Hope and Change: Double-File Restarts

Photo courtesy Bristol Motor Speedway, flickr.com, CC 2.0.

Well we knew for some time now that "double-file restarts" were coming to NASCAR Sprint Cup racing. NASCAR hopes the change will be a catalyst to kick-start a fan base that has fallen closer to a deep slumber. Of course, to be fair, they've always had double-file restarts, it's just that they've chosen a different way of lining up the "files". So what can we expect?

In some ways, I think restarts may be more exciting at times. I mean... if you like fabricated excitement and all. I think my primary fear is that we're going to see a lot more yellow flags. As we all know, watching one yellow flag after another is like watching... well... baseball... except without the home runs.

What has really surprised me is NASCAR's decision to implement this rule for the full race -- even down to the final two laps if necessary. I figured that with 25 laps to go or whatever they'd just restart single file. That would be much cleaner and it would allow the leader to maintain his advantage. Is it really fair that the leader gets to restart with his challenger directly by his side? Or is "excitement" more important than the integrity of the sport these days? Will the closing laps be yellow fever? How big will the pile-ups be at Talladega and Daytona?

And how much more controversy and "judgment calls" will come into play from drivers attempting to jump the restart? Or the leader brake-checking to make it appear that the second-place car is jumping the restart?

Matt Kenseth makes another good point: "If you're at Martinsville or Indy or some of these one-lane tracks and you're running fourth, and you start on the second row, outside, you're probably going to be in big trouble -- you're probably going to have a top-five run turn into a 10th- or 12th-place run."

But what should we not expect?

A bump in television ratings, for one. I suggest that there might be a small increase at Pocono this weekend (though probably not), but I suspect that in the long-term this will not filter down into higher TV ratings, attendance, or fan interest. I see this as more of a distraction from the genuine pressing problems NASCAR needs to be addressing, and I'm quite concerned that they came out of their little "Town Hall" meeting believing that this was the fix they were looking for.

Admittedly, fans seem to be in favor of the change. I find this a bit ironic since the All-Star race at Charlotte had used double-file restarts since as far back as I can remember and there was never a large upwelling of desire from the fans to implement this rule for all races. It seems like the TV folks at SPEED made such a big deal about it during the telecast and then the drivers and NASCAR chimed in to help hype the idea up. Before we knew it fans were being "polled" and voila -- the rule was changed.

Lapped cars might get a sweet deal out of these new restarts. If all the leaders ahead of them pit and they stay on the track, they'll be allowed to pass the pace car under the caution flag and restart at the tail end of the lead lap cars. More excitement, right?

My impression is that NASCAR knows it's in trouble and is trying to do everything it can to keep the sinking ship afloat. But they should know that cheap tricks and gimmicks don't make for a good long-term strategy.