Did NASCAR Go Too Far or Too Light on the Martinsville Penalties?

1. Did NASCAR go too far or too light on the Martinsville Speedway penalties?

Now that all of the appeals have been dropped and/or denied, it can be stated that they were not enough to curb cheating.

When a decision is made like this, NASCAR is basically setting a precedent. Granted, it is likely going to ignore said precedent the next time this comes up. But it’s something the appeals board will be able to refer to when it makes a judgment on this again.

Then there’s the appeals board. A big reason why NASCAR went fairly light likely was because it didn’t want the board to tone down the penalties when they were heard. The board has done so on occasion in recent years or even repealed the penalty entirely.

Ultimately, a few hundred thousand dollars, points penalties and a bunch of one-race suspensions weren’t everything that could have been done here. But this dumb format put them into a self-defeating bind that they had to loop through.

2. What’s up with this championship format?

Looking back on this year, one of my favorite columns I wrote at Frontstretch was this reaction piece to Ricky Rudd getting voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

It’s just kind of funny reading it back now and remembering that this is a man being honored by the sport in just a few months’ time. A sport that is such a dramatically different series to that in which he raced.

If Rudd were driving today, he’d probably be seen as a total bust because he only won a race or two every year. He’d be eliminated in short order in the playoffs because all of his top-five and top-10 finishes wouldn’t mean very much at all.

It feels like NASCAR spent decades hearing media, drivers and fans complaining about how wins don’t matter and good point days suck. It has now overcorrected to the point where wins matter far too much.

Now races take multiple restarts to end at times just because there is no real negative to running into the driver in front. At best, you’ll move up a place. At worst, you’ll fight them after the race. Then NASCAR will come in with its wagging finger and tell both of you to cut it out in the championship race.

3. What’s happening in the legal battle between NASCAR and the teams that didn’t sign the charter agreement?

In other news, there still hasn’t been a ruling in the preliminary junction hearing between NASCAR and 23XI Racing/Front Row Motorsports as of press time.

It should be obvious…