The Frontstretch: Side by Side: New Bristol vs. Old Bristol by Jeff Meyer and Kurt Smith -- Thursday March 18, 2010

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Side by Side: New Bristol vs. Old Bristol

Jeff Meyer and Kurt Smith · Thursday March 18, 2010

 

Editor’s Note: The following is a special edition of Frontstretch’s Side By Side. Occasionally throughout the season, two of your favorite Frontstretch writers will duke it out in a debate concerning one of NASCAR’s biggest stories. Don’t let us be the only ones to speak our minds, though… be sure to read both sides and let us know what you think about the situation in the comment section below!

Today’s Question: With the recent changes made at Bristol the last few years, do you prefer the racing at the old or new configuration?

Gimme the NEW Bristol any day!
By Jeff Meyer

Once again, the argument that started immediately after the 2007 Sharpie 500, (the aftermath of which found me offering my resignation from this very site by the way… rejected, obviously!) rears its ugly head. That argument is simple: which Bristol configuration produces the best racing? The old or the new?

Now, since I have fought this battle before, and with an infinitely bigger foe than my esteemed colleague this time (zing!), I jumped at the chance to do it again. Why? Because during the last decade, I have attended all but three of the August night races, not as a member of the media, but as a fan! While media membership has its perks, the biggest drawback is the choice of beverages my editors let me choose from whilst “working.” Never one to ruffle anyone’s feathers, I opt to view this race on MY terms and leave the “work” to someone else.

Another reason I have chosen this fight is because I have argued it before in my weekly column and it is easier to “copy and paste” from past articles than it is to come up with fancy new stuff! I mean, you can’t plagiarize yourself, can you? Of course I tweaked and updated a little, but still, why screw up something that was good to begin with!

At any rate, while my differing opinion has not altered in the slightest, again I have decided to take a different approach. A more scientific one, if you will, that will let you draw your own conclusions. You will have to decide for yourself whether you like racing, or a brightly colored parade of cars.

Bristol has always provided some of the best races on the circuit, but after recent changes, has the track lost its luster?

The following is a statistical comparison of the last eleven races at BMS, keeping in mind that the most recent five are the ones since it has been resurfaced. Key points to focus on, in my opinion, are number of cautions and laps under caution (C/L), pole speed (PS), average race speed (ARS), and margin of victory (MoV). Time of race in hours/minutes (ToR) is also listed. So, without further ado…

’09 Sharpie 500: C/L: 11-76 PS: 124.4 ARS: 84.82 MoV: .098 sec ToR: 3:08

’09 Food City 500: C/L: 9-58 PS: 125.7 ARS: 92.13 MoV: .391 sec. ToR: 2:54

’08 Sharpie 500: C/L: 5-56 PS: 121.8 ARS: 91.58 MoV: 1.96 sec. ToR: 2:54

’08 Food City 500: C/L: 10-68 PS: n/a (rain) ARS: 89.77 MoV: .58 sec. ToR: 3:00

’07 Sharpie 500: C/L: 9-61 PS: 119.8 ARS: 89.00 MoV: 1.4 sec. ToR: 2:59

(Before re-surface)

’07 Food City 500: C/L: 15-90 PS: 125.4 ARS: 81.9 MoV: .064 sec. ToR: 3:16

’06 Sharpie 500: C/L: 10-62 PS: 124.9 ARS: 90.02 MoV: .591 sec. ToR: 2:57

’06 Food City 500: C/L: 18-104 PS: n/a (rain) ARS: 79.4 MoV: .179 sec. ToR: 3:21

’05 Sharpie 500: C/L: 16-88 PS: 127.3 ARS: 84.6 MoV: .511 sec. ToR: 3:08

’05 Food City 500: C/L: 14-115 PS: 127.7 ARS: 77.49 MoV: 4.65 sec. ToR: 3:26

’04 Sharpie 500: C/L: 9-63 PS: 9-63 PS: 128.52 ARS: 88.5 MoV: 4.39 sec. ToR: 3:00

As you can see from the data, not much has really changed. Since the re-surfacing, the pole speeds have come down, but the average race speed has gone up! Cautions and resulting laps have been reduced, resulting in – hold on to your hats – MORE RACING! Plus, you get to see cars RACE in the corners.

When I saw that first race after the track was re-banked, I was utterly amazed! To actually see the drivers RACE through the corners…having the OPTION to run low, mid, or high, truly let the race live up to the track slogan… “racin’ the way it oughta be”! Trust me, nothing is more boring than watching a 500-lap race in which sometimes, almost a full quarter of it is run under caution.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I too liked the old Bristol, with its patented and often violent punt and run… but it was all I had known. What good is severe banking on a race track if all you can competitively run at is the bottom!? Might as well take them out and have another Martinsville! No, Bristol is banked for a reason – at least now the drivers can USE the banks. You still have the close quarter bumping and grinding that Bristol inevitably produces, but the difference is, you get to see ‘em race as the title of this segment suggests…Side by Side!!! Who doesn’t like that?

