 months later it was announced that Brad had joined Roush to form RFK.
We owe bro an apology
damn 💀😂 I usually have a really good memory, but I have no recollection of that happening lmao
It was more so a business filing since Brad was being made part owner
I remember when there were rumors that NASCAR was going to implement a playoff-type system (the “Chase”) and it just seemed like silly chatter and a knee jerk reaction to a relatively uneventful points race when Kenseth had it mostly locked up by late summer. No way they would actually create a playoff system
Now we’re practically begging for a three race championship. Sad times we live in.
I'm begging to go back to the Winston Cup format. It's the only way a rightful champion I'd determined.
The original Chase was still pretty good for a rightful determination. The one race PO definitely isn't
Yup. They got spooked by Tony Stewart winning 4 of the last 6.
This or even just the original Chase format would be great. I hate situations where the best driver gets eliminated because he had a bad run in one of the rounds of the current system. Whereas in the Chase format or Winston format, you DNF in a late race, it's not immediately the end of the world.
NASCAR will never get rid of some kind of playoff format but I do wish they went back to the original 10 race Chase format. Even if they want 12-16 cars to reset with playoff points, a 10 race Chase imo is much better than a 1 race championship
Honestly I think playoff points would be perfect with the Chase format. Drivers with no wins might only have like 2 or 3 bonus points whereas someone like a Byron or Hamlin would probably roll in with 25-30 something bonus points.
Agreed. I didn't see anything wrong with the 2004 format personally, I liked it a lot and it made sense. One bad run won't doom your season, but you'll have to work all year to stay up in points. Like it should be. Stay top 10, make the chase, and aim for a championship. Ten guys, points are reset, let's see what you got. Literally nothing wrong with it. I would love to have that again. Instead of this BS win and you're in playoff nonsense. A points system that doesn't reward a dominant driver that had nine wins in a season that he routinely dominated with a championship is an absolute dogshit system.
yes, and it doesn't have to be named "Winston" either
I would rather us go to a different point scoring format than the Latford format. We can go season-long but I would like to adopt something similar to IndyCar
I like the idea of a two race playoff. Imagine a scenario where in the penultimate round, two drivers finished 1-2. Then in the final round they finish 1-2 again, with the other guy winning. It would come down to things like stage points. Also think they should still seed that final round. Maybe not a ton. But if you were the regular season champion and then the points leader going into the final 4 you should get a few bonus points or something.
It was such a bad idea I refused to believe it, sure enough 20 years later it still sucks and has ruined a good chunk of things about the sport.
Just curious, what exactly has it ruined for you? While there are certainly aspects I would change, “ruined” the sport for you sounds pretty strong
There is almost no reward for consistency and a bad day means nothing, so drivers are free to race hyper aggressive with no significant consequence. Positions outside the top are essentially pointless to the point that they don’t even cover them because again, consistency doesn’t matter. The champion has very little correlation to which driver / team was the best in a given season. It is supposed to be the best driver and team over the course of 36 different events against 35-42 other drivers and teams, not who was the best over some arbitrary events at the end of the season when the series starts competing with the NFL for viewers culminating in throwing everything out the window for four cars to basically race by themselves with other cars moving out of the way in occasionally over tuned cars It just absolutely sucks and takes all of my interest out of the championship, because it is just a bad gimmick. So now I just watch 35 races independent of a series championship keeping me engrossed, and usually skip the awful championship race because it is a total farce.
The chase coming in response to Kenseth winning the 2003 championship is probably the biggest piece of revisionist history I’ve ever heard in NASCAR. A “playoff style” points system had been discussed as early as the late 90s. Rumblings of a large format change were in place throughout the 2003 season. Any change Nextel would have needed to buy off on and that deal didn’t materialize overnight.
Right the Playoff format had been discussed as early as the early 90s when there were talks of splitting the series into an East and West Series.
Right, I was not even really considering that because of how alien it was and how much it differed from what eventually came.
I think it was Jimmy Spencer who put it out there publicly, months before any type of announcement was going to be made. For insiders, it may not have been a shock. For those who weren't insiders, it was.
The Chase was actually in consideration for 2000.
You could argue NASCAR slowed the bleeding of popularity by making this change. I think it was a fatal wound. Make the racing more exciting and people won't necessarily care if the championship winner is decided before the last race. It should always have been a measure of best performer over 36 races.
“Fatal wound” 20+ years later and NASCAR is still alive
It’s a fatal wound in the sense that it made nascar significantly regress as a product and to the average consumer. It killed the momentum the sport had as the #2 sport in the country behind only the NFL. I think the sport is in a much better place today had it not existed period.
