I suspect:

1) NASCAR management like high dowforce, it is the way forward as they say, they dislike low/medium downforce, they seem to think if Joe Bloggs see's cars going through corners at 170mph, they'll be more excited than at 140mph.
2) NASCAR management equate yellow flags & restarts as excitement that brings in tv viewers, green flag runs as boring, which is understandable considering their target audience often struggle to have the attention span to finish off a sentence, let alone a 3 hour race.

They lost the argument over downforce, or compromised anyway, downforce is reduced by about 30% over last year, but if the drivers had got their way completely, it would have been closer to 50%.

The long green flag runs is, I suspect, an attempt by NASCAR to undermine the argument for low downforce, I'm sure someone at NASCAR is thinking is they resist every temptation to throw a yellow people will get fedup and turn off, tbh I did doze off during the long green run, but of the bits I did see, it was far more entertaining than any of the green flag runs were last year. Later down the line, if TV viewership figures don't improve, management will use this as an excuse to load tons more downforce on.

The new GWC rules came from the drivers, their union of sorts, like the caution clock in the trucks, which was actually quiet interesting to watch unfold Saturday.

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#8 - Ian Smythe.

The racing wasnt that much different from last year it seemed. Atlanta isn't that sensitive to downforce reduction is what I'd guess.
NASCAR better make up their fukcin minds before they phase themselves out completely.
Either they go with auto racing or with selling manufactured, manipulated bull to attract morons.

I love the profit motive as much as the next guy, but they're really letting it make them ruin NASCAR. They forgot who their actual customers are, and hijacked the entire industry squeeze out marketing dollars. It's not the fans, it's not the sponsors or TV networks, it's guys who wanna race cars in circles.

You could however argue that it almost doesn't matter what they do. In this political environment we have in North America and Europe, where every generation turns out more pussified and propagandized than the prior one, we're gonna run out of race fans eventually anyway lol, not to forget all the wealth solcialist policies destroy. An impovrished population is less likely to show up at the track

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

Nice finish at Phoenix, clashing cages coming to the line.
GWC but still, that's the way you settle it

Carl needs a win though, we need more backflips

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

I kind of like what we're seeing this year with this package. Comers and goers... some trying to stretch the fuel... come in for tires or not, some take 2, some take 4... driver's manhandling their cars. Pretty good racing if you ask me. And the drivers seem to like the way the cars are driving, too. All-in-all, pretty good stuff through the first 4 races.

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#78 J.R. Franklin

F1 Australia:

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

unmarked F1-spoiler in a NASCAR-thread. That's nasty man...

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#87 - Fabian

Grrr, good job I was up at silly o'clock to watch it live.

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#8 - Ian Smythe.

M'ville once again showed us how full of cow dung NASCAR really is. Kenseth runs top 3 all day and then gets fukcin trained with 10 to go because of their socialist bullsh!t rules.
Well, what do you expect in a world where everything is completely fuxxin arbitrary and nothing matters for sh!t anyfukkin more.
I really hope hell exists and I'll go there, 'cause f**k ey, it sure as mofo heck can't be any worse than this world.

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

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My crayons are beautiful, just not magic.

No one's gonna understand, but here we are.

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

I'll never swim Kern River again...

Merle Haggard R.I.P!

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

GM marketing folks think that hand saw is to power saw as either Tundra, F-150 or RAM 1500 are to Chevy Silverado

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

What's with all the stick and ball sports lingo in NASCAR? Overtime, overtime, overtime, jeez, just call it gwc. So ridiculous

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, there's a brake duct in turn 4, throw the caution!!!
It might penetrate the cylinder block of one of these cars like anti tank ammo, aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

very entertaining race (as usual 50% of it thanks to DW. lol) there in Dover and an exciting finish. nice.

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#87 - Fabian

Yeah, dover was a really nice race, especially the last run. They should make it a 500 miler though.

The All-Star race however

Well, it wasn't worse than previous years, but it was a bit of test of patience.
I don't get why the can't just do three segs going 40 laps each, no additional rules, no mandated pit stops, nothing. Maybe don't have caution laps count throughout the entire distance.

But other than that, just let'em. These mandated stops, especially under green just unnecessarily stretch out the field and reduce the likelyhood of varying strategies, which usually lead to better finishes (see Dover).
They'll just never get it.

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

The showdown was far better, perhaps what they should have done was have the same format, with the winners of the first two segments starting on the front row for the final without tyres changed, and then reverse the running order of those remaining (but not tell them about that beforehand).

It seems they were trying to manufacturer a massive wreck in the final segment, but cocked it up because they never considered there would have been people in the wave by position.

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#8 - Ian Smythe.

They should just move the damn thing to bowman gray and up the prize money to 2 million or something.
Bet then we'll have massive cage crunchings followed by post race bone crunchings

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

Coke 600 was kinda boring, Indy 500 was quite alright, although the higher downforce is nothing I am a real fan of, but I've seen worse race.
F1 GP, Riccardo's pit crew, well, let's say I'd have fired them harvick style from the driver seat
He could have handled it better though, but who am I to criticize F1 drivers

Way too much racing for 1 day almost lol

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My other car is a Winston Cup Taurus
Cumulative V8Thunder Winnings since 2007: 71,492,564.89 NR bucks

Amen to that, brother. I found myself plunked down on the sofa for about 12 hours straight yesterday. Slept through a portion of all 3 races, but all-in-all it surely is a racing lovers dream of a day every year.

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#78 J.R. Franklin