`Has Speedweeks Become Diluted?

1. Has Speedweeks become diluted?

When my dad would take work clients to races at Daytona International Speedway in the late 1980s to early 1990s, one of the first things I would gravitate toward was the seemingly enormous souvenir program.

It was not hard, from a quick glance through the colorful pages, to find a few references to someone that made it seem like the most exciting thing ever… Speedweeks.

Even in 2007, when I arrived midweek in the midst of the only time I have been fortunate to cover Speedweeks, it was not hard to miss that you were in the midst of something special, a tempest that had been built up since coming into the previous weekend.

The phrase Super Bowl has been overused with this event through the years, and that’s partially because when you are at the track for a week-plus worth of time, everything seems like a huge deal building up to the Daytona 500.

That is, of course, due to the weekend before the Daytona 500 ushering the offseason away with a practice session that led up to the Busch Light Clash. Perhaps unwittingly, chasing the excitement that comes with moving the Busch Clash around may have taken away from the magic of Speedweeks.

The Daytona 500 is NASCAR’s biggest race. Nothing will ever surpass its prestige. It should not be something that feels like it’s just another race. But when you show up for a midweek qualifying race, it does not feel much different than a typical race, and that’s not where the sport should be in the first weeks of the season. Running the Busch Clash on the West Coast certainly makes it hard to run two weeks in a row to begin the season. At some point, NASCAR has to decide what it values more – The Great American Race or the Clash.

2. Should Daytona be about checking off driver bucket lists?

It was certainly a feel-good story for Travis Pastrana not just to race in the Daytona 500, but have a chance to finish in the top 10. It was a great moment for someone like Pastrana to add running the Daytona 500 to his career of racing most anything with an engine and wheels, and if you spend a few minutes close to the action sports star, it’s hard not to love what he brings to the event.

But is that a good thing for the Daytona 500?

Pastrana, who said that Sunday’s race was his first and last time in the event, definitely checked a bucket list off, but is that really what NASCAR needs to be about? Checking off bucket lists? This is the most…