Off-Topic Forum

After reading these long posts, I remember why I hate shorthand and initials.  I was like "who's RFR"?  "Is that Jeff Gordon Racing, oh Joe Gibbs" and so on.  Don't get me wrong, like reading the posts, it just takes a moment to comprehend all the intials.

As for the racing so far, I'm haven't been really into it, but after Daytona, I kind of drown out the west coast swing.  I wonder if the snowy weather continues the next few years, how that impacts that trip since that was the main/whole reason for doing it.  Might as well just stay around the south for a bit or maybe have a Texas race and one in Mexico.  Though I still say they need to either make the schedule more compact or shorten it.  Seems like there's only 2 months of an offseason.

Would you really want to type out Roush Fenway Racing (which is now Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing) or Joe Gibbs Racing (instead of just JGR)? I could type up a list of shorthand for you.  Mainly it would be the 2 above with HMS (Hendrick), SHR (Stewart-Haas) and RCR (Childress).

I agree that the season should be shortened. I would prefer 32 races plus the Clash and the ASR (All-Star Race). The offseason now is literally 3 months. Early November to early February. But it used to be shorter. The season used to end the Sunday before Thanksgiving and now ends the 1st Sunday of November. However, they took away half of the off-weeks for the teams just to end the season earlier. But they also have the D500 a week earlier now than they used to have it and the Clash is 2 weeks earlier since it also isn't at Daytona anymore. If they knocked out 2 races early in the season and 2 later in the season, it would just run from March to October. That would almost eliminate the possibility of snow messing up a race anywhere in the southern half of the country early or late in the season. Plus they could race the hottest part of the summer at all of the northern tracks. Texas and Daytona in July or August can't be fun for the people period: drivers, teams, fans, etc..

It was more of a thing about me, I don't expect anyone to write the long form names of all of them.  Its not as bad here as other sites I go to.  Some posts read like a text message.  "LOL the STY of the FND can't really expect JTT to stay with GNR".  Makes me glad I don't text much.

Maybe its just me, but I always thought they could shuffle Xfinity and the Truck Series a bit so their schedules weren't with so many off weeks. Run the Xfinity series in the first part of the season, and the Trucks the last half or something so there would never be an off week between the three series.  It would probably shorten the seasons for them a bit, but still might not be a bad idea.  Though looking at it, the schedules look better than I remember.  As I watch more F1, I tend to have the same complaint.  I guess the reason NASCAR starts when it does it so the entire schedule wouldn't compete with baseball, but I've mentioned before all the major sports could shorten their seasons and not cause so much overlap.

I hate that they now race on Mother's Day and Easter.....

Pin that and the crappy starting times solidly on TV.....

I will be missing parts (maybe whole broadcast) of many races as they schedule them

where the middle of the races fall right into Dinner Time....

I get what you are saying now Jupiter. I'm in my 40's, so I don't text like the much younger people do. They use all kinds of finger and thumb combos to type way faster than I ever could on a phone. I type a few letters and tap the word that pops up on my screen as the "most suggested word" and move on to the next word I want to type. I'm not sure the younger crowd even knows that a phone does that! Most of my online stuff is done from a laptop PC though and I type out everything, So I do use shorthand for stuff like team names.

As for off-weeks, NASCAR Trucks, Xfinity, F1 and even IndyCar could benefit a lot from condensing their seasons into a shorter timeframe. There is no reason for any of those series' to have 2 or more weeks between races! I'd follow them all more closely if they raced every week or every other week. The Truck Series is ridiculous. Race the 1st and 3rd weeks then weeks 5-9 in a row before taking 2 weeks off. Then 5 more races and 2 more weeks off. Then it's mostly every other week off for the rest of the season. Their playoffs start over a month before the NXS playoffs start, but they still end on the same weekend! CWTS is starting Round 2 when NXS is just starting the playoffs.