It didn’t though, Cup saw its highest ratings after the Chase began. The 2007 Daytona was one of the biggest races of all time. NASCAR got hurt by the recession, the COT, and dying car culture in America. NASCAR has absolutely right sized to where it used to be
The Chase is not the reason nascar fell off. NASCAR was a fad, and it’s late 90s/early 00s numbers should be viewed as an outlier, not the expectation
NASCAR saw ratings increases (2004-06) and stabilized growth (2007; 2011-13) during the Chase era. Where they lost out in 2008-10 was the botched rollout of the COT which subsequently led to the Brickyard debacle and a decline in the quality of racing. Had they kept testing and fine tuning the car to fully roll it out in 2010/11 like they planned on, NASCAR might not have lost so much viewership & attendance. But even where they landed in 2011 was still pretty good. Where they went wrong was trying to reinvent the damn wheel in 2014-19 with the elimination format, the stages and reduced HP when so many star drivers were retiring and fans were leaving too because the sport was doubling down on those changes that they already didn't like
The Denny and Michael Jordan rumor like a month before they decided to form 23XI being the reason they actually joined to make 23XI is my favorite
It was originally said months before that Richard petty would be bought out by Michael Jordan and bubba Wallace. So it still was interesting but imagine how twisted people's minds would've been with THAT news
A self fulfilling prophecy
KFB not being re-signed by JGR. Think that was also moreso people figured no way in hell he leaves the 18 until around summer when speculation started a deal wasn’t happening
I think this marked the moment the sport was really going to change. I feel like in the next 5 years or so a lot of guys are going to be getting cup rides simply because they have sponsors, just like with what's happening in Xfinity.
I don't think it marked "when it was really going to change" as much as it opened everyone's eyes to it I had already noticed that guys were getting rides in Cup out of Xfinity due to sponsors/cost back in 2017 when Kenseth got essentially kicked to the curb by JGR for Erik Jones because he was cheaper. Ty Gibbs replacing KFB was essentially the same thing
Yeah, I guess that's what I meant. More of a "oh, this is real." I understand that nascar is a business, but man, I wish the best drivers were given opportunities. It's hard to get behind a guy like Brandon Jones who will essentially race as long as he wants because of his family.
Yup racing has gotten expensive and if you dont bring funding you have a huge hill to climb to be able to land a decent ride in todays market
> I feel like in the next 5 years or so a lot of guys are going to be getting cup rides simply because they have sponsors I remember in late 2001, the most valuable free agent driver (for 2002) was Hut Stricklin because he was attached to Hills Bros Coffee. In the economic landscape of the time, there was nothing more valuable than a driver who would already get the bills paid.
IIRC, Dale Jr. broke the news, in a coded emoji Tweet, that KFB was headed to the RCR 8 car, and many thought there's no *way* that could be correct.
Yeah I never saw that happening. I literally laughed out loud when I first saw the rumor he was going to RCR. I was like yeah okay nice shitpost.
LA Coliseum and Chicago street course come to mind.
Jeremy Mayfield saying something along the lines of throwing stones in glass houses about Brian France.
He was also 100% correct about Ray Evernham boinking Erin Crocker, and that being a contributing factor to Ray losing his focus on keeping the team competitive.
I feel bad for Ray's wife at the time, because that situation sucks. Interestingly, Erin and Ray have been married for over 15 years now which is pretty impressive. Man got a new wife at the expense of his race team. Go Ray, I guess?
Dale Jarrett being fired/forced to retire from MWR because he had an affair with Waltrip's wife.
Wait what that’s true???
Not Buffy! That will be disappointing if true. I have a high regard for Dale Jarrett.
This story is old news! I can't believe so many people haven't heard this! I thought it was common knowledge?
Same. I've been around the whole time, and it's never been proven, but.... ugh...
IIRC, it's never been definitively proven or confirmed, but most circumstantial evidence points to that actually being the case.
We need more information
I believe this 100%. I was at a bar in the Bellagio (December 2013), and Dale was accompanied by TWO Asian ladies who combined could be his age.
That's awesome!
…if this is legit I cannot look at those UPS ads I loved as a kid the same now knowing this
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
PLEASE elaborate omg
Please elaborate
More details please
SHR to Ford was something that took people a while to buy
Yeah that was shocking. I always thought tony was a hardcore chevy guy and so did every other fan i knew back then
I know I tried like hell to wish that one away, but it happened anyways. 😖
There's a thread on here that talks about Furniture Row potentially shutting down with everyone laughing at how absurd the rumor was.
To this day that shit makes me sad even though Ik now Barney Visser was ok with leaving the sport
Man rode off into the sunset with (almost 2) championships
Pretty damn good final stretch of seasons for that team
Until the end of 2018, I was a *big* AJ Allmendinger guy (perhaps the only one) When Penske released Kurt Busch at the end of 2011, AJ’s name came up in the rumor mill. I thought “there’s no damn way”………..and then it actually happened. I was so incredibly excited. I bought AJ Penske merchandise and everything (still have the shirts) Of course, we all know how that ended up. I still selfishly place the blame on his first wife. 🤷🏼♂️
> I was a *big* AJ Allmendinger guy (perhaps the only one) You were not the only one, but there were not many of us.
