Eyes on Xfinity: Indianapolis Underscores Why Series Identity Matters

The Lombardi Trophy. The Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. The Harley J. Earl Trophy. The Borg-Warner Trophy.

Sure, all are trophies, however extra importantly, the id of every one is unquestionable. Whenever you see them, what their connection is.

The NASCAR Cup Collection is the world’s high echelon of inventory automobile racing. The NASCAR Tenting World Truck Collection is the pickup model of the Cup Collection with up-and-coming drivers sprinkled in with some truck lifers and the occasional twilight-years driver. However what’s the id of the NASCAR Xfinity Collection?

1 / 4 of a century in the past, NASCAR’s high three divisions’ identities had been reduce and dry. The Cup Collection picture hasn’t modified, because it was and stays the very best type of inventory automobile racing. Vans had been a sequence that raced nearly all of its schedule on oval tracks lower than one mile in size, with a couple of bigger speedways and highway programs.

The Xfinity Collection within the late Nineteen Nineties, then the NASCAR Busch Collection, was a mix of the 2 divisions. Quick tracks, speedways, superspeedways and highway programs crammed out the schedule. Moreover, standalone races had been frequent. These standalone races might be at tracks the Cup and even Vans visited at totally different instances of the season. In addition they might have been tracks unique to the Xfinity Collection.

However in 2022, 32 of the 33 races the Xfinity subject races at are help races for the Cup Collection — racing on the identical observe on the identical weekend. The race at Portland Worldwide Raceway in June was the lone standalone race.

A part of the id of the Xfinity Collection 25 years in the past and at the same time as latest as 11 years in the past was that it traveled to tracks and markets the Cup Collection didn’t. It raced on tracks like Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, Myrtle Seaside Speedway, Pikes Peak Worldwide Raceway, World Huge Know-how Raceway (Gateway), Kentucky Speedway and Memphis Worldwide Raceway. The one means the largest stars in NASCAR would race there was in the event that they raced within the Xfinity Collection.

For a lot of causes, not restricted to monetary and economical, these tracks had been dropped or changed, and slowly NASCAR’s second-tier sequence started to look increasingly more like Cup 2.0. This alteration wasn’t restricted to the Xfinity Collection, however the Vans nonetheless went to Canada and raced on dust. And this, on high of being pickup vans and never a automobile, made the Truck Collection have extra of a standout id with distinctive races in comparison with Xfinity.

A small shot within the arm for Xfinity Collection uniqueness got here in 2011 when the then-Nationwide Collection Automobile of Tomorrow automobile was launched, and Ford launched the Mustang and Dodge the Challenger to NASCAR. Later in 2013, Chevrolet introduced the Camaro. The muscle or pony vehicles made the Xfinity Collection have a special id, however now the Mustang and Camaro are each within the Cup Collection, and Dodge is at the moment out of the game.

The Indianapolis race weekend closed out a month that included an announcement of the Cup Collection’ first avenue course race (not less than within the trendy period), heightened discuss of electrical autos and which configuration of Indianapolis Motor Speedway is true for NASCAR.

One week in the past, the Subsequent Gen automobile carried out excellent on the flat, 2.5-mile triangular oval at Pocono Raceway. This led to many sparking the dialogue of a Cup return to the Indianapolis oval as a result of Pocono and Indianapolis are comparable.

Whether or not you agree with me or not, when the Xfinity Collection left Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park after 2011 and was changed by IMS on the schedule, it devalued the Brickyard 400 for the Cup Collection. From 1994 to 2011, should you wished to race a inventory automobile on the world-renowned Indianapolis Motor Speedway, you needed to be among the many 43 greatest drivers on the planet. However the Xfinity transitioned to racing within the wake of the Brickyard 400.

Quick-forward 9 years, and earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, Roger Penske introduced that the Xfinity race at Indianapolis would transfer to the highway course. The transfer to take the Xfinity race to the highway course not solely restored a number of the worth of the Brickyard 400, however it restored some id for the sequence in Indianapolis and added its distinctive spin at IMS. However the id was stripped away when Cup moved to the highway course in 2021.

With the Cup race at Pocono being so successful and the Vans returning to IRP, NASCAR and IMS have a golden alternative to make NASCAR’s annual journey to Indianapolis probably the most numerous on the calendar. If the Cup Collection returns to the oval, the Vans proceed racing at IRP and the Xfinity Collection stays on the IMS highway course, every sequence brings one thing distinctive to race followers visiting Indy. The Cup races on the historic Indy oval, the Vans race on a brief observe and Xfinity drivers compete on a highway course.

I’ll exit on a really skinny limb and say I’m not the one one who thinks that isn’t a implausible group of tickets. And I problem you to discover a extra numerous weekend in NASCAR — in a single metropolis.

This is only one id repair for NASCAR’s second tier sequence — going to distinctive or totally different racetracks simply because it did for the higher a part of its first 30 years of existence.

What’s one other strategy to make the Xfinity Collection distinctive once more: going electrical.

I received’t conceal my opinion that the considered NASCAR, not to mention all racing and industrial autos, going fully electrical … I don’t prefer it. However it seems to be like that’s the path racing goes. I’d implore the very best ranges of racing to stay utilizing flamable engines. As a result of, in any case, the roar of the engines is a part of the draw.

What the FIA has executed with Method E is a superb instance of what NASCAR might do to the Xfinity Collection. If the Xfinity Collection goes all-electric, that alone offers the sequence a brand-new id that may be distinctive in inventory automobile racing. Then, while you add avenue programs, you’ve an ideal combination of branding.

In Method E’s quick historical past, most races have been on momentary avenue programs. It brings a excessive stage of racing to the plenty with out the loud flamable engine noise whereas showcasing an OEM’s electrical expertise. A reimagined Xfinity Collection might race strictly at avenue programs, momentary programs (i.e., St. Petersburg) and quick tracks. Why not have some quarter- and third-mile exhibition races throughout NASCAR Cup Collection weekends, like at Charlotte Motor Speedway or Atlanta Motor Speedway?

Disclaimer: The writer is an worker of Speedway Motorsports.

Suppose the Cup Collection continues to race on the large, high-speed and high-banked ovals. That continues the prevailing id for Cup, and the Vans proceed to be vans — having the Xfinity Collection go electrical and avenue racing offers them a novel spot in inventory automobile racing, not to mention the world auto racing stage.

Regardless of the way you slice it up, the Xfinity Collection is in an id disaster. Sure, it has wonderful racing, however what separates it from Cup and Vans? A “Names Are Made Right here” slogan? In 2022, that isn’t sufficient, particularly when NASCAR is advertising and marketing every by itself and never strictly a feeder sequence, just like what Method 2 is to Method One.

The short-term resolution to the id disaster that the Xfinity Collection is struggling goes to tracks and markets the Cup Collection doesn’t or discovering methods to copy the 2020 Brickyard weekend at racetracks throughout the calendar. The long-term resolution is a drastic rebrand, corresponding to electrification and SUV/crossover our bodies. And since there isn’t any use denying that electrical energy models, on the very least hybrid expertise, will play a task in auto racing’s future, the Xfinity Collection is the plain alternative for this alteration.

Share this text