NASCAR has not been able to organize qualifying or practice races due to the need to schedule races in a short period of time. Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski is of the opinion that the new short race format works well for midweek races.
Keselowski believes that even without the hectic demands created from the pandemic NASCAR should keep the shorter race format. The Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 winner said:
NASCAR, in my opinion, has hit gold with this format. The limited practice, show up and race, and the time window that benefits both the east and west coast. No qualifying. Inversion [of the starting lineup] from the week before is really good because it mixes the field up and creates some good storylines there. I think it’s fair.
It’s compelling and it’s at a time where, quite frankly, the sports world, even if it wasn’t for COVID, midweek races in the summer, when you’re generally not having a lot of competition, is in a time period where everybody is hungry for content. I think they’ve got gold here. COVID or not, I hope we keep this for years to come.
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Keselowski reiterated that the race format is easier and that midweek races should keep the short format and weekends race the longer ones.
It feels like I just played one half of a game, rather than a full game. It’s a lot easier, for sure, but I also kind of like this format a lot.
I think it makes sense to have long races on weekends and kind of shorter races during the week. I really like the format NASCAR has here. It’s a good give-and-take. We don’t need a whole bunch of practice and qualifying for midweek races. I think maybe one short practice and that’s about it.