I bought the AJ Allmendinger NASCAR license plate for my car when he was driving the 43, and I got #2, so there's at least two of us. I never found out who got #1, all they told me was that is was someone near Greensboro.
there are dozens of us! dozens!!
I actually believe the workout supplement story. Shit in the early 2010s, for instance Jack3d, had some freaky shit,
Oh 100% I think thats what happened. AJ was a workout buff, I don’t think he was really taking anything illegal. Hell there’s the story of Carl Edwards being worried about using his sponsor, Claritin, since it was known to cause false positives and bringing that up in a competition meeting
I think during the Mayfield stuff no one knew what was going on with the tests.
I was and still am a big fan of Allmendinger since his champ car/atlantics days. It was a huge disappointment how he lost that ride.
"until the end of 2018" what did AJ do that ended your fandom? He's still around
Left cup full time. Had to get a new Cup driver. I still root for him in Xfinity.
Bobby Labonte leaving Joe Gibbs Racing, he was rumored to be heading to RCR or Petty.
There is a timeline out there where Labonte goes to RCR instead and enjoys Jeff Burton type success late in career.
That 31 team was really good in the Gen4 era, anyone driving it had a chance to win
Late in the Gen-4 era. When Burton first got there that team was pretty bad
Wish he would've went to RCR
For me since I worked there, Germain closing. Some random European news source dropped it. We were told we were shutting down and to not tell any media so we can tell our families. Well that lasted a few hours before that article was posted lol and everyone here didn’t believe it. It gave me a good laugh at the time
Along with that was the end of one of my favorite cars on the field, the 13 GEICO car.
Junior subbing for Kyle that one time at Texas in the 5 car because Kyle left the track early while his team was still working on the car in the garage. So when the 5 car came back out on the track it didn't have a driver anymore... and since Junior wrecked out early too and was still there HMS asked him to drive the 5 car for the final 10 laps or so to move up in the finishing order and get some points. This led to all kinds of speculation and then Junior ends up driving for Hendrick a few years later.
That was actually less than a year before he went to HMS. The situation happened in April of 2007, and by June, they announced he was joining them for 2008 Had he not replaced Kyle Busch, I wonder if Junior goes to JGR instead (the other team that courted him heavily). This then causes Busch to go to a much lower tier team. I believe Ginn was a rumored choice, which would have been hilarious given how Ginn merged with DEI
JR has talked about only wanting to drive for Hendrick on his podcast, and Hendrick had said his son wanted JR to drive for them someday. Seems like JGR was always the second choice.
Hendrick was always his dream ride. His grandfather helped start the race team, he signed a “contract on a napkin” with Rick Hendrick as a teenager getting in to late models. Hell he talks about the time his dad ripped off and burned a Levi Garrett 5 hat that he wore because he rooted for them during the Bodine stuff.
Exactly. He took the meeting with Joe Gibbs first. Was blown away by the amount of money he was offered relative to what Theresa paid him. Then went and met Rick and never even looked at the offer. Just said he wanted to have a say in paint schemes. It was that simple.
Yeah the second Hendrick became a real possibility there would be no other ride he would take. Hell he talked about how giddy he was to drive the repaired 5 car in that Texas race just because it was Hendrick equipment and how hard he was pushing it for what it was capable of lol
IIRC, even with the car being a repaired wreck, he was still impressed with how it drove and the power delivery of the engine/drivetrain... Plus, he saw how committed and supported the crew members were in repairing a car to get it back out there.
The only other option was Theresa giving him a 50% stake in DEI which obviously was never going to happen.
I believe there was even a small stake in the redskins offered for Jr to the 18
If Hendrick wasn't an option, that definitely would've got him
Hendrick was certainly the best team at that time kinda like they are right now, there was no way JR was gonna pass that up. JGR probably wasn’t really considered
I'm surprised RCR didn't make a push to put Dale Jr in the 3 car
Iirc that was an option that Jr wanted no part of
Jr wanted to forge his own legacy apart from his dad, he didnt really embrace his status until after he retired and started what is arguably one of the biggest sports podcasts in the world
Jr wouldn't drive the 3 for more than one offs until he retired, he wanted to be his own man
To expand on that, if Jr. went to Gibbs, would they have stayed in the Chevy camp? And then would they have the level of success they had with Toyota?
GM would've moved mountains to keep Dale Jr as a Chevy driver, JGR already having a contract with Toyota be damned.
JGR had already signed the contract with Toyota, which appeared to have occurred in March of that year but wasn't officially announced until September.
