TC played the ‘NASCAR homer’ in his post yesterday, so I figured I’d balance out the week and criticize NASCAR today.
The Truck Series is making their Pocono debut this weekend and you can count me among those not excited. In fact I’m a little irritated the sanctioning body added this event to the schedule (though I’m excited for Darlington).
For a long time around here I’ve been making the argument that the Truck Series needs a purpose – desperately. It lies somewhere in between the Friday night show and the senior tour. It’s fun to watch, but in the grander scheme of the sport it doesn’t really have much value.
Personally I’d like to see the sport take up something resembling the role it had when it debuted back in 1995: tough trucks with tough drivers and rough racing on short tracks in areas that don’t normally get big time NASCAR racing. I digress.
Pocono is just not the right place for the series. How many have you have watched an ARCA race at Pocono? It’s a miserable experience. You spend a good portion of the race under caution because half the field has wrecked; when they finally do race, it’s follow the leader.
Guess what you can expect from the Trucks on Saturday? The same thing. With Denny Hamlin, and Kasey Kahne in the field, I think it’s probably a good bet that it’s not going to be a great race for the series regulars. On top of that, it’s Pocono.
Sure they’re changing the qualifying procedure, but really do many of you watch Truck Series qualifying? Do you care?
I don’t mean to be down on this, really. The Poconos are beautiful and there really is a great fan base up there. It’s just that the track doesn’t generally provide for much excitement.
Perhaps this thing will be successful. I hope for the sake of the series it is. But given the less than spectacular history of Pocono, and a field that includes two Cup Series regulars (and Pocono vets), I’m putting my money on it being a boring race, with a Cup driver winning.
Series Director Wayne Auton is very excited for this. I guess that’s a good thing – at least somebody is.
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