Denny Hamlin led the last 39 laps following the final pit stop cycle(Photo: Getty Images)
The South Point 400 held last Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was a terrible race. There’s just no two ways about it. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event had nothing to hang its hat on as two drivers(Denny Hamlin & Kyle Larson) combined to lead all but 35 of the 267 laps and despite the fact that Chase Elliott did close in on eventual winner Denny Hamlin late in the going, there was little doubt who was going to win over the closing laps.
Following a weekend that featured one of the most exciting and drama-filled races of the year at the Bristol Motor Speedway, the contest in Vegas offered very little in the way of fender rubbing, bumper banging, name calling, or post-race “conversations”.
But sometimes, races just work out that way. They can’t all be Bristol baby!
Several years ago, NASCAR was routinely criticized for finding “debris” when cars got strung out around the track and the action needed a boost. As a result of that criticism, it seems as if the practice of manipulating races in such a way has all but gone away. Of course, there is still very much of an artificial element in racing with stage breaks but it is known when those are coming. The so-called phantom debris cautions were often random and unpredictable.
Another issue regarding those unpredictable debris cautions was that they sometimes gave the appearance that officials were playing favorites, particularly if they saved a popular driver or a well financed team from going a lap down or helped close the distance from a leader to a second-place runner so that the television broadcast could offer a close finish to its viewers.
Ultimately, the simple truth of the matter is that races such as the one in Las Vegas that ran its last 101 laps caution-free just have to be allowed to play out as they run. No, it wasn’t really very exciting until it got slightly interesting at the very end when Elliott closed a bit on Hamlin. Restarts provided the only real passing opportunities but there weren’t very many other instances of overtaking, especially after the cars separated themselves from each other but there can’t be restarts every ten laps.
I did tweet earlier in the week that, “A little debris with about 20 to go would have gone a long way for this race” but that was a sarcastic dig at this particular race rather than my true sentiment.
The predetermined stage breaks are not the worst thing ever. And as stated earlier, while there can always be debates about the the timing of the stage breaks, those types of yellow flags are better than the old phantom debris cautions because their timing is known and does not give the appearance that NASCAR officials are playing favorites.
Not all races are great. That begs the question, is it better to simply let the race play out or is it better to have some mysterious debris create at late-race caution for the purpose of making things more interesting? In my opinion, a boring race being allowed to play out is better than artificial entertainment.
Richard Allen is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association
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