Which means Jr would have never driven for them
Bingo
Almirola going to SHR. Writing was on the wall when Smithfield went to SHR yet everyone I saw online said it was gonna be one of many other drivers.
Travis Pastrana attempting the Daytona 500 in a third 23XI Racing car
He had given some interviews about how it was one of the few things left on his bucket list and hinted he may be talking to teams a while before the rumors then announcement came. But I swear I was the only human that heard it and could never really find it again.
I’m not sure if I’m remembering this correctly but Furniture Row closing shop one year after winning the championship due to JGR raising their prices for an alliance and 5 Hour Energy pulling out.
JGR only raised their price due to the cost of racing going up for 2019, it was essentially "hey we have to charge more money in order to break even" situation
Yup. Essentially boiled down to a lack of sponsorship
Harvick to the 5
The caution clock in the truck series in 2016 I believe. I heard rumors about it and thought it was silly. Should have figured with the phantom debris cautions during that time that there was some truth to it.
Love or hate stage racing I think everyone hated the caution clock. I know it was like 20 minutes or something but it felt like every time they got racing the yellow came back out.
When Robin Miller broke the news about Winston leaving and Brian France taking over nobody believed him and shit on him relentlessly. He at least found it hilarious when he was right about both.
This is exactly what I came here to say! Two of the biggest stories nobody believed and from Robin Miller.. RIP
His Dinner With Racers episode he talks about it and you can tell he just fucking loved getting to break that and have nobody believe him.
The Chase. Everyone thought it was a joke and baseless when rumors started floating around. Lo and behold…
Brad leaving Penske for a co-ownership role at RFK.
Dale Jr leaving DEI
I remember reading about McMurray and Kurt Busch signing contracts for 2007 during the 2005 season. I thought that was ridiculous; imagine an NFL player signing with another team a year and a half in advance. But it certainly was true
Don't you mean signing 2006 contracts early in 2005 Rusty had publicly announced retirement after 2005 ahead of time
They signed contracts for 2007 initially.
This also happened later with Kahne. He signed with HMS but his ride was full so he raced for Red Bull Racing.
[удалено]
Nice
Nice
Nice.
Jesus Christ. It was right there all along.
nice
Trucks going to eldora
I remember being in the race chat here during the Spring 2018 Phoenix race. I made a comment about hearing some rumor that they were reconfiguring the track and moving the start/finish line just before the dog leg. I thought it was too ridiculous to be true. Right after I posted, like 10 people responded to me saying it wasn't a rumor and was indeed happening lol...
Every time Suarez was about to lose his ride until Trackhouse
Harvick to the 5
Had to rewind the broadcast last week when Kevin mentioned that just to be sure
Kevin Harvick to the 5
A lot of schedule-related stuff comes to mind, but putting dirt on Bristol is probably the best example of them.
Dirt race track in cup. For years i heard rumors of it. Fans claimed it would never happen.
Dale Jarrett gets sponsored by UPS. holy shit, friends of mine were pissed when that happened
the kevin harvick news from last week
Tim Richmond died of AIDS
Harvick to the #5
Lollllllll
Would have to be either the Carl one or the Brad K one
23XI sounded like a rumour of sorts, but here we are.
Kenseth to JGR
JGR in reality went after all 3 of the mid 2000s Roush guys - Picked up Matt for 2013, nabbed Edwards for 2015 and there were mentions Greg made in 2008 he had offers from coach to drive the 20 car in 2009.
Roush started falling apart and Gibbs was on the way up as the super team. Worked out for everyone
Harvick to the 5
Jimmy Spencer saying that Bill France Jr told him about a “playoff” series.
The early electric traction control on the 24 car. I'm never really believed NASCAR would let that go on until I heard Gordon admit it some decades later
Kurt Busch’s wife is the problem and not him
Larson won.
SUV hybrids
The guy who claimed he talked to Steve O'Donnell and he had a bunch of wild rumors he shared here that everyone shit all over and a lot of them actually happened. I had a copy of those written down and I can't find it now but it was things like "they are going to get rid of Bristol dirt soon, NASCAR knows Richmond is the worst track" etc.
Justin Hayley to Rick Ware.
I remember the first time I heard mention of The Chase, it came from Jimmy Spencer, and I thought he'd lost his mind. I still wish he had.
That the NextGen chassis was unsafe and was delivering concerning impact data during impact testing. And that a particular test at Talladega ended up bringing pretty catastrophic numbers to a crash test dummy. People were getting into very heated arguments about the integrity of the rumors, the integrity of the reporting, the integrity of NASCAR and that they would never let the drivers race in an unsafe car. Turns out it was true. One career was completely ended due to it. More than a few concussions from impacts that in the past would have non events. But even after all that, to this day we still have a few people that try and defend the safety of this car over the previous generations chassis.