1. Should 23X1 Racing swap pit crews?
The common theme became all the more common late Sunday night when Bubba Wallace had another strong run foiled due to a pit road mishap. It’s hard to blame Wallace for being visibly frustrated with his team over the radio — we’ve seen other drivers have some family-unfriendly diatribes in recent years, too.
But the 23 team has a bigger problem than appearing to need a sports psychologist. It’s that only one 23X1 Racing driver, Kurt Busch, would be locked into the playoffs if they were to begin today.
Basically, Wallace needs to win a race between now and Daytona. Sure, the late August race on the famed high banks and Atlanta stand to be Wallace’s best chances due to his past success on superspeedways, but the fact that Wallace was a top-10 car at Kansas and had a top-10 caliber car at Nashville, that was quickest in practice and salvaged a 12th-place showing, also point to a shot to contend at intermediate or similar tracks.
But there’s one thing that can push a contending car to a winning car: a superior pit crew.
Obviously, the 23 pit crew is misfiring. Since the No. 45 is in the Playoffs, what’s the harm in swapping crews? If it works, great. If not, just swap back for the postseason.
Having one car in the postseason would be nice for 23X1 Racing. Two of them would be nicer.
2. What’s the long-term plan in Nashville?
Just before the stroke of midnight on the east coast on Sunday when the checkered flag fell, the second year of NASCAR ‘s top series in suburban Nashville concluded.
But how long should this take place?
NSS had a lot of expected first-race buzz last year. But similar to another southeastern track in recent years, located one state to the north, traffic became an unwitting storyline to that first race. The question now becomes what next in Nashville, a place that NASCAR appears to badly want to be.
This race had its exciting moments, most notably with the Joe Gibbs Racing cars duking it out, but otherwise it was short on must-see highlights.
In a sport where the argument over whether one track should have two races has gained traction in recent years, the question that begs asking is that should the stars align to clear the way for racing at the Nashville Fairgrounds, what purpose does “the other track” have in that future?
Fans today want short tracks. It’d be hard to expect them to prefer an intermediate venue over a throwback venue like the Fairgrounds.
I’d love it if racing were back at the…
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