A Road Course-Only Series: A Viable Option For NASCAR?

by Chris Leone, Special To Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

If OnPitRow.com was a NASCAR team, I’d be the development driver of the bunch. In the same way that young hotshots like Joey Logano have been driving since they were in grade school, I’ve been following and writing about all forms of motorsports since I was barely old enough to talk.

August 5, 2008 7:58 pm CDT 12 Comments

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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Watkins Glen, August 2007

Based on the continued success of the Nationwide Series in Mexico City and Montreal, as well as the continued success of road-course ringers in those races year after year, I think it’s time that NASCAR looks into a major road course-only stock car series.

As the sanctioning body attempts to assert a global presence, with its expansion into Mexico and Canada and its ever-growing base of foreign drivers, I feel that adding a series for the road course ringers would only serve to broaden NASCAR’s fan base around the world.

Certainly, the American economy isn’t in the greatest shape right now, with many sponsors looking to cut back on investments. Neither are the sport’s top three series, with all three struggling to fill fields on many weekends. Not only that, a lot of open-wheel and sports-car specialists who have attempted to break into stock car racing haven’t succeeded - partially due to lack of sponsorship, partially due to limited adaptability to ovals.

But with the proven talents of many road course ringers in stock cars, finding sponsorship for a 15-race road course-only series would be easier than for the entire 36-race Sprint Cup schedule. The return on the investment, in the form of great racing, would almost be guaranteed. It’d certainly be an interesting series to watch.

Imagine guys like Ron Fellows, Boris Said, Jacques Villeneuve, and Max Papis battling in stock cars for a full season. Imagine a series where the “ringers” were Sprint Cup drivers like Jimmie Johnson or Ryan Newman looking to gain extra track time, as both of them are this weekend. Imagine how much it could’ve done for a guy like Dario Franchitti to spend a season in stock cars on tracks he’s familiar with.

Occasionally, guys in other NASCAR series with road course experience like Marcos Ambrose and Colin Braun might show up on the companion weekends. You could even see some guys from the Canadian Tire Series, such as 5-time champion Don Thomson Jr., last year’s champion Andrew Ranger, and current series leader Scott Steckly show up, perhaps moving up the ladder to one of NASCAR’s top three series.

While the car count would likely be in the 20s, a number considered small by NASCAR’s standards, it fits perfectly with the expectations for other road course reliant series, from the IRL to Formula One to the respective classes (LMP1, GT1, etc.) of the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am. Even the Canadian Tire Series, newly sanctioned by NASCAR, doesn’t regularly draw more than 20-odd starters. The series would fit those comparisons much better than, say, a comparison with the Nationwide Series and its 43-car fields and 35-race season.

Besides companion races with the Sprint Cup Series in Sonoma and Watkins Glen, and with the Nationwide Series in Montreal, the series could team up with the IndyCars in St. Petersburg, Long Beach, Toronto, Edmonton, Mid-Ohio, and Detroit. Heck, maybe they could even re-open the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when the MotoGP bikes head to America. The series could go to Mexico as well, even without the Nationwide guys alongside them, and maybe even run at Daytona as a support race to the Rolex 24-hour event. That’s twelve races right there.

Sure, I understand that this is just a pipe dream, but it doesn’t make it any less enticing in my mind. I know I’d drive up to Montreal to watch the series. I’m sure a lot of other stock car fans would also enjoy the series, even if they considered it a novelty act. Maybe it’d even go a long way towards proving to Europe that stock car racing is one of the greatest forms of the sport in the world.

Regardless of the potential effects of the series, though, it’d just be cool to watch some more stock car races in the rain. That was really fun to watch.

Phot credit: Icon Sports Media , Inc.

Filed under: Formula One, Indy Cars, Jacques Villeneuve, Jimmy Johnson, Marcos Ambrose, NASCAR, Ryan Newman, road course ringers

Tagged with: NASCAR, Nationwide Series

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Comments

12 Responses to “A Road Course-Only Series: A Viable Option For NASCAR?”

Matt Mercer on August 5th, 2008 8:43 pm

Certainly an interesting idea… but I do agree it won’t happen. In a lot of ways, road course racing in America is a lot like soccer in America: it just won’t ever be popular. There are a few reasons for this, and it’s something I will probably write a longer post about at some point.

It’s no fault of the sport or the drivers themselves, and I think the fans unintentionally keep folks away. Why is soccer not on the level of football or basketball or football here? Because it’s acknowledged that the best soccer players in the world aren’t born here, and don’t play here. It’s much the same with the road courses, with F1 and the various other divisions in Europe. CART in its heyday was looked at as a stepping stone to F1, now I don’t know if you’d even call the new IRL that - yet. I think the IRL has actually lost some fans because of the addition of so many road and street courses to what was originally intended to be an oval series.

