Greetings from S.W. Oklahoma

     There are stars in the Southern sky.

      Lyrics - Steve Young "Seven Bridges Road" 1969

     The roots of this thing we call NASCAR took hold in the dark and starry nights of the South.  Anyone who has watched "Thunder Road" knows the excitement of a late night road chase.  For me,  these are signs of where and when racing should take place.

     There are many advantages to moving more races to the twilight hours.  The first and maybe the biggest would be driver and fan comfort.  The temperature would be lower; therefore, it would not take near the toll on fans, drivers, or crews.  It would also lower the track temperature thus providing better grip and better racing.  Now, making the assumption that NASCAR would continue to run their night races on Saturday it would allow fans to return home and recuperate before going to work on Monday morning.  The television networks would benefit by having a larger home audience, because both the guy and gal fans would be able to get their weekend "honey do's" done early in the day on Saturday and then relax and watch the race on Saturday evening.  Last but not least the sponsors would be able to get their products introduced during prime time, which is normally reserved for more mundane things like various internet services and cheap travel tickets.

     Folks the visual and audio effects of a night race are enough for me to wish for more night races.  Any of you who have ever attended a sporting event during the day and then attended the same type of event at night know what I am talking about.  The fans are more into the action, the colors are more vivid, the noise is louder, the action appears faster and the ending just seems more exciting.  It's like the difference in seeing a 4th of July fireworks display during the day, then seeing it done at night.

     The biggest drawback I see is the impact Saturday night NASCAR might have on the smaller local tracks in the area.  But with a little planning and coordinating, the impact could be reduced to almost nil.  If it were coordinated, where the smaller tracks would run on Friday night before the Cup race NASCAR could contract Cup drivers to do autograph parties at the track.  Another thing they could do is donating 10 or 20 pairs of tickets for the Cup race, to be given away on Friday night.  I think that the increase in fans, hoping to get an autograph or a pair of Cup tickets, would more then off set moving that one week's race to Friday night.

     I'm sure there are other disadvantages, but being a kid at heart I don't want to see them, because I want what I want: more color, noise, action, and cooler temperatures.  What more could you ask for?

That's my opinion - What's yours

Gunaquat