It turns out that there’s a good percentage of readers on this site that enjoys the sport of motors — motorsport, if you will. Many of you are into Formula One, which makes sense given its rapid, Netflix-fueled rise in popularity. Given this is a car site, a lot of you seem to follow sports car racing. A few of you real freaks also watch WRC. I enjoy all of these series and others (oh damn, the Bathurst 12-hour is about to start), but I probably watch more NASCAR than anything else. It rules.
I don’t want to be alone in watching NASCAR so I’m inviting all of you to come on this adventure with me. It, too, will rule. If you do it right you’ll have a good time and I’m going to make it easy for you to do it right and to do it with other readers.
Why? Because it’s fun. NASCAR is America’s motorsport, it’s extremely competitive this year, and it’s raced on a mix of road courses, superspeedways, and ovals. And to make it easier, I’m suggesting we all watch the NASCAR Xfinity Series, which is below the top-level Cup Series, but above the entry-level Truck Series. There are a lot of good reasons for this.
Lemme explain.
Why NASCAR Is Good Now
I don’t know that I’d argue that NASCAR was ever bad, but it did get a little less interesting to me during the late Jimmie Johnson era in the late aughts/early teens when the cars got less competitive, the big teams got too big, and the calendar got a little repetitive.
We ended up with anodyne drivers racing for giant teams and, largely, thanking their sponsors for helping them go in a lot of circles.
Falling TV viewership followed and NASCAR has since had to shift to address many of its biggest shortcomings. New cars and new rules have made smaller teams more competitive, the schedule has been shifted and now includes more road courses, a street course, and a damn stadium. Since the introduction of the new Next Gen car, there have been way more race winners. While the new car isn’t stock, it’s more like what DTM and Aussie V8 Supercars use.
There are new team owners, like Pitbull and Michael Jordan, and a mix of new drivers who are finally allowed by NASCAR to have personality.
Also, NASCAR has always had the noise. Remember when F1 cars got quiet for no real reason? NASCAR has always been fun and loud. F1 disrespected Mario Andretti and the same people win year after year after year. Chaos is a great reason to watch racing and NASCAR has as much chaos as Toto Wolff has hubris.
How I’m Going To Make It Easy
The Cup races are competitive, but they’re long, and there are still a lot of big established teams and a few, uh, less charming drivers. Also, Sunday can be a busy day for people. I’m suggesting we all watch the Xfinity Series. This is for a few reasons:
- The races are typically on Saturdays and don’t compete with as many other professional sports.
- The races are often half the distance of Cup races, so they tend to be under two hours long.
- Xfinity cars are more like the stock cars of old and have the old-school appeal of being harder to handle, more insane to watch, and more ‘Murican.
- There are a ton of interesting drivers and teams this year, including the introduction of V8 Supercars Champ Shane Van Gisbergen, rookie Hallie Deegan (moving up from trucks), and road course hero AJ Allmendinger (coming back to Xfinity). Even Frankie Muniz might be racing, at least at Daytona.
Ok, so Saturdays are Xfinity days. Lemme make this even easier.
Sports requires context and context requires a starting point. If you’ve got a regular driver you like to root for, please continue to root for that driver. For the rest of us, it’s going to be NASCAR driver Parker Kligerman, who also contributes to this website sometimes. He’s racing the #48 Big Machine Racing Spiked Light Coolers Chevy Camaro. The car is super orange so it’s usually easy to spot. Here’s Parker finishing the Xfinity Race at Atlanta, backwards:
Parker is a pal and loves cars like the rest of us love cars. He’ll also be providing us with some thoughts on his podcast/newsletter The Money Lap and with some extra insight here from time to time.
Having someone to support helps a lot and Parker made it to the playoffs last year with a young team so there’s every expectation of him being competitive this year.
Ok, I Don’t Know Much/Anything But I’m In. What Do I Do?
