Kentucky’s inaugural race was uneventful

On Thursday I sat in the Kentucky Speedway media center and happened upon an article by Yahoo’s Jay Hart. He said that NASCAR’s move to Kentucky was a bad move. The race would be bland.

The green flag drops on the inaugural Quaker State 400 at Kentucky

“Nothing against the good people of the Bluegrass State, who have done their damndest to earn a Cup date, but I can’t get behind it,” he opined.

I thought, he can’t be right. The bumpiness of the track in Sparta made for some interesting races in the years I was there. The racetrack was going to be great for racing, drivers were going to search for multiple grooves in the track and the track was good enough to promote a lot of side-by-side racing.

I was wrong.

“If that weren’t enough, the racing at these cookie-cutter tracks tends to be really, really – what’s the word? – oh yeah, boring,” Hart said.

A view of the Quaker State 400 racing action from turn one at Kentucky Speedway

And after sitting back and thinking about it, I’d be hard pressed to do much but agree, and I’m not the only one.

Don’t get me wrong, I love NASCAR with every fiber of my being. I enjoyed being at the track this past weekend and truly enjoyed seeing NASCAR’s big boys at the track closest to my house. But the Quaker State 400, dare I say it, was boring.

Kurt and Kyle Busch ran away with the first part of the event, and due to long, green-flag runs, clean air was paramount.

A few weeks back Carl Edwards was angry about having to race downforce at tracks like Michigan rather than racing his competition.

“Sadly, downforce is such a big factor in these (current) cars, and I am really hoping NASCAR will take the opportunity in 2013 to take downforce away so the fans can see the guys race race cars and not race downforce,” Edwards said.

A view of the stands at Kentucky late in the race

He continued with, “Let's say all of the cars are a tenth (of a second) apart and you are behind two or three cars, your car is two-tenths of a second slower. You can't make (it) up. I'm not whining; Denny (Hamlin) earned this win and those are the rules we are under. Track position was huge, and I just wish it wasn't like that.”

“Track position is the name of the game,” said Lance McGrew to Mark Martin before the green flag dropped on Saturday night.

Even though there were a lot of late race passes, the first 150-plus laps were little more than a parade. At one point Busch had a ten-plus second lead.

I often hear non-NASCAR fans criticize me. ‘It’s so boring. I don’t know how you watch them just drive in circles,’ people tell me.

This week was NASCAR’s chance to impress first-time visitors to the track in Sparta. A lot of non-NASCAR fans were coming to Kentucky from Cincinnati, Louisville and Lexington for the first time. And if they feel that NASCAR is boring because it’s just guys driving in circles, I feel their feelings were confirmed by the first part of the race at Kentucky.

Even some NASCAR fans who were watching on TV tweeted at me during the race that the race was a little bland and boring.

And that is sad. I love Kentucky Speedway, but it’s going to be tough to sell people to come to a track that has a horrendous track record with parking and has questionable racing.

I wish it was better, but we’ve got one year to see if Kentucky will fix anything. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see what kind of improvements Bruton Smith and SMI make to the facility in Kentucky. They’ve got a long list of things to fix. We have to have faith that they’ll get it done.

But I’m afraid the damage has already been done.