NASCAR: Five Disappointments With 2016 Schedule
By Mike Hutton
Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
No Night Race On “The Western Swing”
All three tracks on the “western swing,” Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway have lights. Why doesn’t at least one of them have a night race? For logistical reasons related to the material on the previous page, the logical place for a night race would be Auto Club Speedway. This way, teams could have an 18-hour (approximately) earlier start on the long ride home than if they had to stay until Sunday.
The atmosphere and energy of a night race is so much more exciting than the same event held during the day. There isn’t a tangible reason why, it just always seems so. I’ll take exciting over mundane any day.
I’ve never bought the argument that for a national touring series like Sprint Cup to have night races would pull fans away from supporting their local short-tracks. Sure, it might impact attendance at a given local track on that one night when there is a Cup race nearby, but that’s only going to impact the local venue once during the season. The weeks leading up to, and after, the Cup race would be unaffected. I will believe this until proven wrong.