Last year, Kevin Harvick made a rather bold statement. The Stewart Haas Racing driver essentially demanded that some of the races which are on the longer side of miles should be shortened. And now recently, Freddie Kraft. the spotter of Bubba Wallace put forward a similar opinion. Kraft spoke about shortening some of the races in NASCAR after the rain-shortened race in Atlanta produced some excellent racing product.
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The recent race in Atlanta was cut short because of the weather, because of which a sense of urgency crept in on the field which led to a race that attracted excellent reviews from the fans, drivers, and industry insiders alike.
This was the argument that Kraft recently took on which echoed that of Harvick from last year.
Freddie Kraft claims NASCAR needs to shorten some races to replicate Atlanta
Speaking in a recent episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Freddie Kraft claimed that if the demand for another race such as the recent one in Atlanta is high, then NASCAR needs to do one thing. “If you want these guys to race with urgency, that’s what you do, is shorten the damn race. Because you will see less of the riding around 2 by 2,” Kraft argued.
“If we’re going another, what did we have left, like 80 laps last night or something like that? I think that maybe needs to be visited of, like, this was a great race and was just shy of 300 miles. Why would we not think about making these races 300 miles?”
This led to his fellow spotter, TJ Majors, seconding and somewhat, extending Kraft’s take on the subject as he said, “Plate races I don’t think, the only plate race I think needs to be 500 miles is probably the Daytona 500. Other than that, the rest of them, you want to create urgency.”
“You’re going to get rid of that riding around stage we always seem to have. So I don’t think a 300-mile plate race is a bad deal.”
Kevin Harvick claimed long races, except for a few, are a thing of the past
In an interview from last year with journalist Davey Segal, Kevin Harvick made a big claim about the length of the races in NASCAR. The #4 driver argued that except for a race like the Coke 600 or the Daytona 500, races need to be shorter.
“I don’t think, from a driver’s standpoint, that any of us want to race 500-mile races, anyway. 500 miles at Atlanta with the restrictor plate, that was a long day. It felt like we were in there forever,” Harvick said. “I think the Daytona 500, obviously, needs to be 500 miles. And the Coke 600 could be debated. But the rest of these races, they shouldn’t even allow them to have 500-mile races.”
Harvick claimed long races seem to him, “like a thing of the past.”
