NASCAR at Watkins Glen: Just utilize “The Boot” already

Biggest advantage?

The third key advantage and arguably the biggest of the three key advantages is the fact that the addition of “The Boot” would be a way to bring back an old yet start new tradition within NASCAR. No, NASCAR has never utilized “The Boot” before. But other series have. While this alone means nothing as far as tradition goes, it means a lot as far as Watkins Glen tradition goes.

Watkins Glen is one of the few tracks left on the NASCAR scheduled that still featured packed stands on race days. The track is clearly doing something right, but with NASCAR itself being clearly on the decline, the track can still very much improve and lend itself to an even wider audience.

Adding “The Boot” to the version of the track that NASCAR uses would be just the way to do that. Traditional race fans don’t think of Watkins Glen of having short straightaway between the outer loop and the penultimate turn of the course.

They think of the outer loop leading into the short chute, which leads into the “Toe” and then the “Heel” of the boot before cars get spit out back onto the current course that NASCAR utilizes for the final two turns ahead of the start/finish line.

While there is a case to be made for not fixing something that isn’t broken, would the addition of “The Boot” really be a huge risk to the success that Watkins Glen International has had? Would the current NASCAR fans, namely those who pack the stands at Watkins Glen on a yearly basis, really leave the sport over it?

There are certainly many little things that fans get upset about. In fact, sometimes it seems like these fans go out of their way to do so. But it’s hard to imagine even the biggest complainers out there getting upset about the potential addition of “The Boot”.