I like the way it is now, a few events to satisfy the itch, but not the most important aspect of the series.
joshua on August 6th, 2008 11:05 am

hey did you know NASCAR bought the Grand Am Rolex series?

That will be a major touring divison under The NASCAR banner starting in 2009. I have no idea what kind of cars they are going to run

And the Mexico city race has lost almost half of it’s audience in four years. However the Montreal race it doing quite well even in the rain.
Charlie Turner on August 6th, 2008 2:20 pm

I’m pretty sure that the Grand Am Series has always been a France Familiy property. At least partly. I can’t see them changing that series much. It’s been the best North American sports car series in years. Big, competitve fields. Several manufacturers involved. Fun.

What Chris describes is more akin to the SCCA’s Speedcar Series (I think that’s right). A touring car series. I think it would be a blast to watch what Chris envisions. But I think he’s right about it being a pipe dream.

A couple more road races would suit me though. Steve had the idea of replacing Mexico City with a race at the new, New Jersy Motorsports Park track, where ARCA will race in September. New York market, new state of the art track. Sounds like a plan.
joshua on August 6th, 2008 5:22 pm

I am down for racing in Jersey man and a new state of the art track is all good. I don’t know if I could watch a full time road race divison though.

When I still worked at Roush I gotto know Tommy Kendall and his guys and that SCCA tour was cool and they wnet to some cool places like Mid Ohio which rules all, but I don’t know if I want to watch road course racing every week.

However a event on the Indy road course would be freaking awesome. and a road course chse race would be a welcomed addtion.
Mule Skinner on August 6th, 2008 10:06 pm

Can you spell “TRANS AM”?

Gone but not forgotten. And it provided some of the best actual racing ever.

Since NASCAR today is nothing but a glorified “Spec Racing Series” {remember Formula Renault} why not a road course spec series?

Beats the _ _ _ _ out of that fiasco at Indy a few weeks ago.

How about going back to the old inovative “Run what you brung, tow what you blow!” days
Since everybody cheats anyway just throw the rule book, fines, suspensions, etc out and let ‘em race.
Charlie Turner on August 6th, 2008 10:23 pm

Trans Am was great when the manufacturers were involved. And it showed that a sedan racing series on road courses, done right, would have an audience. Not the audience that Cup racing has - but what DOES have that kind of following? Make it look like the Australian Super Car Series and I’m all in.

Thanks for the comment Mule Skinner.
okla21fan on August 7th, 2008 7:11 am

Full time road course series?

I’d watch it , but only if they drove mini vans or SUVs!
Bram on August 7th, 2008 8:41 am

Charlie, you’re correct Grand-Am is France family property and the place for GM to flex its Pontiac Racing muscles along with Ford, Lexus (Toyota), BWM, Porsche,etc.

That’s why the Daytona 24 Hours exists and why the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series will never run at Sebring, as it is owned by Dr. Panoz and the American Le Mans Series group and there’s no love lost between the two entities.

Trams-Am and the subsequent branding is in full (since 2006) a property of SCCA and SCCA Pro Racing, even having held an exhibition race at Topeka Heartland Park road course in ‘06, won easily by Trans-Am racer Paul Gentilozzi in a Jaguar XK.

Since that event, there’s been no more mention of reviving the series.

Sportscar Racing being what it is and being run in the schedules they run, it is easy for the drivers from those series to make the occasional forays into NASCAR and vice-versa, IRL drivers to cross-over and you see some companion event mixes.

So for all intents and purposes, and in a very round about way, NASCAR has its own road course series, complete with prototypes.
Bram on August 7th, 2008 8:46 am

*correction* that should read “BMW”
Bram on August 7th, 2008 9:26 am

Joshua,

There’s quite a bit of excitement surrounding the New Jersey Motorsports Park and Thunderbolt Raceway. The August event that will feature Rolex and KONI Challenge Series, Mustang and Ferrari Challenge events and the SunTrust MOTO ST … looks to be a great weekend.

The ARCA event will be fun and maybe a test event in some way for exploration of maybe a NASCAR NNS event. Good way to replace the Mexico City event , in my opinion.
Tim Zaegel on August 7th, 2008 9:46 pm

I’ve said for awhile, actually, that since the Nationwide Series doesn’t really have much of an identity to itself these days, that turning it into a road course-based series could be an option. Won’t happen, but something to think about nonetheless.
Quick Hits: Michigan International Speedway | Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie on August 14th, 2008 8:35 am

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