Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/124550
crazy Woman Driver segments will determine the running order for the final one. Except that before that segment begins, NASCAR will stage a mandatory four-tire pit stop. And the order in which the drivers return to the track will actually set the order for the restart. "We're changing the format a little bit, put a little more emphasis on all the laps and your finishes there," said NASCAR Vice President of Competition for Robin Pemberton when he announced the format changes back in February. "The crews are involved; it will make you hustle." It will also make my head hurt. CHANGING LANES My issue is this: When I watch racing, I want to see, you know, a race, not a whole bunch of unnecessary stopping. Now I admit that I'm a fan of World of Outlaws dirt-track racing, where they stage a series of heats to set up a main event. There, though, slowpokes are eliminated. Here, everybody pretty much gets to drive right into the final shootout without doing much more than staying on the lead lap. And in mere 20-lap segments, it's just has hard to go a lap down as it is to lead. Besides, those stoppages just feel like another NASCAR money grab. I might be cooler about it if there were no commercial breaks while the racing was going on, but we all know there'll 36 crazy woman driver 0513 cl.indd 2 be the usual overabundance of breaks during the action as well as during the stoppages. We got a pretty good idea of how this will go back in February at Daytona, during what NASCAR called the Sprint Unlimited – and my sides still hurt from laughing at how NASCAR called a short race with a small field "Unlimited." Anyway, that race featured previous pole winners in a race broken into three segments. The length of each segment was determined by a fan vote, which leads me to the obvious conclusion: Don't let the fans vote! Seriously, we fans as a group are idiots. Look at who we vote to win "American Idols" and "Dancing with the Stars," for goodness sakes. In racing, we consistently voted Danica Patrick as IndyCar's most popular driver despite her C-minus showing, and then we voted her the most popular driver in the Nationwide Series last year despite her D-plus performance. C'mon on, man. If we can't do any better than that, how can we be trusted to properly determine anything about a big-time car race? And since the powers that be have no idea, either, here is my gift to NASCAR: How to make the All-Star Race as fun as it ought to be. First, no fan votes for anything. The best way to engage the fan base is May 2013 // WWW.CHANGINGLANESDIGITAL.COM 4/5/13 10:53 AM