The NASCAR Noncompete Clause

Another new season for NASCAR began last week, with the running of its most famous race, the Daytona 500.  Why they start their season with their biggest race is a mystery decades in the making.  To say the least, it's unique; to say the most, it's the dumbest thing a spectator 'sport' could do.

I'm not a car racing fan, I don't watch and I don't really care.  But I still can't get over how, inside every NASCAR race, are two dumber ideas that have come to fruition.  I submit to you 1) stage racing, and 2) overtime a/k/a the green-white-checkered ending.

With stage racing, each race has 2 or 3 'segments' to it, basically a prescribed number of laps.  At the end of each segment, the yellow flag comes out to pause the race, and the top finishers for each segment receive 'points' to be used in a season-long competition.

One of the outcomes of these stages is a re-bunching of the field.  So, if the driver leading the race was ahead by a lot, now his lead is gone.  In other words, it takes the strongest cars / drivers and evens them up with everyone else throughout the race.  Huh?

Imagine that happening in any other competition.  A team takes a big lead into halftime?  Reset the score for the second half.  A golfer has a big lead after two rounds?  Give the other golfers strokes to even things up.  It's unimaginably stupid.

However, when it comes to stage racing, NASCAR's overtime rules say, "Hold my beer."  The overtime rules were established years ago, after many races were being decided while the field wasn't actually racing, but proceeding 'under caution' due to a crash near the end of the race. While that type of ending was very much a buzz-kill for fans, the overtime rules don't help.

Now, instead of the race ending like that, extra laps are added, so that at least two laps can be run full-tilt to the end.  This sounds better, except it isn't.  Again, it hurts the race leader.  Plus, it often doesn't work.

Consider this year's Daytona 500, which went to overtime not once, but three separate times, because crashes just kept happening after re-starts.  In the end, NASCAR basically put the race out of its misery by declaring the race over, and naming the winner to be the car in first place at the last crash.

So after an extra 30 miles / one hour of boring caution laps, there was still no racing to the finish line.  The winner wasn't the best car / driver, it was more a matter of who was lucky enough to avoid the crashes.  Again, unimaginably stupid.

NASCAR has long fought the stereotype of being a good 'ol white boys 'sport' with fans that aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.  In the case of these rules, it takes one to know one.  If they were looking for ways to make races more boring and non-competitive, you could say they're the big winners.

The Sound Of Silence

Last week I mentioned 'curated fan noise for televised sports' was something for which I'm not thankful.  It's really more than that.  I hate it.

This curated fan noise has been around for a long time.  Fox Sports is the biggest purveyor of it, and they have the volume turned way up.  For years, if you watch their NFL broadcasts, you can barely hear the announcers over the fake fan noise.  And if you listen closely, you can make out the same noises in sort of a rotation.  It's embarrassing, and just another reason to hit the mute button.

This Fall, because there are few if any fans allowed at football games, TV networks decided to add this fake fan noise to a new level, adding it to (almost) all broadcasts.  The NFL went so far as to say the fan noise was recorded from actual fans of the teams playing.

For me, this is insulting to watch / listen to.  I don't need fake fan noise to help me watch a game.  Who does?  I'd rather watch the game with the actual noise, even it there isn't any.  Actually, I'd rather watch a bunch of games at once with no audio at all, like it is at gambling sports books.

I get the idea of trying to give the at-home viewer the experience of being at the game.  But if the games are silent during the COVID-19 pandemic, then give me the real deal quiet.  

A Storm Field

A few weeks ago I attended a major college football game in which the home boys upset a highly ranked team.  This resulted in fans storming the field at game’s end, including yours truly.

I’ve been at several games like this over the years, where fans rushed the field, and I’ve seen and/or participated in these events enough to pass on a few tips based on my experience:

Don’t rush the field right away.  This includes not pressing up towards the field as the final seconds tick away.  That’s when the carnage, if any, will occur.  I recall several years ago seeing a fan preparing to rush the field and in the process bumping into a fan from another team; aggressive pushing and shoving ensued.  But that was nothing compared to fans who’ve been rocked by running onto the field and into the path of opposing players – players who were fully padded and helmeted, not to mention weighing close to 250 pounds.  So, avoid the initial wave – the stands are a better angle to view the players/fans interaction anyway.

Forget about the goal posts.  Back in the day, the main reason to storm the field was risking injury to take down one of the goalposts, to carry it away to an unknown location.  But for over ten years now, on one has cared about that.  Goal post technology has improved to the extent that humans alone aren’t going to move permanent goal posts.  Also, security is better about not allowing it.

Be ready to take pictures, especially for others.  This is the big thing now, pulling out the cellphone and recording that you were not only at the big game, but also on the field afterward with ten or twenty thousand of your new friends.  Some of those new friends want more than selfies, they want the wide shot, and if you can get the scoreboard in the background, that’s even better.

In summary, it’s better to let the college kids get out there early and have their fun.  Then, when they realize they’d rather be at the bar celebrating, everyone else can get out there and enjoy walking directly across the field.....to the parking lot.