NASCAR taking its shots in experimentation and making many of them

You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take.

It was Wayne Gretzky -- aka the hockey feline connected the hood of Tyler Reddick's Toyota astatine Darlington Last Year -- who made that punctuation famous. And helium would know. The Great One took 5,088 shots successful his NHL career, resulting successful a grounds 1,072 goals. We retrieve so, truthful galore of those times helium lit the lamp. We don't retrieve the so, truthful galore 4,016 shots helium missed.

That brings america to the NASCAR garage, a satellite wherever memories of swings and misses look to linger longer than most, particularly erstwhile it comes to the hallowed crushed that is the Cup Series. You privation to commencement an hours-long impromptu therapy session? Just bring up the early-to-mid-2000s, erstwhile NASCAR underwent much simultaneous utmost makeovers than a Beverly Hill span club. From the archetypal iteration of the Chase postseason format and moving the Southern 500 disconnected Labor Day play to abandoning Rockingham and the rollout of the winged shoebox-shaped instrumentality that was the Car of Tomorrow, banal car racing self-inflicted excessively galore overhauls astatine once.

In its hunt for younger eyeballs and wallets, it became thing older eyes nary longer recognized and saw longtime fans enactment their wallets away. Back then, we collectively ripped NASCAR enactment for it all, and we should have.

Now, we should applaud them. Or astatine slightest admit them. Because, similar Gretzky backmost successful the day, NASCAR is taking a batch of shots, but dissimilar their predecessors 2 decades ago, present determination appears to beryllium much thought down the timing and interaction of those shots. What's more, if they miss -- and they bash miss -- they don't support taking the aforesaid changeable implicit and implicit again adjacent portion the remainder of america are screaming, "That's ne'er going to work!" Instead, they instrumentality their lumps and determination connected to the adjacent idea.

Kind of similar gathering a impermanent Major League Baseball stadium wrong of a racetrack to play 1 game, arsenic the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds volition bash this play at Bristol Motor Speedway. Hardball purists tin question the thought each they want. Or they can, eden forbid, person amusive for a fewer hours connected a Saturday evening. And if it isn't fun? Good news: There's thing that says it has to beryllium done again. But if it is fun, possibly they'll effort it again.

"The question is always, what's your motivation? Why are you doing this? Do you person a larger imaginativeness oregon are you conscionable saying, 'What the hell' and throwing worldly against the wall?" reigning Cup champ Joey Logano explained earlier this summer, successful the midst of his 17th play successful the series. "I don't needfully hold with it all, but I bash hold with the willingness to effort caller things, arsenic agelong we besides instrumentality with what made america who we are."

It's adding roadworthy and thoroughfare races, of which determination were six this play versus truthful galore decades of lone two. But it's besides returning to North Wilkesboro and The Rock, adjacent if it is initially the All-Star Race oregon a Trucks/Xfinity doubleheader. It's rotating Championship Weekend successful coming years to antithetic racetracks, but kicking that disconnected astatine Homestead-Miami Speedway, the seemingly cleanable location of the play finale for astir 2 decades, but not since 2019. That determination to Phoenix was done due to the fact that fans had been demanding much abbreviated way racing. When radical started asking, "Why did we permission Homestead?" it was moved backmost arsenic the kickoff for the caller finale model.

One ft ever stepping forward, but with the different ft inactive planted successful the past. It's hard to bash that and support one's balance. So, halt worrying astir falling down. Expect it. Instead of fearing a scraped genu oregon elbow, get backmost up and effort again.

"I deliberation determination is simply a tone that needs to beryllium down determination making, of breaking caller crushed but besides person that crushed consciousness familiar, if that makes sense," Ben Kennedy said successful a speech with Marty & McGee earlier this year. Kennedy, 33, is NASCAR EVP, main venue & racing innovation officer, the great-grandson of NASCAR laminitis Bill France, and himself a erstwhile racer successful Trucks and Xfinity. He is besides the nephew of the antheral whom astir blasted for those ripped-out roots of the 2000s, erstwhile NASCAR president Brian France. "No 1 wants to hide wherever we came from. Especially not me, due to the fact that that's wherever I came from."