The good news is that the Daytona 500 is this weekend, which means that it’s the United Rentals 300 this weekend, which is the first Xfinity Race of the year and it starts this Saturday night. Qualifying is supposed to be 11:30 AM ET on Saturday and the race will be at 5:00 PM ET on Fox Sports 1 and on FoxSports.com (and it’s easy to find online elsewhere).
Daytona is the classic superspeedway with a lot of drafting, high-pressure pit strategy, and, yeah, a few big crashes.
We’ll be watching the race and having an ongoing conversation on our Discord, which you can join to chat about the race with us. What else were you doing this Saturday?
The only caveat here is that it might rain, but there’s a good chance that the rain doesn’t occur until after the Xfinity Race.
Ok, did I convince you?
Grats, you’re one of the first “journalists” I’ve seen to acknowledge the lousy Daytona weekend weather expectations. Let’s just say that we’ll likely have one, and maybe two, races on Monday.
Brave choice on Xfinity, but, I must say, a good choice. Those races are week by week the more exciting races we get to see. Anyone remember the Cole Custer bruhaha of 2023?
I’ll be there, just look for me in the cheap seats.
I heard the same argument on a podcast the other day
I dunno man. IndyCar is right there and is so much better, I just can’t with these stock car races. I try, I promise you, every year to get into it, but it’s just not good enough.
Have you ever watched an IndyCar/Nascar doubleheader where they wrongly run the open wheelers first? Then you have to watch some bulky stock car trudge around the same track at seemingly half the speed? Bleh! Also, I hate the stages. That’s not racing, it’s garbage.
All that said, stock cars races are pretty fun in person and I like watching the ARCA race that frequents my local oval, but it’s just not good enough to add to my weekend TV watching.
I was EXTREMELY disappointed when I went to the Xfinity race at Homstead Miami in 2022 and there were no wrecks.
But I’ve got to say a low flying squadron of V8 stockers in close formation thundering past at speed is something else. Also the tickets were like $40, which is amazing
No, I don’t think I will.
What do we do instead?
I dunno man. Like a lot of other people I really got into NASCAR in the 90’s when U.S. open wheel was busy shooting themselves in the balls. But then NASCAR came up with the Chase, and after that IndyCar kind of decided they’d better get their shit together or die, and NASCAR kind of fell off the radar for me, like it did for a lot of casual fans.
I know NASCAR is still the most-watched motorsport in the U.S., which I can’t believe when IndyCar and F1 and MotoGP exist. But I’ll tell you one thing that NASCAR could do to bring a lot of casual fans back: shorten the races so that they run in a two-hour timeframe or less. Go ahead and keep the icons at their traditional length (Daytona, Talledega, Darlington, the 600), but there’s no need for guys to spend 400 miles chasing setup for the dash at the end.
I watch a lot of motorsports and two hours is about all I could really devote to NASCAR on a Sunday, and it just seems to me to be the limit for a lot of people’s attention. IndyCar and F1 get it done in two hours, and even MotoGP and Formula E are right around 45 minutes or so. These four-hour NASCAR slogs with all the breaks just are more than a lot of people are willing to commit to.
My $.02.
This is why I like supercross – worst case I watch 450’s main event – 20 minute moto on a Saturday night.
I golf occasionally. I don’t understand how people can follow it – tournaments are 4 days, hours and hours broadcast. I don’t know how people can watch so much TV.
After enjoyably binging on Bathurst for 3 days, I’ll do my best to plow through NASCAR’s ads, yellows, and the occasional racing break on Sunday. Or more likely I’ll drift off to sleep or something…
I really enjoy nascar as well,but the coverage is shit in Scandinavia,any good places to watch online? Also this weekend is Wrc weekend in Sweden so I will be all over that.
As Bugs Bunny would say, “As you know, this means war!”
Xfinity has been the best show of the weekend for the past couple of years. Trucks is typically a demolition derby. Cup due to the car can create boring races. Im hoping the new short track package fixes cup cars at smaller tracks.
Yeah, I agree, and I’m hoping that we get a better mix of Cup races.
I stopped watching regularly when they gave the series title to a cardboard cut out of a dude-bro year after year.
