David M & Others – The one thing some of you are forgetting in terms of letting everyone race is the minimum speed rule NASCAR has. If the cars aren’t fast enough to be safe in traffic, NASCAR won’t let them race. I’m not saying I’m advocating letting everyone race, but that is something to consider.

The entire premise of shrinking fields because of the economic times doesn’t make any sense because shrinking fields doesn’t help anyone. Less teams can race, less sponsors can be involved, and NASCAR will collect less entry fees. Nobody is forcing teams to show up to have full 43 car fields. In tough economic times, the smaller teams NEED to be able to make races to earn the prize money and keep their own sponsors happy. Taking away chances for them to qualify would only put more teams out of business.

I kind of agree with Stewart… let every one who shows up race. It’s not like 75 COT’s are gonna show up in this day and age. People don’t have that kind of money to fix the cars to NASCAR’s rules and likings.

You are on to something West Coast Kenny.

If, as Marty Smith has written, fully half the field (by which I assume he means ‘more than 20 cars’) is, as yet, without funding for 2009, then it’s inconceivable to me what sponsors would be hurt by smaller fields. And while I fundamentally agree that contraction could lead to even greater dominance by the super teams, I’m not entirely sure I think contraction hurts the sport; smaller fields would necessarily result in stronger entries up and down the grid and, in theory, lead to more competitive racing. And while I’m not a huge fan of the megateams taking over, even I have to admit that a 36-car field populated by cars from Hendrick, RCR, RFR, JGR and whoever else is much more likely to outperform a field that includes backmarkers like Carl Long or cars from teams like BDR or MWR (offense not really intended).

In addition, and again, while acknowledging my own personal dislike of the possibility, I’m just not sure it can be argued that losing the seven, uh, least good teams and drivers would otherwise damage NASCAR’s fan base. Frankly, I think the sport has many other more pressing concerns/issues more likely to turn off fans than the prospect of depriving underperformers of track time. I like Dave Blaney as much as the next guy, but if he’s not in the field, will NASCAR’s fans revolt?

If you want to tell me that I’m high and that taking this action would just be another example of NASCAR crapping on a vestige of the sport that made it great — the little guy, hauling his gear to the track, making the race and finishing in the top 10 or some such — that’s fine. I’ll even agree to an extent. However, that horse left the barn a long time ago, and present economic reality is that NASCAR could be seriously hurting for sponsorship dollars in the coming years and laggard teams will have even that much more trouble staying competitive. Fields have been larger and smaller throughout history. The current meltdown and struggles up and down the garage would seem to make contraction not only a realistic possibility, but a quite necessary move as well.

I think NASCAR should widen the fields rather than shrink them. If 46 teams show up, and they all qualify within an established margin of the leader, then let them all run. What that margin would be, I don’t know. Although I have no interest in most of the teams which fail to make the field, I think it’s a disservice to the team and their sponsors to send them home if they miss qualifying by a few thousandths of a mile. Of course we don’t want a slow team to cause problems for the rest of the field, so that margin should be small.

Sponsorship is difficult to get in good times, and it must be especially difficult for a marginal team. Why discourage a marginal sponsor or a small team? From little acorns, big oaks grow, but they have to have a chance to take root.

West Coast Kenny
Alameda, California

But shrinking the field does not make since either. Sure maybe a small adjustment one way or the other would be fine. But the size of the field is one of the few things in NASCAR that actually WORKS. If we are going to change something there are MANY other stupid out dated rules that they could spend there time working on. Qualifying being top of the list. I do believe in protecting the regular teams place in the field, but I hardly consider a team that can’t do any better than 35th in points a regular team. Maybe the top 25 in points could be guaranteed a starting position. That would mean almost half the field would be go or go homers. That would be interesting. And YES teams should get points for qualifying well. It just makes good since. But who am I any way…….Just a fan. See you in Martinsville………GO 24!