NASCAR insider rips state of short track racing, calls for 'drastic' changes

Bristol Motor Speedway was one of the premier tracks for NASCAR. However, it’s been a tough couple of years for The Last Great Colosseum since the advent of the Next Gen car in the Cup Series.

Sunday’s Food City 500 was a microcosm of that. Kyle Larson put up a dominating performance, leading 411 of 500 laps and sweeping both stages. That wasn’t the problem though — the problem was the race as a whole was simply boring, and not what we’ve come to expect from the Tennessee-based short-track.

There was no side-by-side, intense racing. No helmet throwing. No juice. That’s something NASCAR insider Jeff Gluck has a problem with, and he believes it’s going to take something drastic to get Bristol back to its old, beloved ways.

“All of this was completely unacceptable for a NASCAR short-track race. It’s very sad we’ve gotten to this point,” Gluck said, via The Teardown. “We’re now several years into this car. There’s absolutely no hope on the horizon that short-track racing is going to get any better. I mean, you look at the Bristol Playoff Race, the night race coming up this fall, is there anything that you saw today that makes you think, ‘Well, that’ll be a good race.’ I mean, this is really — two years ago on this podcast, we were like, ‘We need to sound the alarm bells now on short-track racing,’ and nothing’s changed.

“They put the focus on the tire. I’m sure that’s still a great area to work in, but I’m not seeing anything that gives me a lot of hope. So either the industry is going to have to decide to say, ‘Well, this is acceptable,’ and we can make these small tweaks and maybe this is sort of some good racing after all, or they’re really going to have to do something completely drastic. Spend the money that nobody wants to spend. Completely redo this car, or make a short-track style car or something.

“Everybody said, ‘Oh, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. You’re going to run us out of business. We can’t spend money.’ Well, I don’t know what the solution is. Are you going to drop Bristol from the schedule? Are you going to drop Martinsville? I mean, these iconic racetracks that were NASCAR’s bread and butter? What can you do? This is not — I can’t sit here and say anything great about this race. This was one of the worst races I’ve seen. If people aren’t going to feel the same panic about it or any urgency about it to do something, I mean, I’m just washing my hands of it.”

Whatever it takes, it’s evident Jeff Gluck is making a passionate call for NASCAR to take action. If it doesn’t happen sooner rather than later, it could be too late for Bristol. We’ll see if any changes are made, but we’re reaching an inflection point with The Last Great Colosseum.