The changes they’ve made to make the races more ‘entertaining’ kill the momentum. Stage break cautions for more ads isn’t good racing.
Drivers can have personality and still be good corporate minions, as seen in other series.
This is your year! While I also do not like Stage Break Cautions, the Xfinity driver lineup is real good this year.
Sorry as a prior Nascar fan as a result of living near Darlington you are using the wrong metrics to increase viewership. You don’t take a person who doesn’t watch baseball and convince them to watch 168 games of the local team. I mean 168 games times 4 hours is like 700 hours of their lives. And to be honest Nascar is a bit boring without accidents, Then they lost alot of support by removing races from established areas and gave them to new areas with no fan support. Now you can recoup the losses of these mistakes two ways. Alcohol and gambling. Now you can’t advertise alcohol so your limited to people who already know to drink while watching. Now gambling is the attraction. Frankly given little passing little room and teams most drivers aren’t going to get wagered on. Of course on the small scale everyone puts in $10 picks a random driver from a hat and you got a little vig. What you need is getting them to watch one race and then 2 etc. I’ve been to races for free as a result of my job. It was easy and it was okay to drink. I have been in the pits have been allowed to take wrecked car parts home. But like golf, bowling, soccer there is not enough action to keep a viewers enthralled for the length of the race. WOO is the best investment for my opinion
NASCAR go. My car go. 160. Swiftly.
Busy this weekend, but maybe I’ll watch the following.
NASCAR road races are hilarious. It’s the closest thing you can get to Pro Lemons, except Lemons drivers are less likely to intentionally crash each other.
I’m in the same boat. I love watching Nascar when it’s a road race or a track with both left AND right turns and braking zones but have basically no interest when it’s on ovals.
I’ve been watching a lot of Indycar lately, and it’s been a gateway drug into ovals. I’m starting to appreciate the nuances of what’s going on and some of the strategies involved. Turns out (pun intended) there’s more happening than meets the eye!
I don’t know about you, but that’s what I’m looking for in auto racing: a nice crash and a car fire. I don’t care who wins these races – it’s the same five rednecks who win all the time anyway – who gives a shit about these people? I gotta be honest with you, driving 500 miles in a circle does not impress me. – George Carlin.
From anyone I talk to, he pretty much sums up the majority of how folks feel about “NASCAR” these days.
How about 500 miles where all the turns are right hand turns?
oh what the hell, it’s in my calendar!
HELL YEAH!
Used to watch NASCAR. All the god loves racing and “Murica garbage gets old fast. But what really killed it for me was blowing off a noose found in an African American driver’s garage stall with a flippant, “Oh that thing? It’s always been there.”
Hard pass.
You never watched it.
Watched it on TV and in person. Worked at the local track for about ten years. Also raced at the local track a few times.
The FBI did the investigation and determined that the GARAGE PULL HANDLE had been there for MONTHS before Bubba Wallace or his team were ever in the garage. Please do research before you spread mis-information. By the way, I haven’t watched a nascar race since the late nineties and could honestly care less about the sport in general.
Like I said. Anybody with half a brain knows the symbolism of a noose. The fact that it had been there for some time and nobody cared shows a culture that accepts that symbol. I’m sure there are those that hate it, but nobody did anything about it. Which makes it even worse.
Dude, it was a garage pull handle that happened to be tied up like a noose. There was no symbolism there whatsoever. There are actual pictures of it. It was tied onto a garage door so it could be pulled down. This is common knowledge. The particular knot that is used in a noose can be used for other things, like this situation. The fact that it had been there for months proves that it had absolutely nothing to with Bubba Wallace whatsoever.
I wonder why Bubba Wallace, a seasoned Racer who’s been in hundreds of garages, would be so offended if it was so commonplace?
I never said it was “common”. I said it was “common knowledge” referring to the facts of what happend. You might want to read my comment again. I also never said that it didn’t look like a noose. Here’s what happend for those of you who don’t want to actually look at the facts. Several months before Bubba came into the picture, a guy tied a new garage pull down onto a garage door. They tied it in a way that happend to look like a noose, which honestly isn’t a bad use of that particular type of knot, coming from a boyscout. Months go by and several race teams are in and out of that garage and no one notices or says anything. One weekend, several months later Bubba’s team comes into the picture and one of his race crew sees the garage pull rope and notices that it looks like a noose, remembers that Bubba is their driver and thinks “this had to be intentional” because some people see racist acts everywhere, and reports it. Bubba didn’t even know about the rope until after it was already reported. You guys are acting like someone hung it around his steering wheel or something.
Okay, I get what you were saying, that the facts surrounding this event are common knowledge. I read all the details as they came out.
To me, a noose would be a bad way to end a pull string because when you pull on the loop, it tightens.
Looking at pictures, it’s obviously a noose even when viewed from far away, and the scale of it looks almost head sized.
Bubba has seen many garage door pulls, and knew this one was fashioned to look like a noose, regardless of when it was made. Based on the pictures, I agree.
Bubba isn’t the first black man to qualify for Nascar, he’s just the first that agreed to do it. The famously thick-skinned Willy T Ribbs could have joined the sport, but he found the environment to be just too god-damned racist.
I’m sure things have slowly gotten better, but you can rest assured that Bubba experienced racist hate many times on his way up. He has the knowledge and experience to recognize it, you don’t.
You guys were waving the Confederate flag at races until very recently, and it’s well known you guys like to celebrate slavery times and symbolism. By “you guys,” I mean people who jump to dismiss claims of racism and think they are experts, when they have never experienced it themselves.
Anyways, you didn’t answer my question. Why do you think Bubba was so offended by this?r
Sorry about the late reply. Haven’t logged in in a while. By the way, assuming that I actually go to NASCAR races and wave a confederate flag is a little bit of stereotyping on your behalf right? To answer your question though, I imagine he was offended by it because he was a black man that had a a noose hung in his garage, at least that’s what he thought until the actual report came out and he learned that it actually had nothing to do with him. Whether he was offended after that or not I don’t know. I guess you would have to ask him. Again, he’s not the one that even found it though. Who knows if he ever even actually saw it in person. I’ll finish by just saying that people commit racist acts every day, I’m not trying to deny that. I just don’t think this was one of them.
It was literally there the year before.
So if you invited me over and I see a Confederate flag hung across your garage wall, I might be like, “Hey, what’s up with the racist stuff, aren’t we friends?”
Then you could be like, “Hey bro, I put that up a year ago, so it wasn’t intended for you, and I’m really offended that you asked!”
Then, feeling embarrassed, I would apologize to you for asking about your racist flag.
Nascar 2024? Count me in!
I think you’re just flat out missing the point that it wasn’t a “noose” and it wasn’t something that was directed at him.
And I can assure you we wouldn’t be friends and I wouldn’t invite you over.
“And I can assure you we wouldn’t be friends and I wouldn’t invite you over.”
Thank God. It’s always awkward having to come up with excuses to try to spare people’s feelings.
“It was a noose,” Wallace said. “Whether tied in 2019 or whatever, it was a noose.”
To someone who was actually there, it was definitely a noose, but I guess you know what is and isn’t racist better than Bubba Wallace.
I could maybe get back into NASCAR if the teams did launch parties at Hollister, Nordstrom, Aeropostale, etc. With plenty of influencers in attendance with zero racing knowledge….
Lol, where is the AEROPOSTALE launch party? I would hella go to that.
Bwahahaha, that’s a good one. More likely to take place at Bass Pro Shops, Farm & Fleet, or in the parking lot of the old, abandoned Wal-Mart that was replaced with a new one.
Oh God kill me now. Please kill me now to much influencer stuff already kill me now.
Oh death race 2025 where influncers are worth mega points. Take out the Kardashians and you are the winner. Next year the cast from Jersey Shore.
Hey Matt, I’ll watch NASCAR along with you… if it’s on TV.
As much as NASCAR wants to get a bigger audience, shoving a Cup Series telecast onto MSNBC Sports 3, really doesn’t help it’s cause.
So, the other reason is that the CW takes over Xfinity next year and you’ll be able to, I think, stream all the races for free!
You can also install a terrestrial television antenna and watch in less-compressed HD glory on your local FOX and NBC affiliates.
Great concept and idea. Unfortunately, I don’t have FS1 or Fox Sports. I’m a cable cutter
Hop into the Discord and we can keep you updated on where to, ahem, stream the race.
But you have FOX and NBC, just install an antenna.
So it’s on the regular FOX network stations? Yes, I have an antenna.
Michael’s steering you right (ha!), FOX and NBC share the season.
Some of the less interesting races go to their cable channels, but the big ones are on network tv. And they even now usually run picture-in-picture during the commercials.
I just checked the xfinity series schedule. most are only on FS1 or USA
https://www.nascar.com/nascar-xfinity-series/2024/schedule/
Sigh. Last season saw a fair amount on network tv. And it can change though (often at the last minute) if the networks need to fill space. I use TVRacer to keep me up on it.
Yeah Xfinity is usually just on cable.
12:30 eastern on FOX
There is a website .to where you can watch The TV and you can get those channels like it was an app .
I typed it like this to avoid the algo (even though it’s pretty well known). Put the .to at the end and the other bold words in order as one word, and bing bang boom. There you go.
I’ve been a NASCAR fan for many, many moons. Started in the days of Junior Johnson, Curtis Turner, David Pearson, Joe Weatherly and the like, watched Dan Gurney show them how to run road courses, saw Foyt, Petty, Dale Senior, etc., etc., etc.
Personally, I think the governing body has turned the series into kit-car garbage, but drivers are drivers and the B.S. — well, a lot of it — stops when the green flag drops.
Won’t be as easy to watch this year. Harvick’s retirement just about ends the days of the hard-core Racers. The current drivers have talent to spare, but watching a “Toyota” race a “Mustang” or “Camaro” and having to look mostly at the headlight decals to tell them apart isn’t my thing.
Especially since none of the cars have anything in common with the street version.
What!? You don’t have a two door RWD V8 Camry parked in your driveway!? Heresy!
I wish I did my motor in my DD is showing metal shavings in the oil.
Can you make it even easier? Because it is still significantly easier not to watch. I don’t know how to make watching easier than not watching, of course, but you could get creative–we can’t get to any articles on race day, just a livestream of you watching the race. (Please don’t do that.)
Go to a bar and kind of watch while drinking beer.
Love the idea of a live discord watch with the Autopian folk, but Nascar? Really? Why don’t we do it for something more interesting?
Like what? F-1? Monster Trucks?
Maybe sprint cars.
Ha…..literally was going to say Chili Bowl but considering they keep that nearly impossible to watch live.
I would love to do the Chili Bowl. Hell, I wanna go to the Chili Bowl. NASCAR Xfinity is a good start for this because it’s timed nicely, happens a lot in case you miss a race, and we know someone doing it!
If you wanna go to the Chili Bowl, I’ve got a spare bedroom you can stay in. I’ll even feed you!
Ohhh maybe we have an Autopian meetup next time? It’s on my racing bucket list.
Feed him what? Chili?
How about carnitas? Love me some green chilis.
Only with tortillas so beans yes chili no. But possibly a campfire treat chili and chilies wrapped in a soft taco or burrito Mission wrap. They also make excellent mountain pue crusts. Ooh chili with chilies in a mountain pie.
NAILED IT.
Been to the Chili Bowl a few times. Literally lived a quarter mile north of it. It is absolutely a bucket list event for racing fans, especially dirt track.
Monster Jam! I love watching that with my kiddos!
Ok. so my son and his wife went to Monster Jam a few weeks back. I’ll share the actual texts he sent me:
> Megalodon did a backflip and then kept going after his transmission caught on fire. What a legend
> Monster Mutt recovered out of an accidental barrel roll and barely kept his facade (body shell) on for the final trick
> Avenger fell on his back. Lame
> Zombie is timid with his moves but does great crowd work
> TORO LOCO DID A DOUBLE BACKFLIP THEN RETREATED FROM HIS ON-FIRE VEHICLE
> Taking first place with a 9.75!
He also shared with me how multiple teams pitched in together to get a truck repaired for the final round.
Now, I know that it’s all basically a franchise but it seems like although they are more or less in business together they really work hard to compete against each other for the glory and put on a great show for the fans. Honestly, my son made it sound like a lot of fun and I may have to check one out myself sometime.
I’ve been to one. It’s definitely something to behold in person. My outing was to a smaller indoor venue, so it seemed like the jumps were less grand than the ads show, but it was still fun.
There’s a fair amount of filler (guys racing quads for some reason) but the main events are the spectacle you’d expect. And it’s hard to NOT appreciate how much fun it must be to drive one, much less launch it into the air. I like watching the production it takes the driver to get in and out of these things.
My kids aren’t old enough yet for it to be worth dragging them to an actual in-person event but I can’t wait for the day we can. All the footage I’ve seen seems like they really do push for fan involvement and make it approachable for everyone, which will be great for my daughter, seeing so many women driving those trucks alongside men is awesome.
Do they still have overtime, playoffs, and yellow flags “just because”? Then count me out. I used to be a fan many years ago until things got bad as you mentioned. And I look in occasionally to see if it’s gotten better, and I see them trying to be football or something.
Yeah on all. But I found the playoff things gets easier the more familiar I got with with, and I appreciate how it does avoid the Lewis Hamilton situation where the last N races become boring as the championship has already been clinched.
“… where the last N races become boring as the championship has already been clinched.”
They could have fixed this without the playoff nonsense, just by shortening the damn season. The longer the season, the farther out the best guy will be by the end, since, you know, he’s better than everyone else.
Last year was the first time in 14 years that the IndyCar champion wasn’t decided at the last race. IndyCar runs about a 17-race schedule. There’s a lesson to be learned there.
Another fun point – Toyota’s Xfinity entry is the appropriate Supra, not the Camry of the Cup Series.
But I’ll also be an evangelist for the Cup Series. Sure, the personalities (and media coverage of such) sometime overshadow the actual racing, but ignore that and the racing is still quite good, better than it’s been in years. The coverage also focuses more and more on the engineering side of things, and it’s completely fascinating.
And largely thanks to Jeff Gordon, it’s no longer the er, regional thing of popular imagination. The top drivers are on par with the best in any other series, yes, even internationally. To paraphrase Carroll Shelby said he turned down Enzo Ferrari’s offer to drive for him, they can make more money running here in the States, that’s why NASCAR.
Plus the history is fun. I’m a big Team Penske fan for his ability to think long term, but I always root for the Wood Brothers and their single, longest-in-the-series entry.
Counterpoint: My Subaru literally shares more in common with a Supra than that “Supra” does.
Also, “top drivers are on par with the best in any other series”……seriously?!
Races are too long. Cars are spec’d down to a point it kills competition instead of pursuing a cost cap. The whole idea is contrary to racing, which is build a better car to beat your opponents. So no, I’ll pass on Cup.
–signed, a person who grew up on Nascar and dirt tracks and can no longer stand the series.
I know they’re not anywhere close to stock – IMSA is my usual fix for that, though I’m an occasional Trans-Am fan – but it makes me happy to see the Supra shape rather than the Camry’s at least.
I grew up in the Midwest (Indycar!) and had never even heard of NASCAR until I moved South for work. It took awhile, but it did grow on me.
Agreed I would like for each race every team gets a similar car. At 48 hours prior to race each drivers crew starts modification. Then drivers decide. Figure x amount Toyota races, x amount Chevy, X amount Ford. So the crew helps but with only 48 hours all started at same level financially easier for small teams. Large teams can’t cheat. Drivers and luck decide
No.