Pocono Problems

The Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono brought to light three huge NASCAR problems:

1 – Rained out qualifying. There was no time on Saturday to run qualifying? True, all teams present got into the race, but it seems that the process of putting on qualifying is not high on NASCAR’s agenda.

2 – Rained out race. The attempt to dry the track looked pathetic. Four jet dryers are not going to dry a 2.5 mile track very quickly. Put a gazillion vehicles of all sorts out there and see how fast it gets dry. Having been in that situation I feel very sorry for all the fans that could not come back on Monday. ESPN was very careful to not show a good crowd shot, it appeared the seats were only about half full. I’d love to see the count.

3 – Lucky Dog. Jimmy Johnson only raced 490 miles! He was given 10 miles - 4 laps. For 2 of those laps he was more than a lap down. This is racing? Does NASCAR ever consider that nonsense like this is why the old, hard core fans are losing interest? Do other sports do anything like this?

I'm not taking away the incredible job Johnson's pit crew did to fix their engine problem. But that does not earn them 10 miles! The gushing of the on air television personalities was sickening! Any positive comment they made about Johnson finishing 13th should have been accompanied with a great big "BUT"!