{"id":10351,"date":"2022-06-04T19:45:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T23:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=10351"},"modified":"2022-07-22T12:08:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T16:08:26","slug":"nascar-drivers-all-star-race-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2022\/06\/04\/nascar-drivers-all-star-race-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR drivers on what to do with the All-Star Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

MADISON, Ill. —<\/strong>\u00a0The most recent edition of NASCAR’s “all-star game” delivered yet another dud<\/a>. Despite it being run on a 1.5-mile track, like Texas Motor Speedway<\/a>, of which the Next Gen car elevated the quality of racing, this season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet Texas was the outlier.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, aside from an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to do damage control, Speedway Motorsports, Inc. President and CEO Marcus Smith hasn’t announced what’s happening with the All-Star Race in 2023.<\/p>\n

So what do we do with this life-less zombie?<\/p>\n

NASCAR drivers like Aric Almirola<\/strong> say move the All-Star Race around.<\/p>\n

“You know, I think we see that in other sports as well,” he said. “And I think it’s, you know, I think it’s fair to the cities that host these races to have that opportunity to showcase their race track and their market for those, you know, bigger events.”<\/p>\n

Bubba Wallace<\/strong> said much of the same and added it shouldn\u2019t be in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be a floating deal,\u201d he said. \u201cJust like every other sport all-star event in any other sport, it needs to be floating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, he noted it shouldn\u2019t be locked into just one venue for years, like it was at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s a hit, then we\u2019ll go back there in a couple of years, but we got to give different venues a chance to showcase and then people from different parts of the country to come out and see what I mean.<\/p>\n

NASCAR drivers All-Star Race<\/h2>\n

Others, like Corey LaJoie<\/strong>, say don\u2019t hold it in the middle of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a place for the All-Star Race,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s in the middle of the year. I believe it\u2019s after the playoffs.<\/p>\n

LaJoie added that it should be limited to playoff drivers and held in Nashville, during the banquet.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody races their way in, and XFINITY and Truck Series champions get a car to drive around as well, because they earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erik Jones<\/strong> suggested \u201cit needs to be reinvigorated,\u201d and that he didn\u2019t think anyone was thrilled to race it at Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s been kind of the same deal for, you know, what, almost 30 years so.\u201d<\/p>\n

While others have a more radical idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know \u2013 an off weekend,”\u00a0Kyle Busch<\/strong> said, in his trademark deadpan demeanor.<\/p>\n

Moreover, what separates the All-Star Race from your average Cup Series race now? Especially Sunday\u2019s race at World Wide Technology Raceway.<\/p>\n

\u201cStages started in the All-Star race; double-wide restarts started in the All-Star race,\u201d he said. \u201cOther things started in the All-Star race, so we now have that in our everyday racing on every single weekend. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s different, it\u2019s just that you are racing for a million dollars in that one particular race, but honestly, I think second-place takes home what a regular Xfinity Series win is throughout the XFINITY season. It is quite a financial jump, yeah, so. I think I went too far there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, until NASCAR and\/or SMI say otherwise, we\u2019re operating under the assumption that the All-Star Race stays in Texas in 2023.<\/p>\n

If so, then don’t expect that huge crowd that turned up at Texas to do so, again.<\/p>\n

TOP IMAGE: Sean Gardner\/Getty Images<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MADISON, Ill. —\u00a0The most recent edition of NASCAR’s “all-star game” delivered yet another dud. Despite it being run on a 1.5-mile track, like Texas Motor Speedway, of which the Next Gen car elevated the quality of racing, this season. Yet Texas was the outlier. Two weeks later, aside from an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3353,"featured_media":10356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,1664],"tags":[921,1033,14,1550,1439,371,1650],"class_list":["post-10351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-nascar","category-nascar-cup-series","tag-all-star-race","tag-gateway-motorsports-park","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-2022","tag-nascar-all-star-race","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-world-wide-technology-raceway"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}