I am glad to bring a staple of my FIO coverage here to Examiner.com. For the last two years my burning issue of the week column had been the centerpiece of my NASCAR coverage for www.fantasyinsideronline.com. Now each and every Wednesday this tradition will be here
This week I want to take a look at what can be done to fix the mess that is the Nationwide series. This series has no identity, is it a Developmental league, or is it a place for older veterans to wind down their career, or it is just another practice session for the Cup race each and every week.
I don’t think this series can survive with so an ambiguous identity. The best way I can think to pump life into the series is to raise the minimum age of Cup series competitor to 21. Since the minimum age to compete in any of the three National series is 18, a 21 year old age limit in the cup series would give developing drivers and their car owners no choice but to run them in the Nationwide series.
The next problem this series has is the cost. It takes just almost as much money to run a Nationwide series team, as it does to run a Cup series team. That means a Cup team which need 20-30 million dollars to run a competitive Cup effort needs another 20 to 25 million to run a competitive nationwide team.
Since the Nationwide Series is so littered with Cup driver’s double dipping, companies are unwilling to spend that kind of money on yet unproven talent. There are two fixes to this problem, first limit the amount of Cup drivers in each field, and two cut the costs of operation.
These two fixes have one solution, more Nationwide races run apart from the Cup series. I would cut the California races, along with the Phoenix races, the Las Vegas race, and one of the Texas races. I would then move those Nationwide races to tracks closer to the North Carolina NASCAR hub. Tracks like The Rock, Iowa, and Chicagoland. Since the number one cost for race team is transportation adding races closer to North Carolina could severely decrease the cost of running a Nationwide team.
The more and more the Nationwide series runs on it’s own as the headline race each weekend the more and more people will recognize it as a legitimate sports venture. Having many races run at tracks opposite Cup races at different tracks will eliminate many of the double dipping drivers.
The next limit would be one of the following, cup driver runs only 7 Nationwide races per year; Cup drivers do not receive Nationwide points for running the race, or a limit of 7 Cup drivers per Nationwide race. Any one of these would go a far way to exposing new talent in the Nationwide series. For me that should be the ultimate goal.
If you liked this article you may also want to read my random thoughts on the 2008 NASCAR season.
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