The Spare Tire: My Opinion: Pack Racing Vs. Tandem Racing on Superspeedways

Over the past few years, we've seen NASCAR change its rules and setups when it comes to restrictor plate tracks like Daytona and Talladega. From the generation 4 stock car, which had pack-style racing for the longest time, to the generation 5 car, a.k.a. the Car of Tomorrow which debuted in 2007 and seen two-car tandem racing until 2011 when pack racing made its return, to the gen6 stock car, which debuted this year and created more freight train-style racing, NASCAR fans got a chance to see the transition between action packed racing to the now less-dramatic style that we've seen this year. In my honest opinion, NASCAR needs to make some changes when it comes to restrictor plate racing because twitter exploded after the race with angry fans who agree to either make some rule changes or change the setups of the cars to ditch pack racing altogether, which doesn't make any sense.

I'm not going to lie, for a while I HATED the tandem-style racing, because it limited the number of potential winners in a race, especially in the closing laps. However, comparing it to the racing we have with the gen6 car where the field races in a single line for the closing laps, I can honestly say tandem-racing definitely brought action to a sport that thrives on it. The videos below show the transition over the last decade, starting with the 2003 EA Sports 500 finish, the famous 2009 Aaron's 499 finish, the 2011 Aaron's 499 finish (Still holds the record for the closest finish in NASCAR history), and the 2012 Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 finish.

This weekend's race at Talladega made my mind up on whether changes should be made to restrictor plate racing or not. I was watching the race with some friends on a projector screen because, well...it's Talladega! We were sitting there with 10 laps to go watching all remaining cars form a line, a single line that did not want to move. We all saw that everyone was racing conservatively? At Talladega? What is this????? Not a single car jumped out of line until two laps to go and after watching the Daytona 500, everyone can say that it DOES NOT work that way. For some reason, it takes more than two laps to get up to the front from mid-pack. We all wanted to see the big one happen like last year, well without the worry of Tony Stewart having an injury, or worse... Out of the 4 restrictor plate races the Sprint Cup Series has in 2013, three of them had the same exact issue! To me, Talladega had the best racing at the finish, but the Coke Zero 400 had the best FINISH. Although the fact that the Talladega race was shortened by ten laps due to impending rain and darkness on a day where the race had multiple rain delays could've helped that. Just by looking at the finishes from this year's races, you can see that compared to the finishes from Talladega above, there is nothing that really compares...

Daytona 500-Daytona, February