Too much of a good thing?

It is widely known that Talladega and Daytona are two of the most popular tracks in NASCAR, and the races at those tracks always get a lot of attention. This is because of the high-intensity pack racing that we see at these tracks, where the entire field has a shot to win if they play their cards right. These two tracks are also prone to huge crashes that have the potential to take 20+ people out of the race all at once. These tracks are beloved by fans, and deservedly so, they are historic, iconic, and always put on an entertaining race. However, this does not mean that we need any more of this kind of racing. That is where this past weekend comes in. Last Sunday we saw a race at the newly reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway that featured racing very similar to that of Daytona and Talladega, and that was the vision. I think adding another track of this type takes some of the uniqueness of both Atlanta and the two normal Superspeedways.

The current schedule now features 6 superspeedway races including the two Atlanta races. That is 1/6th of the entire schedule, and 5 of those races are in the regular season which is only 26 races. There is no reason to have this many races in one season of the same kind, especially superspeedway races. They should be in the schedule very rarely because of how dangerous they are and how unpredictable they can be based on all the people that have a chance to win. A perfect schedule would have at most four of these races, with other types of tracks being mixed in evenly as well.