Friday nights throughout the start of the 2019 NASCAR season were littered with complaints about Kyle Busch competing in and winning Truck Series races. But at least for 2019, those nights are history. What can fans complain about now?
With Kyle Busch Motorsports’ Kyle Busch having made the fifth of his five scheduled starts in the 23-race 2019 NASCAR Truck Series season’s eighth race, the NC Education Lottery 200, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, expect Friday nights on NASCAR-related social media posts to be long and boring, as no one will be able to complain about the 34-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native “beating up on the kids” anymore this year.
Busch competed in the Truck Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Martinsville Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway this season, and he won all five of those races.
As a result, Busch, who has been a full-time Cup Series driver since the 2005 season, increased his career Truck Series win total from 51 to 56 this year. After starting the season tied with Ron Hornaday Jr. atop the all-time Truck Series wins list, Busch is now the winningest driver in Truck Series history, and his record may very well continue to climb but not be broken.
But with Busch no longer set to “steal candy from babies” on Friday nights until the 2020 season when he will likely win several more Truck Series races in his expected five starts, what do NASCAR fans have to complain about?
It is no secret that many NASCAR fans can be some of the most rowdy (no pun intended) fans on social media no matter the situation, so it certainly won’t be hard for those fans to find something to complain about.
But just in case the post-Busch Truck Series season hangover is stronger than expected, here are five things that you can still complain about on NASCAR-related social media posts even with Busch’s time behind the wheel of the #51 Toyota complete for the 2019 season with just over one-third of the season in the books.
The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule
The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule was released at the end of March, and it featured a plethora of changes, some of which nobody saw coming, particularly when it comes to the playoffs. To put it bluntly, the schedule was given an overhaul, as only a handful of races kept their weekend dates and remained in the order that they had been in.
NASCAR fans had been asking for many changes to the Cup Series schedule, so when these changes were introduced, everyone stopped fighting, got along, praised NASCAR for their wise and fan-driven decisions to overhaul next year’s schedule and lived happily ever.
And then you woke up.
Many fans, including many who probably didn’t even look at the schedule before getting onto the comments section on social media, decided to complain about it anyway even though the positive changes far outweighed the negatives, of which there certainly were some worth discussing.
We have known that the tracks on the Cup Series schedule are locked into hosting Cup Series races through the 2020 season and that the schedule is set to be given a major shakeup ahead of the 2021 season. In fact, the changes featured in the 2020 schedule provided major hope for what the 2021 schedule may end up looking like.
But why let that stop a good rant?
NASCAR Cup Series rules packages
New rules packages were introduced for the NASCAR Cup Series this season, with different packages for different tracks, and the introduction of these new packages naturally prompted a plethora of complaints on social media even before fans truly understood what the changes were and before they had seen them in action.
Through the first one-third of the 36-race season, NASCAR has already made several tweaks to the rules packages, which has caused a bigger outrage. With 24 of the season’s 36 races having not yet been contested, expect more changes to be made throughout the rest of the season as NASCAR continues to try to please the fans (the key word, of course, being “try”).
The changes to the rules packages ahead of and throughout the 2019 season thus far are basically fuel to the fire for the fans who are constantly in disgust about the fact that NASCAR has added so many rules over the years, especially in regard to the restrictions to the cars, which has resulted in a boatload of grid penalties and points penalties that many fans find ridiculous no matter which drivers are penalized.
If you were to receive a penny for every time someone posts a comment such as “Just let them race” or “NASCAR has too many rules”, you might end up a millionaire by the time the 2019 season ends.
Stage racing
The introduction of stage racing across NASCAR’s three national series ahead of the 2017 season, which has resulted in all races being split up into three points-paying caution flag-ended segments (four for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway) has been a hot topic of discussion (and argument) since the announcement about it was made.
This has not slowed down, and it doesn’t appear as though it is going to.
Many NASCAR fans who don’t mind stage racing argue that the stage breaks effectively eliminate the need for “phantom debris cautions” because of the fact that they guarantee two caution flag periods in every races.
Other fans argue that stage racing creates “manufactured racing” in terms of stacking the field back up even when one driver has built up a sizable advantage over the others, and they rebuke the “phantom debris caution” argument with the fact that laps run during these enforced stage breaks still count toward the lap totals of each race.
Then there’s the “participation trophy” argument; why give points to drivers who are running well halfway through a race? After all, we have already seen several instances where race winners don’t end up scoring the most points in a race due to the fact that other drivers scored more stage points than they did.
Have they really earned those additional points, and sometimes those additional playoff points, that they carry with them through the playoffs all the way to the Championship 4?
Regardless of your take on the matter, this is one topic that will never result in a lack of discussion/argument/complaint among NASCAR fans unless it is eliminated from the sport entirely, and that certainly isn’t likely in the foreseeable future.
Playoffs
This is a last resort since the playoffs are not scheduled to start across any of NASCAR’s three national series for another several months, but it is another good go-to for any fans who feel the need to rip race winners, polesitters, or heck, even practice session speed chart leaders whose championship totals would not be what they are today if not for the playoffs.
In fact, I’d venture to guess that we will never again experience another weekend during which it is not brought up that “NASCAR handed Kyle Busch his championship!” back when he won it in the 2015 season after missing the season’s first 11 races due to injuries he suffered in a crash and receiving a waiver to get into the playoffs as a result of his regular season victories.
Again, fans love to complain about NASCAR’s “gimmicks”, and the playoffs, especially the modern playoff format, certainly fit that bill, perhaps more than any other “gimmick” that the sport has introduced over the years. Even those who enjoy the current playoff format have to see that this is the case.
But don’t waste this one completely quite yet; use it with caution. Because when September rolls around, we can’t wait to hear why Joey Logano is a “fake champion” and how Jeff Gordon, not Jimmie Johnson, is the only seven-time champion aside of Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
We can’t wait to hear about how Winston Cup championships are the only “real” championships from people who insist they will never, ever, ever, ever watch NASCAR again yet continue to watch every race every weekend.
Kyle Busch
Just because Kyle Busch is done competing in NASCAR’s third highest national series doesn’t mean the complaining about him has to stop, even on Friday nights. To suggest anything otherwise would simply be absurd considering we are talking about the most hated driver in NASCAR.
Yes, Chase Elliott won the NASCAR Cup Series Most Popular Driver Award last year for the first time at the age of 22, and if he drives in the Cup Series until he is 100 years old, he will end up as the only 79-time winner of the award.
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But in terms of true popularity, there is nobody who comes close to being talked about as much as Busch. The problem is that this is mostly negative social media-driven attention. But for most NASCAR fans, it gives them something to talk — complain — about, so it’s not really a problem for them.
And there’s an added bonus: Busch still gets the opportunity to “steal candy from babies” in the Xfinity Series throughout the remainder of the season, as he is set to compete in the races at Watkins Glen International, Bristol Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
That means there should be no shortage of “I’m not going to watch NASCAR until they stop letting Kyle Busch beat the kiddies!” comments on NASCAR-related social media posts for another several months!
Awesome!!
By the way, a Fake News to English translation of that comment reads: “I can’t stand the fact that Kyle Busch keeps winning so I’m going to keep watching just so I can keep complaining even though I know nothing is going to change because of it.”
Because we all know these fans just keep coming back for more week in and week out.
What will the heated topics of discussion/argument/complaint be about on social media on Friday nights now that Kyle Busch will not drive in another NASCAR Truck Series race before the 2019 season comes to a close? Will they revolve around one or more of these five points of interest?