Dirty Air 4

The 2027 NASCAR Cup Series Schedule is slowly beginning to take shape with several tracks already announcing dates to get a head start on ticket sales and marketing. There have also been several rumors about next season that have been confirmed. One such rumor was that the Clash — the annual preseason exhibition race — is returning to Daytona International Speedway after a four year “experiment” in which the event was run at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (2022-2024) and most recently Bowman Gray Stadium (2025-2026).

The premise behind the initial decision to move the event away from Daytona came after already having taken the race from the 2.5 mile oval to the infield road course for the 2021 Busch Clash. That was short-lived as fans and owners simply did not like the product, and it was not just for that one season. Attendance for the Clash waned over the span of about five years to the point the 100,000+ seat grandstand at Daytona looked totally empty. The race would always feature a ton of carnage with the typical “big one” that always happens in superspeedway racing — also not popular with owners and drivers alike due to the potential of the car built for the Daytona 500 being wrecked two weeks beforehand.

In short, NASCAR listened. They read the room — something they more often than not have been too stubborn to do. The brass in Charlotte conceived a plan to try and grow the sport in a big market — a smart decision from a business point of view. They ran the race in Los Angeles. After all, with the loss of Auto Club Speedway, NASCAR is not embedded in the Southern California market as much. All things considered, the LA Coliseum years of the event were a success. People attended the Clash that had never been to a race before, and the reviews of fan experience at what was more of an event rather than just a race with concerts and fanfare (much like an F1 Grand Prix), was mostly positive.

But, in the end, it ran its course after just three years and came to be too costly to keep building a temporary track just to tear it back up every year. So, the idea of going to NFL or major college stadiums for one-off events was abandoned.

The next step was a huge one in the right direction. For years, the talking point among fans was that NASCAR had forgotten where it came from. No, that does not mean it just abandoned the South to appeal to a broader national/international audience. Rather, it forgot about its real grassroots racing heritage — the short track Saturday nights that evolved from moonshine running in the 1940s that many still enjoy at their local venues. NASCAR decided to listen to those fans and make an investment in the sport’s future by holding the Clash in Winston-Salem’s Bowman Gray Stadium, which is of course known for its wild weekly modified and late model races during the Summer that often end in scuffles.

Bowman Gray was one of the first tracks NASCAR ever ran on. The quarter-mile oval, situated inside a small college football stadium built back in the 1920s, needed upgrades, and so they decided to invest in SAFER barriers, new catch fencing, new LED lights, a bigger video board, and a new sound system. The end goal of all that being that the improvements could be enjoyed long into the future by both the loyal fans that pack the place out every Saturday and the young drivers looking to build their careers by racing there.

The commitment to helping grassroots racing was a breath of fresh air and a direction the sport should have continued in. Yet, here we are after two years, some fans complaining, and comments from prominent figures like Denny Hamlin, seeing NASCAR backtrack and seemingly once again abandon its drive to invest in grassroots racing.

Don’t get me wrong. The Clash has to be the most clear example of decision making that involves several factors. Obviously, the Coliseum had its flaws and was a bad idea. To pay millions to dig up a football field and pave over it every year is a waste — especially for an audience you are not guaranteed to retain. Not to mention the logistical challenges of the teams building a short track car, traveling to California and back, and then making last-minute preparations for the Daytona 500 in a week and a half.

Bowman Gray had one glaringly obvious issue — racing in Western North Carolina in February means you are going to freeze to death and have to deal with potential for inclement weather. There is no better example than the delays brought on by consecutive ice and snow storms this year that forced them to run the race on a Wednesday night. But, that does not mean Bowman Gray — or the idea of running the Clash and other exhibitions at tracks like it, should just be dropped like a hot potato.

The other factor that makes this example so perfect is fan opinion. Bullring short track races are not everyone’s cup of tea. Just like Banana Ball isn’t every “traditional” baseball fan’s preference to watch. Racing has multiple disciplines, and everyone has the ones they like and ones they hate. Some despise short tracks while many loathe road courses. The intermediate tracks where dirty air kills passing are universally despised, and some weird individuals don’t care for the thrill and constant anticipation that comes with pack racing on a superspeedway.

Regardless of what is liked or not, NASCAR fans are known for one thing — loud complaints from what is usually a vocal minority that stems from the older side of the fanbase. Don’t get me wrong — long time fans do and should have a voice. But, in the grand scheme of things, the question has to be asked: is their voice the one NASCAR should listen to? Should the sport’s brass also be listening to the current drivers and owners?

The answer is both yes and no. NASCAR is under “new” leadership with the resignation of Steve Phelps and Jim France. Steve O’Donnell now sits at the helm as CEO of the sanctioning body while Ben Kennedy is the COO. In the nearly four months since they assumed their current offices, they have both faced some interesting decisions. For example, one of O’Donnell’s first actions was to backtrack on NASCAR’s recent history of worrying so much about image and sponsors that they are quick to squash rivalries, fights, and beefs on track with fines and suspensions. That was another breath of fresh air for a sport that had gone so far corporate that it seemed like it was illegal for the drivers to show any natural human emotion — something older fans and drivers would scoff at and say the sport is too soft for.

