Douglas Jones-USA TODAY Sports
Last night I was sleeping pretty soundly dreaming of NASCAR as often happens when I am going through NASCAR withdrawal. I was dreaming of cars that were specifically made for driver safety. The area where the driver sat had more space inside. There were more roll bars in the frame around the driver in order to provide more protection.
These cars were also made so that they were the same no matter what type of race track they were running on. It was supposed to save the race teams money by not having special cars for each type of race track. In my dreams I worked on the car changing it from a speedway car to a short track car by simply changing the shocks, springs and camber on the front tires. It seemed like the NASCAR version of utopia.
My dreams turned to Daytona International Speedway and high speed restrictor plate racing. I dreamt of cars, whose bumpers aligned so good that they were able to run nose to tail with one another even while turning in the corners. The racing was indeed safer but some of the drama was missing. I sensed it even though I was dreaming.
I must have been getting deeper into sleep as my dream started to become disturbing. A small group of the drivers figured out that they could run nose to tail, almost like they were tied together. They out ran the pack of drivers by 2-4 MPH. They ran away with the race. Just as I was getting used to the novelty of this, my dream got even darker. All of the drivers had paired up two by two such that only the first six cars could pass one another.
Though out my dream it was not apparent, but the cars were actually of varying manufacturers. They looked like real sweet race cars, but on closer inspection they were all really the same. The only difference being the number and sponsors painted all over the cars. They were so equal that one manufacturer couldn’t remain in the sport.
This morning when I awoke the contents of my dream left me disturbed, who would want to watch racing like that? Then Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona International Speedway began. The cars had the safety improvements and size changes that I saw in my dream but they looked fabulous. The cars ran in packs due to the restrictor plate as they always did. The bumpers didn’t match keeping them that way during the practice. There was even a big wreck when one driver got to close to another car due to the mismatch of the bumpers.
I could tell the make and model of each car while they were racing together. I could even notice which car was of what model during the big wreck. Was it all just a dream? I don’t know but some of the dream remained, a make and model of car was missing.
Brian Berg Jr. is a NASCAR writer for www.RantSports.com.
Follow him on Twitter @brian_jr1 during the race and throughout the week for more NASCAR news and commentary. On Facebook at NASCAR News and Commentary. On Pinterest at NASCARnews.
