{"id":672594,"date":"2026-05-16T03:40:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672594\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T03:40:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:40:24","slug":"nascar-stars-debate-purpose-of-all-star-race-amidst-ordinary-dover-atmosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672594\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR stars debate purpose of All Star Race amidst ordinary Dover atmosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chase Elliott<\/a> said it succinctly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis feels like a normal weekend,\u201d said the 2020 Cup Series champion during media\u00a0availabilities for the All-Star Race at Dover on Friday afternoon. \u201cIt feels like a normal weekend. I would say this feels the least like an All-Star weekend that we\u2019ve ever had in my career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just because I\u2019m not used to having an All-Star Race here but this feels like an October weekend, almost, with the weather today being cooler and whatnot. It reminds me of the old fall weekend more than anything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I\u2019m sure as we get closer to Sunday it might feel a little bit more like an All-Star weekend but right now, this feels like a totally normal Dover points race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

To wit, when the All-Star Race starts on Sunday afternoon, a full field will take the green flag even if there will be eliminations by the halfway point of the 350 lap total proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Carson Hocevar<\/a> says the entire field taking the green flag with him, kind of makes him winning his way into the main event at Talladega a little less special.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Dang it, I don\u2019t even get that satisfaction of being an All-Star. They\u2019re going to be racing with me,\u2019\u201d Hocevar said. \u201cIt\u2019ll feel good when those cars get eliminated at least and everything, and we get to stay out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the first half of the race kind of combines the heat races with the All-Star Open but Denny Hamlin<\/a> feels similar to Hocevar about the entire day on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy knee-jerk (reaction) when I saw it was if we\u2019re all going to be racing on Sunday, is it really that special?\u201d said Hamlin. \u201cSo, I think it does take away a little bit. Surely it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s becoming harder-and-harder for NASCAR to make an exhibition feel different than a normal points race because so much of what has been introduced from the All-Star Race over the past three decades are now part of the weekly fabric of the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Double file restarts, overtime, the race where nothing but winning matters, etc. …\u00a0<\/p>\n

To that last point, 2012 Cup Series champion Brad\u00a0Keselowski<\/a> says the All-Star Race actually feels unique again now that the Cup Series uses a points-based system and the Chase for the Championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI still like the idea of an All-Star Race,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201c I know there are some detractors but I think that\u2019s probably better served about The Clash than this race. I like the idea that we can just do some fun things with the format with this race and not feel any guilt over it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI particularly feel like the All-Star Race is significantly more relevant with the points format we have now where it\u2019s truly a win or go home thing, and with the playoffs, it didn\u2019t make as much sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

But again, when NASCAR has taken every gimmick … for the lack of a better term … from the All-Star Race and standardized it, what else is there left to do to make this race feel unique?<\/p>\n

Elliott agreed with the basis of the question.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re right, we have tried a lot of different things, and historically, a short shootout sounds good on paper but I think, as time as gone on, our racing gets better the longer a run,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cSo I think that has worked against us in this race.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, like, the 75-lap runs this weekend are kind of interesting right? It forces us to run longer, or it could, at least. But I don\u2019t know what levers we haven\u2019t pulled that we haven\u2019t tried already.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer the runs for this race, I do think is a good thing, generally speaking, but beyond that, I don\u2019t know because I haven\u2019t put a lot of thought into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyler Reddick<\/a> made a joke about the 550 package.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a couple of them that got pulled that I wish they didn’t\u201d Reddick said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

NA18D.<\/p>\n

\u201c450 horsepower, not good that one,\u201d he said referencing the 2018 race that led the sport down a generally maligned place from 2019-to-2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the 2025 All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, NASCAR and the teams discussed using a open rules package but couldn’t reach terms over likely needing to throw away those cars after that weekend.<\/p>\n

This year, NASCAR wanted to test out a new splitter on the short track package but Denny Hamlin says it didn\u2019t happen due to a manufacturing issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, some stuff got batted around but ultimately they were going to try some new splitter stuff but just didn’t have the manufacturer didn’t do a great job with quality control,\u201d said Hamlin. \u201cSo they wanted to make sure that it was the same for everybody so it’s best to just kind of put a pause on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to use this race at some point to kind of \u2013 have that different package that you can try in a race condition because we try them during tests and you just don’t get the real thing until you get all the cars out there and get them working. Hopefully, it’s on the horizon, and hopefully, eventually we can get the nose of these cars down, the backs of them up, and go racing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Keselowski echoed those sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know all the manufacturing idiosyncrasies of why it didn’t work but I do know NASCAR is trying to help improve the racing, and the ability of these cars to race,\u201d Keselowski said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say the NextGen car is phenomenal with respect to being able to race side-by-side \u2026 It\u2019s harder to get side-by-side but when they do, they race really well together, and that\u2019s part of the uniqueness of the NASCAR NextGen car.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what NASCAR is trying to do is get the car to where it still races great side-by-side but gets better at racing nose-to-tail, and close in on someone. So whether that\u2019s the underbody or the splitter, I think that is their goal, and it\u2019s a good one to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

For future All-Star Race formats, Ryan Blaney<\/a> wants NASCAR to allow a fan to draw a Power Ball style number for a late invert.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, NASCAR was going to try a different splitter here but the production just didn\u2019t work out,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cSo NASCAR wanted to do something different for this race and it didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always options. You can try things with the race car in the All-Star Race, but I think it would be cool for a fan to do the Power Ball to decide how many get inverted. They do that on short tracks and dirt tracks. But you only find out after the segment ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be fun and my idea to throw into the hat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, for his part, Hamlin doesn\u2019t know what to do with this race moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s tough to say,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly a balance there between kind of novelty and then purest racing. So, it is a little bit different. I haven’t quite a ton of effort into thinking about it to, if I would, maybe have a portion of my brain to have time to think about what could we do to fix the All-Star race or weekend? If it is broke, I don’t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just haven’t. I’m sure there’s little things you can do, but obviously we’re going to run 350 laps around here this weekend. I mean, that’s a race. It’s a normal race weekend. We\u2019re going to approach it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from All-Star Race – Friday<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chase Elliott said it succinctly. \u201cThis feels like a normal weekend,\u201d said the 2020 Cup Series champion during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[44436,49,48,4960,634,3628,247540,82],"class_list":["post-672594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-all-star-race","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dover-international-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup","tag-nascar-stars-debate-purpose-of-all-star-race-amidst-ordinary-dover-atmosphere","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}