The first run was still green, and I already knew what I’d write; the high-downforce package. That’s how little of anything happened, Sunday.<\/p>\n
When the competition caution flew on Lap 26,\u00a0Chase Elliott<\/strong> was over three seconds ahead of\u00a0Kyle Busch<\/strong> in second.<\/p>\n As we’ve seen time<\/a> and time<\/a>\u00a0and time<\/a>\u00a0and time<\/a>\u00a0again, the wake from the lead car drowns out the pursuing car and makes passing a Herculean task. Except for three, the only times the leader was passed in this race was on pit road and on a restart.<\/p>\n This trend repeated throughout the race.<\/p>\n For example: On the Lap 31 restart,\u00a0Joey Logano<\/strong> pushed\u00a0Denny Hamlin<\/strong> to the lead. After a few laps, Hamlin pulled away from the field. He finished the stage two seconds ahead of Logano.<\/p>\n Even when Elliott got stuck in lap traffic and Hamlin pulled up to him, he couldn’t overtake him.<\/p>\n And the inverse happened, prior to a caution for debris on Lap 190.<\/p>\n The only real intrigue came from the possibility of a fuel-mileage race to the finish. Though that died when Kyle Busch and\u00a0Kevin Harvick<\/strong> triggered a rush to pit road with 36 laps to go.<\/p>\n Well at least NASCAR came to its senses and did away with the high-downforce package for 2021.<\/p>\n Oh wait, that didn’t happen!<\/p>\n At the time this column was published, NASCAR’s shown no indication that this package won’t carry over to 2021.<\/p>\n I’m running out of ways to say this package sucks. As I noted above, this isn’t the first time I’ve written this. Hell, I lampshaded<\/a> it in the headline.<\/p>\n Frankly, I’m tired of NASCAR venturing down the path of placing more emphasis on entertainment than the sport aspect of its auto racing competition.<\/p>\n And as much as the big wigs in Daytona pretend otherwise, this package doesn’t create good competition.<\/p>\n