NASCAR's 2019 rules changes are the series' last chance in the search for good racing

Depending on your view, NASCAR’s low-key reveal of its 2019 Cup Series car specifications Tuesday afternoon is either the first step of a much-needed long-term strategy for the continent’s pre-eminent racing series or one of the latest in a long line of missteps that have accelerated the demise of stock car racing’s prominence on the sports landscape.

No matter which side of the fence you’re on — or even if you’re sitting on the fence and don’t know what to make of the sweeping changes NASCAR is making to the cars — it’s easy to wonder if Tuesday’s announcement is NASCAR’s last possible move in its search for racing perfection. There aren’t any other moves plainly visible

2017 changes cut downforce

The changes made for 2019 are a complete 180 from the changes the series has made over the last few years in the quest for better racing. NASCAR’s 2017 rules removed downforce from the cars with the goal of higher straightaway speeds and slower corner speeds and the hope of more passing in the corners as drivers were off the throttle longer.

“The objective there is to give the drivers, put the driving back in their hands a bit more … take less aero dependence off the car,” former NASCAR Vice President Gene Stefanyshyn, told NASCAR’s website in 2016 about the rules implemented for 2017. “That’s the big thing. The amount we are taking off the front and the rear is the same proportion; we try to keep the balance of the car identical. So it’s been taken off in the same proportion to maintain the balance of the car as it was last year.”

2019 changes add downforce

The 2019 rules go in the other direction from those 2017 and 2018 rules even as new NASCAR president Steve Phelps lauded the season’s current racing product as “fantastic” in a recent interview with SiriusXM’s NASCAR channel.

Horsepower is being cut from engines at intermediate tracks and downforce is being added in the form of bigger splitters and higher rear spoilers. Throw in aero ducts at most tracks larger than a mile and cars will be slower on the straightaways and have more mechanical grip in the corners. Throttle off time is being, well, nearly turned off at intermediate tracks. Next year’s rules are based around the experiment NASCAR tried at the All-Star Race in May where speeds were down and cars ran closer together.

“I think it’s probably looking at the bigger picture of where we want to go as a sport, and as we looked at the racing on track, certainly we’re pleased with what we have, but how do we continue to evolve with what’s out there,” current NASCAR Vice President Steve O’Donnell said in a release Tuesday. “We know we’ve got some of the brightest engineers in all of sports and what you see with the low-downforce package is a number of increased entry speeds at times, which makes it more difficult probably to produce a tire that has great wear that the drivers always ask for. It makes it more of an emphasis on engineering and wind tunnels versus what we’re all about, and that’s the drivers and hard side-by-side racing.”

Is it the search for a subjective goal?

Tuesday’s announcement was an indictment of the current specifications despite the gratuitous compliments they received from both Phelps and O’Donnell. You don’t make such big changes if you’re satisfied with the current product.

And the commonalities in the quotes lauding the diametrically opposite approaches are why there’s a no returns policy on the 2019 rules. If NASCAR finds itself or its teams unsatisfied in 2019 or 2020 there’s no alternate route because the series is already on the alternate route. The primary route was previously deemed unsatisfactory.

Where the routes are leading, however, is an entirely subjective exercise. The quest for perfection seems utterly fruitless. If you asked a NASCAR exec, a team owner, a crew chief, a driver, and a fan for the definition of “good racing,” you’re liable to get five different answers. And that’s understandable. What makes a race good for a driver or a crew chief is likely very different than what makes a race good for someone sitting on their couch with a beer in hand.

That person on the couch isn’t getting any younger either. NASCAR has one of the oldest audiences in sports and scores so lowly among adults between the ages of 18 and 34 that an overnight episode of an NFL studio show on ESPN did better in that demographic than the Sept. 22 race at Richmond did.

NASCAR is acutely aware of that, so it’s conceivable how the executive’s view of good racing is one that broadly includes moments like occurred at the end of Sunday’s race when Jimmie Johnson accidentally took out Martin Truex Jr. as the two raced for the win. It’s a moment that was authentic and instantly marketable via social media, even if an absurd rule meant Johnson was eliminated from the playoffs.

But making rules with the explicit goal of creating moments is the opposite of authentic. And it’s possible to view the impending changes as NASCAR’s way of artificially creating closer competition with the side benefit of more highlights. Does NASCAR want to be a racing series that provides entertainment, or an entertainment series that races?

It’s also possible, as NASCAR noted Tuesday, that the changes, namely, reducing horsepower, are being done in the name of enticing new manufacturers to get into American stock car racing. It’s an idea that can’t be dismissed immediately, even if you believe the possibility of a new manufacturer entering a series struggling for television ratings and sponsor dollars currently seems farfetched.

No matter your view, the 2019 changes are simply the latest in a host of moves that are happening or set to happen in the near future. The schedule is long overdue for a shakeup and NASCAR has hinted it could happen in 2020. 2019 will be the last year of Monster’s run as Cup Series title sponsor before NASCAR searches for what could be multiple primary sponsors. And given the series’ three-year cycle of playoff changes since the format was introduced in 2004, it’ll be a surprise if there isn’t at least a slight change to the playoff system in 2020 as well.

The car rules are far from the only things changing in NASCAR. Maybe all the changes are what the series needs. Maybe they’re all in vain.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter

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