Another schedule option

Shorter races. I know, a taboo topic for some. Five hundred mile races, aside from the sport's crown jewel events, are too long. Listen to Kevin Harvick sum it up from one of his Happy Hours shows on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio earlier this season:
"I think with the stage racing and the things that we have going now and the attention spans of what people want to watch, I think there should be the Coke 600, the Daytona 500, the Southern 500, the crown jewel events should have those distances. And I think everything else should be shorter."

Fix the product, fix the ratings. Right?

Hire Dale Earnhardt Jr.

You read that right.



A fresh perspective on the sport is needed. Who better to get in there and mix things up than someone who has been around since childhood and watched NASCAR transform into what it is today? Someone who already offers ideas on Twitter and has expressed interest in a Steve O'Donnell-type role?

Couldn't hurt to hear what he would say. Earnhardt loves this sport and wants to see it succeed.

Other items

• Inspection and penalties. Man, this is a tiring subject but it is something that dominates headlines each season. As I wrote earlier this year, NASCAR needs to find a way to stop the egg-throwing each week.
• Re-evaluate the charter system. I wasn't a business major but I can't imagine this system, put in place before 2016, is doing what it was supposed to. With smaller fields, there has been no major team in danger of missing a race that would have needed to fall back on the guaranteed spot the charter ensures. Multi-car teams have also become clever with a loophole in knowing to lease out a charter, get it back and then lease out a different charter. There have also been many teams looking to unload a charter (through lease or selling), money is constantly changing hands and charters are floating all over the place. What is going on here?

Happy holidays, NASCAR. You've got some work to do.