Feud of the Week: NASCAR prime time; Gordon's shot; COT for Nationwide?
CBSSports.com's Brian De Los Santos and Pete Pistone provide analysis on three weekly racing topics.
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| Pete Pistone | Brian De Los Santos |
| Saturday was the last and only night race of the Chase. Would NASCAR be better served to host more prime time races? | |
 When the NFL season begins NASCAR ratings on Sundays just get steamrolled. The Chase was created to add more excitement and drama to the end of the season, which would in turn generate more interest and better television ratings against pro football. It really hasn't worked out that way. Saturday night racing would be a better way to approach the problem, although last week's event at Charlotte was down from the previous year's rating -- probably due more in part to a late start and a boring race for most of the night. But shifting a few more Chase races to Saturday nights in the future would be a better opportunity for NASCAR to attract a larger audience than against the NFL Sunday afternoons. | Is NASCAR better off going head to head with college football on Saturday night or the NFL on Sunday afternoon? The NFL is a ratings and media monster, there is no slaying that beast. I'd say there's more room for growth on a Saturday night vs. the one or two high-profile college football matchups that may be scheduled. But it's not a cure all for NASCAR's rating and attendance woes. If NASCAR can put an exciting product on the track, then the people will come. But the COT's performance has been spotty at best. We've had some great finishes this season, but that only disguises the lack of racing up front that fans see a majority of the race. Too many times the leader has been able to run away and hide, bolting out to five-, six-, seven-second leads. And as far as live attendance is concerned, it wouldn't hurt to lower ticket prices. |
| Martinsville has always been Jeff Gordon's best tracks. Is this the week he ends his winless skid? | |
 Gordon is working on a string of 11 straight top-10 finishes at Martinsville and has won five times in his last 20 starts there with an average finish of 6.4. He came home second behind Denny Hamlin back in the spring and will definitely be a contender this weekend. But this year, winning seems to be a foreign concept to Gordon and the No. 24 team who more often than not seem thrilled with a top-10 finish. Case in point, last week in Charlotte when after not one but two trips into the wall, Gordon was able to somehow manage a top-10 finish, which had to seem like a victory given the circumstances. Gordon has an impeccable track record at Martinsville but nothing that has happened this year leads me to believe he can change his non-winning ways. |  When asked a few weeks back whether Gordon was going to win this year, I said his best chances would come at Talladega and Martinsville. Well, Talladega has come and gone and he couldn't get it done because of an engine failure. That leaves Martinsville. And while I can't guarantee he'll win Sunday, I'd certainly make him a heavy favorite. I couldn't do that any of the other remaining tracks. In 31 starts at Martinsville, he has finished outside the top 10 just six times. He has seven wins and 19 tops fives, including seven in a row, for an average finish of seventh at the track. My feeling is that if he doesn't get it done Sunday, he's not going to get it done this year. |
| NASCAR is testing a COT-type car for the Nationwide Series this week. Does the series need a new car? | |
| It does seem like a proverbial hole in the head. The last thing teams that run and support the Nationwide Series need right now is the cost and expense of building and developing a new car. The idea of a COT-type machine with all the safety initiatives and innovations created for the Sprint Cup car is great, but it couldn't come at a worse time for the struggling series. Independent Nationwide organizations without an affiliation to one of the Cup behemoths are disappearing faster than the Cubs did in the playoffs. The economy and lack of sponsors is killing the series and adding the burden of paying for a new car at this point is not a smart move. | More than a new car, the Nationwide Series needs an identity. What is the purpose of the Nationwide Series anymore? I thought it was supposed to be a developmental series, but who is it developing? Five of the top 10 drivers in points are full-time Cup drivers and only six of 31 races have been won by non-Cup drivers. That's not to say the series doesn't need a new car. Sports evolve and the Cup COT has safety enhancement not yet available in the Nationwide car. The Nationwide COT will fix that. The one thing I like about the new COT they're testing is that unlike the generic Cup COTs that all look the same, it appears the Nationwide COTs will retain manufacturer styling. |
| Previous Feud of the Weeks: Oct. 7 | Sept. 30 | Sept. 23 | Sept. 16 | Sept. 9 | Sept. 2 | August 26 | August 19 | |
