[rj1]

Watching the race I'm just slackjawed at what modern auto racing has become. Not a full list by any means:

-we see a thunderstorm coming, command to start engines a little after 2:30, race starts around 2:40, TV coverage starts at 2, no adjustment at all with the incoming inclement weather with the extra TV time
-crash occurs on lap 10, because we already scheduled a caution at lap 20, no one is allowed to take fuel, this is from a competition perspective indefensible
-rain comes at lap 12, cars are parked for 2 to 3 hours, we move the competition caution to lap 30 because from all this time of cars standing still and the already scheduled competition cautions that NASCAR markets as ends of segments, we need to slow down the racing yet again
-J.J. Yeley crashes, collects 2 cars with him, and NBC commentator Rick Allen is so enthusiastic about his job he acts like he's covering a golf tournament calling the action and doesn't raise his voice one decibel; if you were not actively watching the TV, you would have had no idea a crash had occurred
-Rick Allen at one point said "things are so competitive, we have 34 cars on the lead lap"; well, when you throw the caution every 15 laps on a 2.5-mile oval, yeah, that occurs, that doesn't mean the guys 20th on back are running close to the leader
-then everyone starts running out of talent and crashes into one another, it took them almost an hour to run the last 10 to 15 laps in the race and the majority of those were under caution
-you had the ridiculous thing of Kahne getting passed by Keselowski when the race was green for maybe a hundred yards because NASCAR's restart rules are so constrained instead of just giving the leader charge of the field for a wider area, also the constrained restart rules helped create the large frontstretch crash and the red flag that led to...
-then the sun is going down and the race may be stopped due to darkness after a 2nd red flag due to drivers running out of talent, because a race that starts at 2:30 should end before 9 o'clock, wiping out a lot of NBC's primetime programming and I'm sure they were happy at 7:55pm about choosing to start the race later in the afternoon
-then, the race ends on a crash during a green-white-checker, however the crash occurred before Kahne crossed the restart line, but they waited to throw the caution until after Kahne crossed the line because they had to get the race over to make NBC happy but especially because they didn't want to end the race due to darkness

This race perfectly embodies NASCAR racing in 2017.