As the Sprint Cup Series gets ready to take to the track at Bristol, it would seem everyone is ready to go after a week off. It has been a good start to the season so far, unknown rookie Trevor Bayne pulled off the biggest upset in NASCAR by winning the Daytona 500, Jeff Gordon found his way back to Victory Lane at Phoenix and just two weeks ago Carl Edwards won Las Vegas. The racing has been great, TV ratings are up and it seemed NASCAR had much needed momentum after the struggles the past couple years. That momentum came to a halt this past weekend with the first Sprint Cup Series off-week of the year.  Many have just one question, why did we have an off week after only three races?

Last year the first break came after four races and was needed since NASCAR had so much negative press it was much welcomed. This year it was the opposite, NASCAR had built so much momentum that the off week stalled momentum gained from the first three races. I have heard some people say that one of the reasons why they didn’t race this weekend was because of college basketball. Throw that reason out the window, the Chase goes up against the NFL from September to November and there is no problem there. If you think college basketball was the reason for the not racing yesterday, than why doesn’t NASCAR just wait to run the Chase until after the Super Bowl so there is no NFL to worry about?

 I think people would have tuned into Bristol more than college basketball on Sunday and NASCAR would have been able to keep their momentum, TV ratings for Bristol would have been good and most importantly people would be talking about Bristol today not talking about what might happen at Bristol this weekend.

If I could make a suggestion to NASCAR for next year, run five to 10 consecutive races before taking your first break so you can get some good solid momentum, but if you want to include an early break still, place a off week the weekend after Labor Day Weekend so the teams and crews can rest up for the championship stretch the final 11 weeks of the season.

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