Sean Wrona

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Sean Wrona
1,000 Greatest Drivers: Marco Werner

1,000 Greatest Drivers: Marco Werner

Am I the only person who liked yesterday's Talladega race?

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Sean Wrona
Apr 29, 2025
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Sean Wrona
Sean Wrona
1,000 Greatest Drivers: Marco Werner
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Lately, I’ve been feeling very old. Reading the antisocial media comments after yesterday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega makes me want to pull my hair out. So many fans are calling a race that had 67 lead changes, a photo finish, and no Big One one of the worst races they had ever seen and the worst Talladega race they’ve ever seen to the point of arguing that anyone is stupid or must be a new fan or factually incorrect if they disagreed. I do not get it. Do I think yesterday’s race was some kind of all-time classic or anything? No, but it was fine and I cannot see how that is not the general consensus. Is the 2X2 gridlock gimmicky? Yeah, sure, but all plate racing has always been gimmicky. Some packages are better than others. Was it hard to make passes through the pack? Yeah, but that’s not new either. Watch any of the plate races from 1992, 1995, 2000 (excluding the wicker bill debut), and 2005. Is it mildly annoying that pit strategy kept elevating people to the front row? Yes, but that isn’t new either. Denny Hamlin was running last in the 2020 Daytona 500, pitted just before the stage break ended, and was elevated to first place en route to victory. I can rattle off like five other plate races just off the top of my head that were decided on a pit stop exchange, and a lot of those were single-file parades. Personally, I’ll take a double-file parade over a single-file parade. But it doesn’t have anything to do with driver skill. To be honest, the jump the shark moment for plate racing was the 2000 Winston 500 for me, which is now remembered as the best. plate. race. ever. Everyone likes to praise Dale Earnhardt driving from 16th to first in four laps, but that race was so random and goofy that I doubt people remember that 59-year-old Dave Marcis drove from 9th to the lead in two laps. This, in my opinion, is the moment when talent starts mattering significantly less (when it usually mattered a lot prior to that race IMO).

And now all these younger fans who started watching in the 2000s are lecturing everyone as if the 2000s’ plate racing was the best ever when really it was the beginning of these races getting more and more gimmicky, and by the time there were GWCs and double-file restarts in the last ten laps in 2009, it was all over. My standards for Talladega racing are usually so far in the toilet that I really can’t see what everybody is complaining about. It was fine and to see people jumping on guys like Matt Weaver and calling them shills for actually liking a race (probably because they saw a lot of the more monotonous ‘90s plate races, many of which were absolutely more boring than that) kind of appalls me. If you want to call somebody in the booth making hundreds of thousands or millions a shill, go for it I guess. But Weaver is just one sole reporter who can’t be making a whole lot of money and clearly he’s doing it because he loves it and could probably make more money elsewhere. Most people are outraged about the supposedly bad racing (even though I think every plate race from ‘92, ‘95, ‘98, 2000 except the Winston 500 I guess, 2002, 2005, and the many, many overtime shitshows were worse, including especially the 2015 fall Talladega race and almost every Daytona 500 after 2017). What made this stand out in particular? I agree with the Next Gen haters that Bristol has sucked, but I don’t get it here. Get a little perspective. You know what really is sucking this year? IndyCar. Three races, one on-track lead change at a country club. This was certainly better than that (and IndyCar was definitely better in the 2010s). So it’s basically just IRL pack racing in NASCAR? Okay. I enjoyed some of the IRL pack races (probably more than what IndyCar is currently shitting out) and while I acknowledge that 2X2 pack racing was too dangerous to continue for IndyCar, the NASCAR cars seem to be safe enough for it, as evidenced by Christopher Bell not being hurt in a crash that would have messed a driver up bad in the ‘90s. The real problem I think is the points system. I’m not convinced the drivers aren’t capable of making moves (Ryan Preece and Bubba Wallace sure did it) but they have just decided the probability of improving their position is less than the probability of losing position if they try to make a move. This is probably correct. If you want to incentivize drivers to make moves again, get rid of the dumbass one point per position, to ostensibly “keep it simple” for the fans (which it doesn’t, since the playoff format is needlessly complicated, and it also condescends to the fans and treats us like we are imbeciles, which is also egregious). Anyway, here’s Marco Werner. I might do Russell Ingall later tonight to catch up.

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