Quote:
Originally Posted by BeerCloud
i do believe NASCAR got Green-White-Checkered from your local saturday night race track. Sprint cars were doing that well before NASCAR began running it in their programs.
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Ahhh... not to argue a point, Beercloud buddy, it's just my opinion on it.
There are certain things I don't like, and I can put them all under the heading of gimmicks. They are:
Green-white-checkered
The Lucky Dog
The Wave Around
Restrictor plates
Double file restarts
Debris cautions
Lapped cars to the rear on restarts
The best way a green-white-checkered finish was ever explained was to think of it as a marathon running race. A marathon is 26 miles, 385 yards. To me, that is like going 26 miles and stopping (caution) and then lining everyone back up, after a breather, and having a 385 yard sprint for the win. The race is a MARATHON, not a sprint.
You have to keep the overall perspective of the race clear.
Here is a good example for this past 500: The Penske team with Allmendinger got out of synch with the pitstops due to his belts coming undone. The networks were playing it up. Anyone who can count backwards from 200 laps in 28-30 laps chunks knew the whole rest of the field had to make the same number of pitstops as A.J. he was essentially out nothing. Now, his only problem would have been had it gone G-W-C, for he only had enough fuel until about Lap 201. Now you have teams having to deal with some outside influence such as that vice dealing with what the race is billed as - The Indianapolis 500. I never read anywhere where it was called the Indianapolis 505.
And on a sidebar, as far as I can recall, no short tracks/weekly shows count caution laps. Hence every finish where a caution comes into play late will be a G-W-C, for the caution laps do not count, thus CANNOT count for the last lap. Sprint cars in every category used this method. It was never a USAC thing. It was a product of short track weekly racing. Long races, like Champ Cars, count the caution laps, and always have, for they run long races. Short races at your local tracks cannot, or never really did. It would ruin the 30 lap features (make them 10 lap features at times).
In the mid 80s, ARCA started using the G-W-C for their races. They (ARCA) are longer races than your weekly shows wherein the caution laps are counted. NASCAR copied this idea after the Talladega beer can throwing incident back in the early 00s when Gordon won under caution. Richard Petty, a long time advocate of not drinking, chastised NASCAR for giving in to the beer drinkers. But, unfortunately Richard Petty has been long forgotten by many for what he achieved.
Don't even get me started on the Chase where NASCAR copied that from the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series.
Bottom line: I understand and respect your view. Honest. I just like an advertised 500 miler being just that - a 500 miler. It''s not the fastest car that wins races. It's the first car to take the checkered flag.
And I don't like gimmicks.