NASCAR: Time to Retire Relief Drivers
NASCAR rules say a driver who starts a race receives the points from the race even if a relief driver finishes the race. Why do we still have this rule in 2016?
You can say a lot about NASCAR under the leadership of Brian France, but for better or worse, he has never been afraid of change. In this century alone, there have been three different car “generations” and four Chase for the Sprint Cup formats. There has been knockout-style qualifying introduced. Driver-eligibility rules have changed. The top-35 rule was added and kind of removed. Change happens all over the place in NASCAR. As the saying goes, the only thing constant is change.
On Monday there was the unfortunate news that three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart has been hospitalized with a back injury sustained while driving an all-terrain vehicle on the West Coast. At this time (around 8:30 am on Wednesday morning), the severity of his injury has not been reported and his status for the Daytona 500 is unclear.
(At some point I’d like someone to let me know what the tipping point was in Smoke’s life that caused this incredible streak of…unfortunate…incidents. Did he break a mirror? Walk under a ladder? I’d really like to know so I know not to make the same mistake. Please.)
Of course, when we don’t know specifics about something, we speculate. And while discussing what this might mean for Stewart and the Daytona 500 and beyond, someone I know started a “well he could start at Daytona and still get the points, then maybe run Atlanta…”-thought, and while that is totally valid by the rules (and here’s hoping it is a real possibility for Stewart), it highlights what a terrible rule the NASCAR has when it comes to relief drivers.
I understand why the rule exists regarding relief drivers, even if you take injured drivers trying to get as many points as possible out of the conversation. Can you imagine racing the entire 1969 Motor Trend 500? That race was on a Riverside International Raceway (a road course), was 500 miles (!), and lasted nearly five hours. With no caution flags! Think about stock car safety “technology” 50 years ago. With no headrests or cooling helmets or any of the things drivers take for granted, they must have all wanted to get out of the car at some point, right?
However, in 2016, the only reason for a relief driver rule to exist is for a driver who is injured to get points by starting the race. Looking at the reality of today’s NASCAR, there is literally no reason for such a rule to exist. None.
Here’s a question: does the relief driver rule add any entertainment value to a race? We’ve all seen how it goes: the injured driver drops to the back of the grid on lap 1 or the first caution flag, pulls down pit road, and gets helped out of the car by the pit crew…relief driver hops in, gets strapped in as quickly as possible, and returns to the race. Does anyone look forward to that? Does it add any drama (besides “please don’t drop my favorite driver, guys?”) I think we can all agree there is, at best, zero entertainment value added by the relief driver rule.
If your argument is sponsor-driven, spare me. Is the 45 seconds of attention for the driver change worth it to a sponsor? I find that dubious. And you can say “if the relief driver does well he’ll get more air time” and be technically correct, but do you know who gets just as much air time? Substitute drivers! “Hey, look at young Erik Jones in the top-10…doing a great job in Kyle Busch’s M&M’s Toyota.” That is a thing that happened and will continue happening, so sponsors do not really their injured superstars starting the race for the sake of exposure.
More importantly, when addressing driver safety, there is nothing positive added with the relief driver rule. Why is having a driver who is too injured or ill to complete a race in a race car under racing conditions acceptable? It certainly is not necessary, especially since there are now Chases in all three major NASCAR series, and especially since NASCAR has given injury waivers (or in the case on Kurt Busch, suspension-ish waivers) to every driver who has needed one, from Denny Hamlin to Kyle Larson to Kyle Busch.
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The reality of sports and injuries is simple: if you are too injured, you can’t play. The idea that – say – an injured Peyton Manning would take the first snap of the Super Bowl to get credit for the “win”, then come out for his healthy backup…I mean, that’s ridiculous, right? Can you imagine the silliness if Stewart “started” the Daytona 500 and gave way to a relief driver, and that driver won the race? (On a restrictor-plate track with the Lucky Dog and Wave-around rules, it is not an entirely implausible scenario.)
“I’m here in Victory Lane with Elliott Sadler. Elliott, describe your emotions having crossed the finish line first in the Daytona 500 and how you feel getting Tony Stewart his first Daytona 500 win.”
(Pause for a minute while you stop giggling…)
Here is the reality. In 2015, the Sprint Cup champion missed eleven races. The need for an injured driver to strap in to get a few points has gone away, and that is a credit to NASCAR, even if they backed into it. It is time for NASCAR to make it official, and retire the concept of the relief driver.