More recently, O’Donnell has listened to the complaints of outside voices like IndyCar’s Scott Dixon and drivers such as Kyle Larson about the length of races. While their primary point of contention was that younger fans with shorter attention spans would prefer races not run four hours long, the “compromise” (or baby step, if you will) that NASCAR took was to amend the rules to say that if a caution happens within ten laps of a stage break, that yellow ends the stage in order to avoid the problem of long caution periods followed by a two lap sprint and then another long slowdown.

When it comes to the decision on the Clash’s location, the justifying logic is rooted in having listened to the criticisms about the weather as well as the desires of teams and drivers to try and fix a glaring problem with the superspeedway package of the already-crappy NextGen Car.

For example, after Tyler Reddick opened the 2026 season with a win in the Daytona 500, marking Denny Hamlin’s first win in the event as a car owner, Hamlin used his postrace media availability to immediately propose the idea of using the Clash as a means of experimentation. Uncoincidentally, since O’Donnell began his tenure, two of the changes made were things Hamlin mentioned specifically — moving the event to Daytona to test a new superspeedway package that would increase speeds and make the handling of the car be paramount.

The confirmation was given two weeks ago that the race would be returning to its original site, but back in mid July it was also announced that for the 2026 regular season finale at Daytona, the spoilers would be shrunk from seven inches in height to four while horsepower would be lowered from 510 to 465 and a “stuffer” would be added to the front splitter to reduce drag.

Let’s go even further back to this past offseason. Months before he assumed the role, following the end of the 2025 season, there was a heated debate going on among alumni, fans, current drivers, and owners alike revolving around the playoff format. Some wanted the Winston Cup full-season points system to return while many others advocated that such a move would be too drastic of a change from the playoff format this soon. In the end, when O’Donnell and Phelps teased that they were looking into changes to how the sport crowns its champion, Mark Martin stepped in and advocated for the middle ground. Eventually, the compromise was made to go back to the 10-race, 16-driver ‘Chase for the Cup’ system.

The case and point here is that Steve O’Donnell has a lot of choices to make to ensure the continued growth of stock car racing. He also has a lot of much more intricate choices to make in order to sustain what has already been built — keeping owners, longtime fans, drivers, and sponsors satisfied with the direction of things. In short, his job is as tough as that of any professional sports commissioner. There are lots of voices calling out to him, but the toughest choice is which ones he should be giving the most attention to.

As the commissioner/public face of NASCAR’s front office, it is obviously an imperative that he does listen to feedback from the longtime fans that have been there through thick and thin as well as former drivers who still carry a deep love for the sport and want to see it continue to grow. O’Donnell is wise to give top priority to the counsel of someone like Mark Martin who is not only passionate about NASCAR’s continued progress but also is a fan at heart — able to give perspective from the point of view the longtime fans are coming from. But, fan input is not always going to be what reaches new audiences and fosters growth, and thus may be more third priority if we are giving tiers of importance to this.

It is simply part of the job as the commish to listen to what current drivers and owners have to say on the subject. Denny Hamlin was not wrong about the need for changes to eliminate fuel saving that kills the first two-thirds of superspeedway races — in particular the sport’s biggest race of the season. Kyle Larson was not wrong about the races being less interesting when they run long — although his take that it is the distance/time that is the issue was not accurate. But, his speaking out on the subject led to a step in the right direction.

Feedback from the athletes that the sport centers around should take a second level of precedence as they are the ones who know the cars and on-track product the best. The same could be said of listening to owners — especially the ones that have been around for decades such as the always-outspoken Richard Childress, and Jeff Gordon (who we all know runs the show at Hendrick for Mr. H and will take over ownership in the near future).

The one voice that should not be listened to is the outsiders that know nothing about the sport and could care less about it. Like Scott Dixon, for example. The opinion on race lengths of an IndyCar driver that doesn’t even have much of a claim to anything in his own sport is clearly not one to make a fuss over. Sponsors, while their money is needed to sustain the sport, often make everything too corporate or political. While having to appease them is just part of the business — and NASCAR being a professional sport is a business entity, making everything too politically correct is bad for everything. It creates drivers with as much personality as a wet paper towel and makes things too boring. Obviously, there are extremes to the already delicate and complex issue of keeping sponsors, but there is a happy medium to be found.

Steve O’Donnell so far has done a pretty good job of choosing the right voices to listen to and he has made some good moves. But only time will tell if he sticks to his guns about making NASCAR  “Hell Yeah!” again or if he goes backwards and falls into the trap Brian France had the sport in for so long.