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GURSS: Road Course Excellence
Written by: Jade Gurss   
06/23/2009
Mooresville, NC
 
Every time the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars head to a road course, there is a chorus of folks who dislike or are uninterested in the race. However, if you didn’t tune in to catch Sunday’s race from Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, you missed one heckuva show. I’m amazed at how many still seem to be against road racing – and hope someone can spell out their resistance in the comments below. Why do people not appreciate it?
Faster. Louder. The weekly column on SPEEDtv.com by Jade Gurss. (Harold Hinson Photo) ยป More Photos
What more could you ask from a race? This one had a variety of pit strategies, furious racing through the field (and yes, some drivers were frequently too furious), sparkling and suspenseful double-file restarts and a silky smooth drive from an unexpected victor: Kasey Kahne. In a season marked by mostly uninteresting races, this one might have been the finest thus far as Kahne’s No. 9 Budweiser team executed the right pit strategy and then sat back and watched as Kahne flawlessly held off the bulldog named Tony Stewart in the final laps while Marcos Ambrose chased them both to a third-place finish.

Even the television coverage rose to a new level, and the multiple “foot cams” showed an interesting array of driving styles through the field.

Road courses add a unique twist to a schedule heavy with look-alike 1.5-mile ovals. Just like the short tracks and restrictor-plate super speedways add diversity and further showcase the versatility of the drivers, road courses throw an element of the unknown into the mix with a handful of ‘ringers’ sprinkled into the field with the Cup regulars. However accomplished these road course experts, and no matter what team they join, none of them have won a Sprint Cup race in the modern era – a testament to the skills of the Cup regulars in these lumbering, heavy cars with too little tire, a high center of gravity and too little brakes. To make the races as good as they have been takes considerable skill by the drivers and the teams.

And how about the new double-file restarts? They made each yellow flag restart nail-biting time as the racers tiptoed through the first several turns in side-by-side formation each time.

“The restarts were awesome. They were fun,” said Stewart after the race. “The fans had to enjoy that and it was a good race. To have three or four of us at the end that had a shot to get up there if anybody made a mistake. That's an awesome road course race."

With the long front stretch at Watkins Glen, the double-file restarts there
should be thrilling as the drivers dive into turn one and attempt to out-brake their counterpart.

Imagine how exciting they would be at a course like Montreal, where the tight final turn leads onto the front straight. Now that Formula One has abandoned the cosmopolitan Canadian city, isn’t the time right for NASCAR to consider a move north for a Sprint Cup race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve? The Nationwide cars have put on entertaining races there already, and the Canadian fans are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Lop off one of the endless snoozefests at Pocono to add an international flair to the Cup calendar. The time is right for NASCAR to expand to Canada and add another road course to the 36-race schedule. If you disagree, here’s your change to explain why.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Jade Gurss is the owner of fingerprint, inc., a sports publicity company. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, including what is believed to be the biggest-selling motorsports book in American publishing history (Driver #8 with Dale Earnhardt Jr.). His two decades of publicity and marketing experience involves nearly every category of motorsports, including nine innovative seasons as NASCAR publicist for the Budweiser brand and Earnhardt Jr. His blog can be seen at: http://fingerprint.typepad.com

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