NASCAR Needs to Stop Trying to Make Superspeedway Racing Perfect

Daytona's new Cup Series package wasn't perfect. Good. NASCAR should build on what worked instead of chasing a version of superspeedway racing that probably doesn't exist.

Here's our biggest takeaway after watching the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona: NASCAR needs to stop trying to make superspeedway racing perfect.

It isn't going to happen. There will be fuel saving. There will be stretches where drivers ride in line. There will be questionable blocks, bad decisions and wrecks. Every once in a while, somebody will make a move that leaves everyone watching — including the other drivers — wondering what the hell they were thinking. That's part of Daytona. Instead of trying to eliminate every imperfection, NASCAR should be asking a much simpler question.

Is the racing better?

After what we watched Saturday night, we'd say yes.

For years, one of our biggest frustrations with modern superspeedway racing hasn't necessarily been a lack of action. You can put 30 cars two-wide and inches apart and technically have action everywhere. The problem is when nobody can actually go anywhere. That's traffic. We want racing. We want a driver sitting 15th to believe there's a legitimate path to fifth that doesn't require gaining 10 positions during a pit cycle.

That's why the new package was encouraging. NASCAR took downforce and drag out of the cars by reducing the spoiler from seven inches to four, while horsepower went from 510 to 465. The idea was to give drivers more ability to generate runs and actually do something with them. From our view at Daytona, the difference was noticeable. Cars moved around. Drivers aggressively side drafted. Guys could get runs and attempt to move through traffic. Most importantly, the cars looked harder to drive.

We mean that as a compliment.

Running in a giant pack at Daytona shouldn't look easy. These are supposed to be the best stock-car drivers in the world, and we want to see the difference between someone who makes the right move and someone who doesn't. Get the side draft right and move forward. Jump out of line at the wrong time and watch 15 cars go past you. Throw a block you shouldn't have thrown and deal with the consequences. There should be decisions involved beyond when to save fuel and when to pit.

Saturday night's race also proved Daytona doesn't need one enormous wreck to create entertainment. There were crashes, because of course there were, but the entire race wasn't built around waiting for half the field to destroy itself. The championship battle changed throughout the night. Preece went from 31 points below the cutline to winning the race and making The Chase. SVG won Stage 1 and still missed the postseason. Blaney won Stage 2 and finished 33rd. Zane Smith led the final lap and finished 32nd.

Daytona is perfectly capable of creating insanity without NASCAR trying to manufacture it.

Now we get to the part that still needs work: fuel saving. There was too much of it. At times, drivers were trying to stretch fuel so far that the pace of the entire race changed. We don't tune into Daytona to see which driver can press the accelerator the least, and this package didn't magically make that problem disappear.

But fuel strategy isn't automatically bad racing. Strategy is part of motorsports. Sometimes you save tires. Sometimes you save fuel. Sometimes you short pit, and sometimes you stay out praying that the yellow flag you've been waiting for finally appears. The problem isn't the existence of strategy. The problem comes when saving fuel becomes so valuable that there's little incentive to race for position.

And don't blame the teams for figuring that out.

Crew chiefs are paid to win races. If saving fuel for 40 laps gives them a better chance of winning than trying to pass 15 cars, they're going to save fuel. We'd question their judgment if they didn't. NASCAR's responsibility is creating a package where attacking the field has enough potential reward that teams have a legitimate choice.

That's why NASCAR shouldn't be afraid to keep experimenting. Maybe there's eventually room to put some horsepower back into these cars. Maybe another aerodynamic adjustment is necessary. Maybe the answer involves fuel windows or stage lengths. We don't know yet, and after one race, neither does NASCAR.

That's okay.

The next Talladega race should tell us considerably more. Daytona was the first competitive test of this package, and teams didn't have a huge amount of real-world data to study beforehand. Give NASCAR engineers enough time and they'll figure out things nobody anticipated. If drivers can still make moves at Talladega after everyone has studied Daytona, then we might really have something. If the field figures out how to neutralize the package and spends the afternoon riding around hitting fuel numbers, change it again.

That's the part we hope NASCAR understands. Getting something wrong while trying to improve the racing isn't failure. Refusing to change something that clearly isn't working would be.

Daytona wasn't perfect.

We don't want perfect.

We want unpredictable. We want difficult. We want a driver jumping out of line with 20 laps remaining without knowing whether he's about to drive to the lead or get freight-trained back to 30th. We want crew chiefs arguing over whether to save fuel or attack. We want drivers angry after the race because somebody threw a block they shouldn't have thrown.

We want Daytona to feel like Daytona.

The new package gave us more of that. Not enough, but more.

So NASCAR shouldn't declare victory, and it shouldn't blow the package up either. Take what worked, fix what didn't, bring it to Talladega and see what happens.

NASCAR doesn't need to create perfect superspeedway racing.

It just needs to give the best drivers in the world the tools to race each other.

Then get the hell out of the way.