The one drawback that I can see is the race time duration. Less time to consume beverages! Oh, well; I guess you can’t have your beer and drink it too!

Bristol Ain’t What it Once Was
By Kurt Smith

NASCAR fans and critics these days want more emotion, more passion, less Jimmie Johnson. And in the past, Bristol could outright bring it like no other venue. (It’s even one of the few places where the No. 48 team hasn’t won.)

Then came the Chase, the new NASCARmobile, and the resurfacing.

I didn’t think much of Matt Kenseth’s spanking the field in the 2005 Bristol night race. It was great to see the No. 17 team fight their way into the playoffs after a miserable first half of the season. When Kenseth won it again the following year, it still didn’t occur to me that something was amiss when one of the sport’s smoothest drivers was acing one of the roughest races on the schedule.

Then, in 2007, watching NASCAR drivers race each other so gentlemanly in the eye of the Thunder Valley storm, it hit me.

They’re points racing.

Of course NASCAR didn’t mean for it to happen, just as they didn’t mean for Brad Keselowski to go airborne when they told the boys to have at it. But a playoff that rewards points racing looming over the horizon has surgically removed the heart of what made Bristol great.

Think of Jeff Gordon putting the bumper on Rusty Wallace, or Dale Earnhardt rattling Terry Labonte’s cage. Maybe those highlights didn’t make you a fan of Earnhardt or Gordon. But people remember those take-no-prisoners moments. Do you think Gordon — or even Earnhardt — would have put it on the line and risked a retaliation DNF for a win while facing the prospect of missing the playoffs? Missing a Chase is embarrassing enough; for a former champion, it isn’t worth the risk.

With the Chase field decided just two races after Bristol, there are often a dozen drivers who are either barely above the cutoff or on the outside looking in, making everyone else in the field wary of ending a bubble driver’s evening. Kyle Busch and Mark Martin had a decent battle last year, but both were fighting for a playoff spot over anything else, and as a result were careful enough to not risk a wreck going for the once-coveted Bristol night race win.

Martin may have been a gentleman and raced Busch hard and clean, but the situation dictated it no matter who was behind the wheel. Put another driver in the No. 5, out of the championship hunt and with nothing to lose, and we might have seen a finish to talk about for years.

Add to this dilemma a spec car, which by definition makes passing difficult, with an air dam that makes drafting easy but passing near impossible. Figure in repaving that makes for multiple grooves, and the sum is moments like the Kasey Kahne-Michael Waltrip battle of 2007. Despite being two laps down, Waltrip raced harder than anyone had seen him race in recent memory, holding off Kahne for nearly twenty laps — in the middle of the race.

Imagine Waltrip trying that against Tony Stewart, with only one groove on the racetrack. I expect Kahne’s fans weren’t too happy about it. But more to the point, how does a driver two laps down hold off the leader like that?

The answer is that no one car is ever vastly superior to another these days, and that more grooves in the track make ultimately meaningless battles less risky.

After the first race at Thunder Valley following the resurfacing in 2007 — with four drivers on the bubble and three with still a realistic shot at the playoffs — it seemed as though all of the drivers were ready to hug each other and sing Kumbaya. You know a Bristol race just isn’t as entertaining when everyone is smiling in post-race interviews. Never before were long green runs so frequent.

Some people prefer the new Bristol, where passing on the outside is possible and drivers no longer need to use the chrome horn to pass a stubborn competitor. And that’s OK. Resurfacing a track is unfortunately sometimes necessary. But in stock car racing, “beatin’ and bangin’” may be the most complimentary phrase that can be associated with a racetrack. A half-mile racetrack plus one groove equals beatin’, bangin’, and “have at it, boys.” It makes for great duel after great duel at Martinsville, and it used to at Bristol, too.

Bristol still offers great racing. It’s still one of the sport’s best arenas. The sport has lost too many short tracks.

But I miss the days when the Bristol night race win was one of the biggest of the year, and drivers moved other drivers out of the way for it… because they had to.

Contact Jeff Meyer
Contact Kurt Smith

 

©2000 - 2008 Jeff Meyer and Kurt Smith and Frontstetch.com. Thanks for visiting the Frontstretch!

Sean
03/18/2010 03:44 AM
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I don’t find Kurt’s argument persuasive as most of his argument seems to be criticizing points racing. To fix that, dump the chase and come up with a real points system that rewards winning, what many people have been saying for years. Don’t say the modern configuration is bad just because people are points racing there, because the awful points system is the reason they’re points racing, not the track surface.

