Fans React To ... Shelby American

The bright lights of Las Vegas seem to do some crazy things to people. They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But in NASCAR, in most certainly does not. All the storylines, wrecked cars, points, and bad blood that were acquired in Sin City will all be carried over to the next weekend. Just as Las Vegas is no ordinary city, Las Vegas Motor Speedway is no ordinary racetrack. Both the Nationwide Series and the Sprint Cup Series raced there this weekend, and Stpehen Taylor, 21, from Chugiak, Alaska remained unimpressed with either of them.

“I thought they were a major letdown,” Stephen said. “Both were not very competitive at all. The Cup race was especially boring with typical Hendrick dominance and the 48 winning.”

Indeed, it seems that many fans enjoyed the Nationwide Series race more, and not necessarily because of competition.

“I think the Nationwide race was more exciting than the Cup race,” said Josh, 30, of Connecticut. “A lot more excitement all race long. And I’m tired of JJ.”

Many race fans seem very much fatigued by the No. 48 team’s dominance the last four years, and are ready for it to end. But now more than ever the team seems unstoppable. Other than a slight hiccup at Daytona, the team has picked up right where they left off when they won their fourth consecutive championship last season. Fans that have tried to stick it out are now wearing thin and wondering if this reign will ever end.

“Seriously, I don’t think the 48 can be stopped,” says John, 41, of Livingston, TX. “That team is the reigning dynasty.”

Nothing, that is, except caution lights. Caution lights brought the entire field to a screeching halt 7 times during the Shelby American. Two of them were accidental. On lap 54, the caution lights never turned off from a restart just a few seconds earlier, and NASCAR was forced to call the caution again. On lap 109 the caution lights turned on again, this time for no reason at all. Obviously, this was a problem. Andy Marquis, 22, of Baltimore, MD thinks he has it figured out:

“Someone in the control room was probably as bored with the race as we were.”

So whether it was just your basic malfunction, or someone has a sense of humor in the control tower, the caution lights still caused a fuss. Though they didn’t directly affect the outcome of the race, they did cause quite a bit of confusion and cost some drivers some track position when they slowed down for what they thought was a caution.

Speaking of lights, some lights that drivers seem to not be paying attention to are the lights on their dashboard. Each racer has a series of lights on their dashboard that alert them if they are going at the right speed (green), if they’re going too fast (yellow), or if they are outright speeding (red) on pit road. With these lights, you may think drivers would never speed down pit road right? Well, each week it seems we are seeing more and more speeding penalties, especially in the Nationwide Series.

“The crew chiefs are pushing things to the limit,” says Joe Daley, 31, of Douglass, KS. “NASCAR gives them a 5 MPH buffer over the actual speed limit. If the CC’s set up the tach to go all green at that speed rather than pit road speed, then they run the risk of speeding.”

NASCAR drivers have tachometers rather than speedometers, and teams will do anything they can to push the limits. However, doing so may end up hurting them in the long run.

But, clearly, as boring of a race as some fans thought it was (and many thought it wasn’t), the weekend gave fans plenty of things to discuss. Let’s just hope we go without any caution light malfunctions the rest of the season, shall we?

Article - Summer Dreyer - ARN Writer
Photo Credit - Gary Zabransky - ARN Reporter