Double A Says: Restrictor Plate Experiment Not the Right Answer

NASCAR’s All-Star Race has historically been a showcase of the best the sport has to offer each year, with race winners and champions vying for a big money prize with no points on the line.

It’s a fun celebration of the sport with plenty of great memories, from close finishes between legends to upset winners (Kasey Kahne in 2008, Michael Waltrip in 1996).

However, this weekend’s All-Star Race will take a turn for the weird, as restrictor plates will be used on cars in yet another attempt by NASCAR’s powers that be to promote close, exciting racing.

This work-in-progress experiment’s goal is well-meaning, but alas restrictor plates on 1.5-mile tracks aren’t the way to go to make racing exciting again.

Case in point, the 2000 Dura Lube 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. After Jeff Burton took the lead at lap one that fall race, he never looked back and led all 300 laps, the last time any driver led wire to wire.

While Burton was in the midst of a career best season that year, the restrictor plates used on cars during that weekend made it extremely difficult for cars to pass each other. On a lesser side note, the engines sounded whinier.

The key difference between then and now is the dreaded New Hampshire race had restrictor plates mandated due to safety concerns as opposed to increasing competition, with Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr. suffering fatal accidents during practice runs in 2000. NASCAR and the speedway’s solutions relatively soon after included increasing the track’s banking, installing SAFER barriers and installing engine kill switches in the cars when the cars’ throttles became stuck (a few of what would be a myriad of safety changes throughout the next several years).

Even if this weekend sees closer racing, guess what that will bring that’s already a problem at Daytona and Talladega; more multi-car crashes where your favorite driver(s) will be taken out of competition for wrecks they didn’t even start.