Originally Posted by patnicholls
Relative NASCAR newbie here, been watching on-and-off for a few years due to intermittent terrestrial TV coverage in the UK.
I'm with Mark on this one, although I do completely see the point of those that disagree.
However, as someone who's watched Formula 1 narrowly avoid disaster many times in recent years I think the key is this: the health of your series isn't determined by who's at the front, but who's at the back. F1 unwisely cut most of the small teams out in the early-mid Nineties by instigating a 107% qualifying rule to get on the grid, which culled the field from 40 cars trying to qualify to race in 1991 to twenty cars just five years later. But then with 20 cars on the grid, you start to find that manufacturer or big-spending teams are pretty near the back or indeed at the back - and they don't like that as its a major embarrassment. If there's a Minardi or someone behind you, that's not so bad. With the current downturn the manufacturers have bailed, so this year's move to help new independent teams in HAD to be done, otherwise F1 would've had a 14-car grid or something which is perilously close to death-time for any racing series. Small teams should be at the back - if big ones are you're very close to disaster.
The same must be true of NASCAR in terms of who's at the back, even though the grid size is much healthier. If well-funded teams are sitting at the back of a (reduced) 35 car field, sponsors might bail out. With (say) eight admittedly underfunded efforts behind, that's less of a problem. And they can make the jump out into full running - surely it brought a smile to see Dave Blaney run the full race this time?
It's certainly not ideal for them to not be able to afford to run the full show, but they're hardly getting in the way and these are hard times for everyone.