Race Weekend Central

Stock Car Scoop: Could a Street Course Work in NASCAR?

The NASCAR Cup Series returned from two straight weekends off with a trip to Watkins Glen International. Refreshed from Olympic break, the racing was hot and heavy with a surprise winner not named Chase Elliott on Sunday (Aug. 8) afternoon. Instead, Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson ended Elliott’s bid for three straight victories at this 2.45-mile track.

Does this win get Larson back on track and make him the frontrunner for the season championship? Bryan Nolen and Adam Cheek discuss Larson’s resurgence, a strong day for Joe Gibbs Racing, and much more in the aftermath of the Glen. Plus, they tackle a bonus question; in the wake of Sunday’s street course debacle in Nashville for the IndyCar Series, would a street race ever work in NASCAR?

Get their take in the latest edition of Frontstretch‘s Stock Car Scoop. Sign up for Stock Car Scoop on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or visit Frontstretch every Monday and Friday throughout the year.

About the author

Bryan Nolen is the Podcast Manager for Frontstretch.com. He also hosts the Frontstretch Podcast with Bryan Nolen and occasionally makes appearances on The Happy Hour Podcast. He has a Sportscasting degree from the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting. He resides in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two rabbits.

Follow him on Twitter @TheBryanNolen

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Tony Geinzer

I’d want Long Beach if the Fontana Option is exhausted, and I probably think we will go back to Peak, Non-Overexposed Winston Cup before we pick up Montreal or Monaco.

Al Torney

Street races are lousy spectator events. However they are profitable. Back in the CART days they gave three day attendance figures to inflate their popularity. And that included the over hyped Long Beach Grand Pride. A NASCAR street race would be novel for the first year and then would die a slow death. Just like the Charlotte Roval. It hasn’t grown in popularity. This will happen at Indy this year. It will be bigger this year and then go down in the future.

Jeremy

Seems like a lot of (most?) street races I recall seeing in other series are much narrower courses with few passing opportunities. I personally don’t see that as a recipe for a good NASCAR event, especially if stage cautions remove strategy (save fuel tires / fewer stops, or go for broke every lap and make an extra stop or two?) from the equation.

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