What makes a good or great race?

[BobbyChaffee]

After listening to people on Sirius NASCAR radio the last few days complaining about the racing at Talladega's lack luster finish and lack of the "Big One", I ask you all this question -

 

What makes a race good or great? Local or big time.

 

I personally thought that the race at Talladega was an outstanding race. The last 15 or so laps and the finish were a little snoozer but overall I thought the race was good.

 

There have been times that a boring race seemed exciting because of a spectacular finish. It could be the difference between casual and hardcore race fans. I have said on a number of times that casual race fans come to watch the wrecks, hardcore race fans come to watch racing.

[HiTech]

well as for dega ..nascar made the right call ,you take the white its over dale sr won daytona on a yellow ..driver safety has to come first ...we all have jumped on nascar for their yellows some very questionable .. this one they did whats right ..... age old question what makes a good race that depends on the beholder ..some like wrecks .but most like me love to see two or more cars getting at it from the first lap to the end .that gets me on my feet every time .slow class fast class makes no different...two of the best races at sas were the slow classes .. grand stocks .and mini. both races had at least two drivers going for the win .both had lead changes during the race you did not know who was going to win ....

[Radical]

All the Junior fans are upset he couldn't make the pass on the last lap coming to the checkers. Now they want it go green all the way. Anything to get Junior a win. Yes, NASCAR made the right call.

[arob]

Since I didn't see one lap can't comment on Talladega.But I think it is time for NASCAR to shorten a lot of the 500 mile races.Daytona, Talladega should stay 500's. The rest should be shortened 100 miles or laps.Most of the races lately are snoozefests during the middle stages so making them shorter should be a plus for everyone.As for the local racing I have to say racing throughout the pack.More often than not that can be found at most dirt tracks.STS has 2 and 3 wide racing throughout all the time.Texana had side by side everywhere too.Asphalt just doesn't do that for more than a few laps then it is single file.Dirt gives you a lot of racing and a great finish like the Street Stock final at Texana Saturday night more often than not.

[SASPEEDRACER24]

To me I'll take a 30 lap race with a full field that runs side by side over a caution filled race. Not something you see much down around these parts. For instance I went 2 weeks ago to La Crosse Wi for their Oktoberfast race. Over 3 days there were about 6 or so different classes that I saw. Other than the ARCA Midwest trucks who had 15 trucks I think all of the other races had well over 30 cars and in some instances upwards of 60 for the Big 8 SLM class and 70 for the ARCA Midwest SLM's. For the 3 days I may have saw 3-5 hard wrecks on a 5/8 mile track about the same width as SAS but without the banking. During most of the races and especially the features you saw side by side racing usually from 2nd on back to 12th with alot of give and take. That was prob some of the best racing I have seen in a long time. Maybe even better than the Snowball... Now I personally think the talent in this area is on par with those guys up there but mentally its a different story. That may be because they race with each other 4-5 times a week where down here you may not see the same guys for 2 to 3 weeks. Anyhow I would love to not have to drive 19 hours one way to watch racing like that but it is what it is...

 

The better question to ask is what can the racing community as a whole do to make racing better besides putting dirt on virtually all the asphalt tracks around here...