Complaints over the length of a NASCAR season have been around for some time now. With the topic turning out to be a never-ending pit, Super Late Model driver and the former owner of Live Fast Motorsports, Matt Tifft has pitched in with an opinion on it. He took forward a discussion on how the intensity of a full-time season today demotivates the crew and even drivers from committing to their work, something 7x Cup champion Jimmie Johnson also spoke about in 2021.
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Responding to a post about teams struggling to fill internal positions because of burnout, Tifft wrote, “The issue rising is for how long and intense the season is, there are fewer and fewer people who want to commit when you have guaranteed time off and can see your family and have more home time with equal or better pay working for bigger corporations, dealerships, Amazon, etc.”
Having been a co-owner of his team along with Cup Series part-timer BJ McLeod for 3 years, Tifft must only be well aware of the challenges that the NASCAR schedule poses. Not surprisingly, his opinion is very much in line with Jimmie Johnson.
Talking to Graham Bensinger in 2021, Johnson mentioned how he wanted 8-10 races cut from the calendar. He said, “I’ve always firmly felt that there’s just too much racing in NASCAR. That’s my opinion and I’ve had that conversation with executives at NASCAR. Reducing the schedule down to 25-28 races, I think would be the ideal way to go about it.”
The schedule that the promotion draws up today has just 2 months of offseason in it. Earlier there used to be a break of two weeks after the regular season, and now there’s just one. In addition to the 36 points races, there are also 2 exhibition events. These factors underline the grind that the crews go through and make the complaints from Jimmie Johnson and Matt Tifft very valid.
Denny Hamlin too agrees with Johnson. He said, “It’s a lot, but I don’t ever see it going backwards just simply because of the revenue.” True to his words, it was after the 1992 season, from which the sport grew in fame and profits, that the promotion slowly began piling on the then-29-race season.
Young drivers stand opposite to Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin
Though the bigger dogs on the grid want fewer races on the calendar, the drivers in their 20s and 30s don’t seem to mind the extra work much. Christopher Bell said, “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be there if there’s 50 (races), I’ll be there if there’s 20.”
Ryan Preece agreed as well, claiming, “I’m for whatever keeps me at the racetrack. Thirty-eight races is fine with me, I don’t have a problem with it. My job is to race a racecar, so if it requires 40-45 races, that’s my job.”
With more in the likes of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Tyler Reddick pitching in their support for the current way of things, the topic stands neutral at best right now. But one thing that NASCAR wouldn’t want is its love for profits pushing out its stars as Matt Tifft fears.
