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JENSEN: Epic Failure
Written by: Tom Jensen   
07/28/2008
Indianapolis, Ind.
 
During practice at the Brickyard, teams complained that tires were wearing out in as few as four laps. (Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images Photo) ยป More Photos

Over the course of a 38-race season that stretches from Florida to New Hampshire to Northern California and back again, I am constantly amazed and impressed at how well NASCAR runs its events.

To stage races all over the country and stage them as well as NASCAR does is a Herculean task, one that requires a small army of dedicated and capable people, most of whom do an exceptional job under tight deadlines and a brutal travel schedule.

And NASCAR’s success and the high standards it holds itself to mean that on the rare occasion that a race goes horribly wrong, as Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard unquestionably did, it’s glaringly obvious to the entire world.

Had I been a fan who’d paid hundreds or perhaps thousands of dollars to bring my family to the most famous racetrack in the world to see the most successful racing series in America, I would have left Indianapolis Motor Speedway feeling cheated and violated.

With right-side tires unable to run more than 10 laps before failing, NASCAR threw 11 caution flags for 52 of 160 laps, and the race
never was green for more than 12 consecutive laps.

Imagine being at the Super Bowl, and every three minutes play on the field was stopped — with the clock still running — so the players could go change their shoes, because the field was tearing them up. That’s what the Brickyard was like on Sunday, with nearly one-third of the alleged “race” run under caution-flag conditions.

This was NASCAR’s second-biggest race of the year, with more than 200,000 people in the stands and television audience of millions, yet what they witnessed was a travesty only slightly more satisfying and slightly less idiotic than the 2005 Indy Formula 1 race, where only six cars raced because of tire concerns.

Fans have every right to be angry about what they watched from the stands or on television.

The question now is, what comes next? How does NASCAR respond and earn back the trust of race fans, the most critical asset the sport has?

Like all of you out there, I’ll be watching that very closely in the days and weeks ahead.


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