I also agree about them racing on Mother's Day (or the night before until this year) and on Easter. Oddly, the only week that all 3 NASCAR series take a break together now is Father's Day. That's also the break from Cup and NXS when they switch from FOX to NBC coverage. They used to take Mother's Day and Easter off and then would race on Father's Day to celebrate the drivers that are fathers. Now they give the guys that day off to celebrate with their children and other family members. What happened to giving the drivers the day off on Mothers Day to celebrate their Mom and/or wife?! Many of the drivers now are so young that they don't have a wife or children. Then again, many of the really young drivers already have both!

As for the air-time for races, that doesn't bother me at all. That's why I have a DVR. I auto-record all NASCAR races whether I am watching them live or not. I can watch them after family gatherings or pause them for a meal. It's actually faster to watch them when they aren't live since I can fast-forward through commercial breaks and yellow or red flag situations.

I am a member of the younger crowd, but do not personally understand much of the text lingo either and have very few of them I use. I do use letters for teams like HMS (Hendrick), SHR (Stewart-Haas), RFK (Roush-Fenway-Keslowski), RCR (Richard Childress Racing) or JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). I actually do type things out on my phone as well using thumbs and am rather quick at it, but do use the suggested word feature a lot when it pops up early in a word's typing. I still prefer to use my laptop though. I don't have the DVR so have missed a few events (Xfinity, Truck, and ARCA) this season already. I am not a fan of racing on Easter, but personally don't have a problem with racing on either Mother's Day or Father's Day. Just my opinions though.

A fairly boring race, made worse with a yellow flag for a non-caution incident.....

Then they let the leader finish with the last lap crash.....

Trucks and Xfinity about off my viewing list, too many Cup drivers.....

I was so bored with this race.  It didn't help that the announcers seemed like they didn't want to be there.  I still think Danica is doing a good job when they use her, and would still rather have her than Clint.  The race itself just was background noise for me.  The Indycar race was much more exciting even though two of the drivers I was rooting for ended up losing the lead in crazy scenarios.  Since I don't get FS1 I didn't see the Xfinity or Truck race.  It seemed that anymore the Xfinity series is a bit redundant.  As Bolo stated, too many cup drivers, and the ones that are regulars move up really quick to the cup series.  I'm glad for the youth integrated into the cup series, but its make it so there isn't much time moving up the ranks (at least in Xfinity and Truck) to decide if you like the driver or not.  Maybe that will change since there doesn't seem to be too many older drivers on the Cup circuit anymore.  Also a bit sad to me that one of the "older" drivers, Kyle Bush is almost 5 years younger than me.

Hope Chase Elliott recovers well and quickly, I don't think Josh Berry will be able to keep his head above water for the entire time he's away.

As expected, the Vegas race was not very interesting. But it was a flip of what I thought would happen. Ford was practically non-existant in this race and HMS dominated by leading all but 30 laps. The restart after Logano wrecked was quite exciting for about a dozen laps and then the GWC finish was pretty good. I'm glad they didn't throw the caution for the final wreck since several drivers had already taken the white flag. I preferred seeing the drivers race to the checkered flag instead of locking them into spots based on when a yellow flag flew like they did at Daytona. Byron certainly earned that victory today!

You didn't miss much from the Truck or NXS races. Way too many cautions in the Truck race and no surprise that Kyle Busch won it. I didn't see the NXS race either b/c I just don't care anymore. It has nothing to do with Cup drivers in the NXS races though. It's more about the NXS drivers rapidly changing teams from one year to the next. There is no room left in the Cup Series for NXS drivers now. Somebody will fill Harvick's seat in 2024 and probably Almirola's seat then too. Otherwise, there is no room unless a driver wants to race for a low-level car in Cup. Why complain about Cup drivers in the NXS OR the Trucks? They are only allowed to run 5 races in either series and most Cup drivers don't bother anymore. I like that! Why shouldn't Kyle Busch run some races in his trucks, especially after switching the team from Toyota to Chevy? Most Cup drivers running NXS or CWTS races now are just trying to get some experience at a specific track. I'm fine with that. It also helps teach the regulars and new drivers in the series how to race against a Cup driver.

I watched the extended highlights of all the races yesterday. 40 minutes and I was caught up. 
 

If Max Verstappen has another dominating season, I wonder if we start to see ratings dwindle.