As someone who hates the puntathons that Bristol races used to be, I MUCH prefer running side-to-side and races with fewer cautions. They seem much purer to me…

Sal
03/18/2010 07:24 AM
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One the ‘Chase’ came into being, the racing at Bristol changed. It became MIS with traffic…that politely got out of the way. The intensity was gone. Bristol used to be one of the few unique tracks left, and the ‘chase’ and COT managed to turn it into a shrunken 1 1/2 mile track with racing typical of those tracks. This year I didn’t renew my season tickets to Bristol. something I never thought would happen. If I wanted to watch racing like that, I can drive 2 hours to MIS instead of 12 to Bristol. I never thought the day would come when Bristol was just…run of the mill. I’m sure the track is hoping that extending the SAFER barrier and narrowing the track will bring back some of the ‘Racing the way it aught to be’ back. One can only hope.

24Crazy
03/18/2010 10:28 AM
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Well said about BMS Sal, though I must say MIS is a much better race to watch in person than what the tv stations choose to show you.

The Mad Man
03/18/2010 01:37 PM
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I saw the first race at Bristol with the new car and it was before the reconfiguration. I had a hard time staying awake as did a number of fans around me. Even if they had kept the old configuration, the races would still have been a snooze fest because of the car. Give us something that actually looks like the street counterparts, dump that grasscutter on the front, dump the play-off system, get a points system that rewards wins instead of points racing, and let them have at it.

Kevin in SoCal
03/18/2010 01:55 PM
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Yeah, sorry Kurt but you went too far off-topic. I agree with Jeff, in that two-wide racing is much better than follow the leader on the bottom racing. The bump and run wrecks at Bristol were always spectacular, but that’s not why I tune in to watch.
Fontana is a much better race to watch in person than what the TV shows us, too. LOL

Jeff M. FS Staff
03/18/2010 02:38 PM
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Quick note here…the Poll, as it reads now, is a bit misleading. There is NO asphalt on the race track at Bristol. Aprons and pit lane, yes, but the none on the track itself! The track remains concrete as before. All they did was graduate the banking in the turns. The track is still all concrete.

Bad Wolf
03/18/2010 02:51 PM
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They put a stake through the heart of Bristol and all the point-counterpoint will not change the fact that one more Nascar standard has met it’s demise. I’m glad I was around for the real deal, and all the newbies can have the “improved” plastic banana Bristol.

M.B. Voelker
03/18/2010 06:34 PM
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If Jeff Myer can quote himself so can I. This is what I wrote about that first “new” Bristol race and I see no reason to change my opinion.

“If you didn’t like watching Kyle, Jimmie, and Denny fight each other AND the desperate lapped traffic on Sunday,

If you didn’t appreciate Jimmie’s masterful use of said lapped traffic as a pick,

If you didn’t find sufficient intensity in Travis Kvapil’s desperate attempt to, in the words of a friend on another internet site, “Make his car as wide as Ryan Newman’s,” while fighting for track position, sponsorship, and his very job,

If you didn’t find hard-core competitive determination in Kyle Busch’s willingness to apply the bumper to his own teammate (and close friend), Denny Hamlin,

If you didn’t like seeing cars thread the needle 3-wide for position,

If you didn’t love the way that, every time the leader got away a little he’d encounter slower cars desperately racing side-by-side and the second and third place cars would be right back on his bumper again,

If you didn’t like the racing at Bristol on Sunday then you simply don’t like stock car racing because that sort of side-by-side competition in the tight confines of heavy traffic is the very heart of what stock car racing IS.

Sunday evening I dared the Bristol whiners on two active message boards to tell me just what, short of a demolition derby followed by a bare-knuckle boxing match, would have satisfied them.

Nobody has been able to do it – because the complainers break down into two, equally impossible to please groups. First, the driver groupies for whom all races are boring if the wrong driver wins. Second, the ones who, despite their strenuous denials, want to see wrecks.

A Nascar demolition derby would make a fine charity event. But they went to Bristol for a race and that’s exactly what we fans got to see.”

fasteddy
03/18/2010 09:25 PM
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After 12yrs of seasons tickets…I could not go back to what was left of Bristol. The perfect storm of resurface and boring racecars made thunder valley a memory….very sad.

Jeff M. FS Staff
03/18/2010 10:55 PM
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Thank you editors for fixing the poll!!!

mkrcr
03/18/2010 11:14 PM
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Poll results tell it all. There are still those of us who prefer tradition. The changes made to Bristol are akin to banking Martinsville. If the racing at the new Bristol is so great then why did they extend the Safer Barriers, not for safety, but as stated by track management to “close up the corners”? Defend the new configuration all you want but a majority of fans are never going to buy it.
If they really want to fix something then fix that dumb arse splitter so the bump and run can be done. I predict a lot, and I mean a lot, of cut tires this weekend. Chad’s probably got a brand new file.

More Side by Sides!