I still remember the first time my boss called me into his office.
As a high school student working my first job, my heart felt like it was a mile out in front of me as I walked from my workspace to the office.
It had been just a few months into this job, and eventually, I had made a mistake that couldn’t be ignored.
Fortunately, it wasn’t anything that would lead to my termination, but it was a great opportunity for my well experienced, stern boss to get to the bottom of it quickly and make sure that I learned from that error.
Now, I am certainly no NASCAR driver, but my situation can relate to one that is increasingly more necessary with each NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race: the need for lecturing.
Let’s be honest, the 2023 season finale at Phoenix Raceway was a total circus. Each Championship 4 contender got caught up in an incident, and there were 12 cautions for a whopping 77 laps, which led to four overtime restarts at the end.
As embarrassing as that was, it was a high-stakes race, and there was an offseason ahead. 2024 will be a clean slate, right?
If Daytona is any indication, we could be far from it. Granted, Daytona is no stranger to chaos, but the calamity we saw in the Truck opener on Friday (Feb. 16) was not a good representation of the series.
In the Fresh from Florida 250, there were 12 cautions for 52 laps, over half of the total lap count and the most cautions in Daytona history for the series. Five of those crashes involved three trucks or more, and in five of the last eight Truck events going back to 2023, there have been at least seven cautions.
MRN Radio’s lead turn announcer, Dave Moody took notice of the Daytona carnage as well, launching this post on X/Twitter the next day that would take off:
He is absolutely right. The takeaway from the race was that young drivers have no qualm about running into each other, and while the nature of superspeedway racing produces large crashes, there is still a reputation of little to no respect in this series.
What can be done? Several suggestions have already been made on social media, and there are many valid points. Altering the aerodynamics or horsepower of the trucks to create less disparity in runs could be one option on larger tracks.
One person replying to Moody’s tweet made a point that caught my attention, and one that would be desirable.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …