Top Row Seat - Texas
Dateline: 04/06/98Bruton Smith spent millions of dollars building Texas Motor Speedway. Now he needs to spend millions more fixing it.
No Excuse
One of the "official" responses from track officials was "Hey, nobody complains about Darlington." Darlington Raceway was built back in the 1950's and was the first SuperSpeedway in NASCAR. Wouldn't you think that we would have learned something about how to build a race track in the last 40+ years? This is the 1990's and there is no valid reason for building a narrow one groove race track which is already having structural problems. Come on! The track has already been patched and the patching is coming up. This is completely rediculous.
Let's take a look at the other new race tracks on the circuit. California Speedway is a beautiful facility which can easily host four and five wide racing. Las Vegas Motor Speedway also hosts exciting four and five wide racing down the stretch. Both of these race tracks support two very wide racing grooves through the turns which allow for some great side-by-side action all the way around the track... SAFELY!
Quote Of The Week
Now if anyone has a good reason to praise the race track it should be this week's winner: Mark Martin. Just as soon as his car rolled to a stop in victory lane Ken Squire was there to ask the question "What do you think of the track?" Mark Martin was on his toes and gave the perfectly evasive answer with a big grin "I love that we won."
With tap dancing like that, he should run for president.
What Should Happen Next
Bruton Smith has refused to fix his race track so I believe that NASCAR needs to step forward and force him to make the track raceable or else take away his Winston Cup date. NASCAR is in the business of providing exciting racing for it's fans and safe facilities for it's drivers.
Texas Motor Speedway does not live up to the NASCAR promise.
Agree? Disagree? Want to throw hot spark plugs at me? I'm available in the chat room every Wednesday night at 8pm Eastern to answer questions and defend my opinion.
