"The best part of every season's start is looking around the sunny Daytona starting grid and seeing every uniform, every pit box and every car sparkling. As Rusty Wallace once said, "Daytona 500 prerace is the happiest place on the planet, and the cleanest. And that lasts about one lap." Because then begins all of those rubs and pit stops and rain delays and fuses lit and fistfights that spend the next nine months dishing out stains of sweat and oil, with a little blood and champagne mixed in for good measure."
"That's why this season, more than any in recent memory -- or, OK, any memory at all -- feels like a watershed year for NASCAR. A chance to bring back the good vibes and perhaps restore a lot of lost trust between the grandstand and the people they pay good money to watch compete at 200 mph, and that starts with mended fences between the ones those fans watch race and the people who govern them."
The start of the NASCAR season brings a sunny, celebratory atmosphere as drivers, crews and cars glow on the Daytona grid. Early excitement quickly gives way to on-track contact, pit stops, delays and confrontations that define the nine-month campaign. Many in the garage hope this season serves as a reset, washing away offseason anxieties and restoring goodwill. The year represents a watershed opportunity to rebuild trust between fans, competitors and sport governance, beginning with repaired relationships among teams, drivers and officials. Recent off-season turmoil included uncertainty over team charters and speculation around a lingering antitrust lawsuit.
Read at ESPN.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]