600-miler not too long a spin for NASCAR drivers
Kevin Harvick thinks NASCAR could shorten many of its races, but he wouldn’t start, of all places, with the longest scheduled race on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series circuit.
The 600-mile marathon on Memorial Day weekend owns a sacred place in NASCAR’s foundation, so much so that drivers who will argue that many 500- and 400-mile races don’t need to last that long will also say don’t touch the annual 400-lap affair at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
It seems inexplicable. And in some ways, it is.
“Have you ever won it?” Harvick
says to the reporter, knowing full well the answer. “I probably can’t explain it to you then.”
For decades, the Coca-Cola 600 has run on the same day as the Indianapolis 500. Formula One in recent years has competed in Monaco on the same date, creating a race fan’s ultimate one-day television binge starting about 9 a.m. ET Sunday and ending about 14 hours later.
“This race honors the tradition of our sport,” 2012 Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski said. “It needs one 600-mile race that connects it back and showcases that stock car automobile racing has had to pushing the limits of a vehicle, specific to performance and endurance. This is a great way to honor that.”
A staple of Memorial Day weekend since 1961, the Coca-Cola 600 tests a driver’s ability to focus. It used to test machinery, although today maybe not so much. In the last five years, just 15 cars — an average of three a race — have dropped out of the 600 with mechanical issues. In 1999, nine cars dropped out because of mechanical breakdowns.
“I bet you we could probably go 800 maybe even 1,000 miles on a race car before you’d start to see problems,” defending race winner Kyle Busch said. “It’s just a matter of length and attention span, I guess. … You keep some of those that have been the longer ones that have meant more to our sport over the years.”
Those don’t-touch longer races consist of the Daytona 500, the Southern 500 at Darlington on Labor Day weekend and the 600-miler at Charlotte.
“Kids growing up watching the 600mile race, that is what they want to come win one day,” driver and North Carolina native Austin Dillon said. “(They want) a shot to win the longest day of the year. … I don’t think it is a crown jewel at 500. It is at 600.”
In the last 10 years, Pocono and Auto Club Speedway have had their traditional races shortened with little criticism. The discussion on whether to shorten races continues between what many see as a high-water mark of a 3-hour window for a television audience and fans who come to the track expecting entertainment all day to justify the travel time and ticket price.
“I loved it as a kid,” said driver William Byron, 21. “I came to this race every year since 2004 or so. It was a great race. Obviously it was long, but I appreciated that because there was so much strategy and so much survival involved in it. You knew the guys who won this race were a big deal. The best cars and the best drivers always won this race.”
Denny Hamlin takes an opposing view to the notion that the 600 has to stay. He doesn’t mind it, but he doesn’t see the need for it. “Tradition, shmadition,” he said. “All sports adapt and change. … I’m for whatever, but I certainly know that from my friends, they choose to come to All-Star week and not 600 week because it’s just too long. They don’t want to sit here for five hours.”
Some might say Hamlin just doesn’t want to work as hard and get paid the same. But there is something to be said about racing fatigue: After the Formula One race (average time the last five years, 1 hour, 49 minutes, 10 seconds) and the Indianapolis 500 (2:59:54), are fans just plain worn out of racing before the end of the 600 (4:07:34)?
“It’s close to home,” Harvick said. “Everybody puts a lot of effort into it. … There’s a lot of things to prove and everybody wants to win at Charlotte, and the 600 is one of those races that every driver and team in that garage are going to say that they want to win.”
Tell Hamlin what Harvick said about winning the 600 and if you haven’t won it, you don’t understand, and he quips: “I’d be just as happy with a Coke 300 trophy as I would a Coke 600 trophy.”