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CRANDALL: Hurry up and wait

Monday, 14 August 2017


Kelly Crandall / Image by Whitton/LAT

Hurry up and wait.
It's a common feeling in the NASCAR garage on race weekends. Teams arrive at the track, continuously work on the car, go through inspection and make sure to maximize all track time available. The media work through interviews and deadlines. It's a full weekend of labor for everyone in the business.

Until it comes to starting the race itself, which always feels like it takes forever. And when the race doesn't start until late in the afternoon, that exacerbates the matter.
Never has that been more evident than this past weekend at Michigan International Speedway.
It shouldn't have been all that surprising of a feeling after the NASCAR community spent previous two weeks being spoiled. Pocono and Watkins Glen were enhanced two-day schedules. With qualifying and racing on Sunday, race day didn't seem to drag along.
Sunday at Michigan, there was a ton of sitting around. There also seemed to be a ton of waiting, and before the clock ever struck noon it was the clearest it has ever been that the green flag falling over a NASCAR race in the late afternoon makes no sense.
For instance, the Michigan schedule had the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series garage open at 9:30 a.m. ET Sunday, and teams were, of course, ready to go to work as soon as it did. But there was then nothing of importance going on until the driver/crew chief meeting at 1 p.m. The green flag didn't fly until 3:19 p.m.
Driving into the track at 10:30 a.m., I couldn't help but ask myself what I was doing. Why was I there so early?
Sure, there's always work to be done or someone to talk to, but I could not find a logical reason why everyone was going to sit around for hours.
Hurry up and wait.
The conversation about start times is as popular in NASCAR as Dale Earnhardt Jr. Not a week goes by the start time, for good or bad, is not mentioned. Whether it's drivers, crew members, or media folk, the start times affect everyone in the business when it comes to time spent at home, on the road, as well as the travel schedule to and from the racetrack each day.
This year, 34 of the season's 36 races start at 2 p.m. or later. If you don't want to include the night races, just subtract seven. Any way you look at it, it's still a large number, and the complaints about it have come from all sides.
A few drivers have used their social media channels to express their disdain for late starts. Clint Bowyer summed it up best by simply tweeting, "3:00 starts suck!" in early July.
"We did some later start times this year and some in the industry have not liked that, but it was important to interact with our West Coast audience,'' NASCAR president Brent Dewar said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio last month.
"Our largest audience is California, and 1 o'clock starts are too early for them on the West Coast. So, we're trying to find the right balance of that. But yes, I think you'll see more innovation to make it a win-win for the industry. We will do it together as an industry. It won't be unilateral on NASCAR's part.''
Say it with me, standardized start times. Day races to start no later than 2:15 p.m. unless it's a West Coast event, which is the only time 3:30 p.m. sounds enticing. Night races get going at 6:30 p.m.
For any avid fan of the NFL, such as yours truly, I know games are going to start at 1, 4:15 and 8:30 p.m. every Sunday. It never changes. In NASCAR, anyone who can memorize the start times from February through November should get an automatic berth into the playoffs.
To Dewar's point, no one expects the schedule to be perfect with so many voices – NASCAR, fans, drivers, crews, television partners – in the room. It most likely won't even be a schedule everyone will agree on.
But there has to be something better than hurry up and wait.