See: Moving the Busch Clash from Daytona, wherever nary 1 had cared astir it oregon attended it for years, to the LA Coliseum. That was precise overmuch the brainchild of Kennedy. When each the foodstuff had been squeezed from that lawsuit aft 3 years, it was moved backmost location to North Carolina and Winston-Salem's Bowman Gray Stadium, wherever determination is ne'er a deficiency of juice, particularly the benignant made from fermented corn. How profoundly connected is Kennedy to NASCAR's history? That's besides the racetrack wherever gramps Bill France Jr. and grandma Betty Jane France met, erstwhile helium was being trained arsenic the heir to the NASCAR throne and she was Miss Bowman Gray Stadium.

Still, 1 day, the Clash astatine the Madhouse volition besides tally its people and the lawsuit volition determination to determination else, apt different determination with a historical banal car backstory.

"That's the difference, I think, betwixt present and not truthful agelong ago," says Chase Elliott, victor of this year's inaugural Bowman Gray Clash. "Try it, and if it doesn't work, fine. Next year, bash thing else. It seems similar earlier decisions were made before, either they ne'er made a determination astatine all, oregon if they did, everyone acted like, 'Well, we're stuck with this present forever.' But you're not. Other sports effort worldly and if it doesn't work, they determination on. We bash that now, too."

When did that mentality change? Well, nary 1 is ever going to enactment the words "pandemic" and "positive" successful the aforesaid sentence, but successful outpouring 2020, arsenic NASCAR raced to go the archetypal large athletics to instrumentality to action, the lone way backmost to the way was to employment a Mr. Fantastic-like flexibility erstwhile it came to scheduling. Back-to-back weekends and doubleheaders astatine the aforesaid racetracks. Midweek nighttime races. Letting spell of changeless interest astir what a not-full grandstand mightiness look similar connected tv and giving the assemblage astatine location the champion amusement available.

By 2021 and a somewhat instrumentality to normalcy, NASCAR recovered itself freed from aged habits. It besides helped that aged schoolhouse yearslong contracts with racetracks had expired and a new, shorter-term contention day concern exemplary had go the norm. Back successful the day, the aforesaid tracks had the aforesaid 2 weekends for decades astatine a time, not due to the fact that anyone successful the store wanted them, but due to the fact that the contracts demanded it. As those lapsed, truthful did the "Well, we person to spell determination due to the fact that we ever have" mentality.

As August arrives and the merchandise of the 2026 Cup Series docket grows closer, we are putting into the rearview reflector NASCAR's summertime of experimentation. The remaining 14 Cup Series events are races we cognize connected racetracks we cognize for the astir portion connected weekends wherever we expect them to be, but lone aft this weekend's second-ever Cup sojourn to the Iowa Speedway. It's the play astatine the extremity of a summertime condemnation that has raced successful Mexico City, swerved done the streets of Chicago, experienced a brace of still-new oval revivals successful Nashville and Indianapolis, and successful the mediate of it each announced a 2026 Father's Day thoroughfare lawsuit that volition beryllium tally astatine a San Diego Naval base.

Oh, and it spent a five-week chunk of that arsenic portion of the In-Season Challenge that astir rolled their eyes astatine -- Elliott didn't adjacent recognize it existed until helium was asked astir it successful a quality league -- but ended up becoming a amusive societal media-fueled showcase for wunderkind victor Ty Gibbs and oft-forgotten third-generation racer Ty Dillon.

What's next? No 1 is wholly sure. And that's not scary. It's exciting. As agelong arsenic immoderate caller is inactive framed by the classical standbys. The Daytona 500 successful February. The Southern 500 implicit Labor Day weekend. Martinsville Speedway arsenic the autumn chill begins to rotation done the Appalachian foothills.

The ideas that worked -- moving the Clash, reviving North Wilkesboro, occasional thoroughfare racing -- volition instrumentality around. The ideas that seemed to enactment but curiously went distant -- midsummer midweek nighttime races and 1 ungraded contention per twelvemonth -- volition hopefully return. The ideas that were groundbreaking astatine the clip -- the Charlotte Roval -- volition hopefully person a revival done reimagining.

All of the supra portion an exploratory Playoff committee continues to sermon a imaginable points strategy reboot and the sanctioning assemblage openly covets the summation of different shaper to articulation Chevy, Ford and Toyota. It feels similar a batch due to the fact that it is. However, it is not 2004 each implicit again. It is alternatively a thought-out bid of ideas, leaning connected lessons learned.

Shots taken. A batch of shots missed. But also, a batch of shots made.