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ALL-STAR: Game On For NASCAR’s Best
The Sprint All All-Star Race will be televised on SPEED May 21st at 7 pm...
Jim Pedley  | http://www.RacinToday.com  |  Posted May 02, 2011   Charlotte, NC
Kurt Busch celebrates in victory lane after winning the 2010 Sprint All-Star event. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
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Stick-and-ball all-star games? They’re schmooze-fests at best, hoaxes perpetrated against their fans at worst. In sports like basketball, football, baseball and hockey, the term all-star game is only half correct. They do feature all-stars, but games? That would imply there is some form of actual competition.

The NASCAR version of an all-star event – the Sprint All All-Star Race – is just that. Sprint Cup teams and drivers who earn the right to participate are concerned not at all about anything other than winning the race itself; not about points, photo-ops, gift baskets or after-parties.

Take the 2010 edition. During the race, after an on-track “incident,” one driver got on his two-way radio and told his team – and anybody else at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a scanner – that somebody had better stay between the two or he would “kill” the other driver.

And the two drivers in question, were teammates. Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing. A week later, prior to the start of the Coca-Cola 600 points race at CMS, the feud was still in maximum-fester mode.

“Do I regret saying what I said over the radio? Absolutely not,” Busch said. “It was the heat of the moment, that’s who I am, that’s my expression and I’m not going to be sorry for what I say.”

Hamlin answered that with a sneer: “I didn’t wreck him. He just didn’t let up.”

The heavy-metal-hard competition that caused the flare-up between the Gibbs drivers comes as standard equipment with the NASCAR All-Star Race. It’s the thing which makes the event so entertaining and, ultimately, memorable.

And the 2011 edition should be even better. Once again this year, SPEED will televise the event, which takes place May 21st at 7 p.m. For a full list of Sprint All-Star Event activities, check out the SPEED Scanner.

The drivers know to expect a big time.

“To have something that is that much different than the format that we usually race week in and week out really brings a lot of excitement to the whole thing—to the race fans as well as the competitors,” said driver Mark Martin of the All-Star Race. “To have the opportunity to race a little bit more all for the win, and not have to worry so much about minimizing or back stopping your strategies or decisions; you can go out there and it’s sort of winner-takes-all. That makes it really, really special. There are a lot of sparks that fly out there in these races, so it’s pretty cool.”

While all-star events in other professional sports almost never produce lasting memories, the NASCAR version does. It produces, even, races and moments with unofficial nicknames.

To wit: The Pass in the Grass; The Tide Slide; One Hot Night and; T-Rex.

The competitive desire to win the Sprint NASCAR All-Star Race is so strong among participants that it has not only survived semi-regular changes to its format, it has prospered over the years.

But the question of why change it at all is still brought up.

“It’s a collective decision between Sprint, NASCAR, Charlotte Motor Speedway and SPEED,” Tim Considine, director of sports marketing for Sprint said. “We all offer our ideas and give our opinions on what we like about the race and where we think we might be able to improve on it. We’re all going for the same goal. It’s all about making it the best and most exciting experience we can for both the fans who are at the track, as well as the TV audience.”

This year’s All-Star Race will feature the same format which has been used since 2009. There will be four segments – 50 laps with a mandatory green-flag pit stop at lap 25; 20 laps with a caution flag at the end; 20 laps with a 10-minute break at the end; a final 10-lap shootout with only green-flag laps counting toward the total.

The format is the same for a third straight year because all those who oversee the race are satisfied with it.

“The unique nature of the 10-lap shootout really encourages the drivers to go all out,” Considine said, “probably more than any other race during the season. It’s the one event where they can really have a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude, because there are no points on the line and they have nothing to lose by being aggressive.
SPEED™ is the exclusive television home for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race from Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., with live race coverage beginning May 21 at 7 p.m. ET.

“They take chances and put themselves in situations on the track they would probably never even consider in a points race, and it makes for some incredible racing. It’s just about beating the best drivers in the sport for bragging rights and a huge payday, and the drivers seem to love it as much as the fans do.”

Entry to this year’s race is based determined by a number of criteria. The race will include race-winning drivers and team owner from the 2010 and 2011 seasons; Cup series champions from the last 10 years who are active and competed in at least one race in 2010 or 2011; past winners of the All-Star Race; drivers who finish first or second in two 20-lap segments in the Sprint Showdown which precedes the All-Star race; the winner of a fan vote.

Eighteen drivers have already qualified for the race, with at least three more to come. Stay tuned to SPEED and SPEED.com for all the action.

Jim Pedleyis a veteran, award-winning sports journalist who has worked at, among other places, the Boston Globe, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Kansas City Star. Pedley can be reached at jpedley@racintoday.com

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