Happy Hour: What off week? Pit road, Darlington and throwbacks

Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to [email protected] or @NickBromberg. We’ll post them here and have a good time .

Welcome to an off week edition of Happy Hour. Got anything planned for the weekend? We’ll likely watch both the Xfinity and Truck Series races this weekend. Road courses can be appointment viewing. Remember when Max Papis got slapped two years ago?

[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football: Sign up and join a league today!]

Best part of that whole episode was that the race was Mike Skeen’s only Truck Series start. Come back, Mike! We need more drama.

Let’s get to the questions this week.

@NickBromberg nascar usually isn’t into transparency, but couldn’t they provide data in instance like ky busch’s pit road speeding penalty?

— Nick Knezevich (@itsKnez) August 27, 2015

NASCAR and its officials usually do a good job of posting the monitors tracking pit road to Twitter during races.

If you’re unfamiliar with what Nick is referencing, Kyle Busch got a speeding penalty Saturday night. NASCAR had told him the speeding penalty was in the section that he was pitting in. Busch was, appropriately, miffed because it’s impossible to speed in the section of pit road you’re speeding in (NASCAR calculates the speed via average time in the section. Pit stops take so long that it’s impossible to break the threshold in the section you’re pitting in).

NASCAR then corrected the penalty to say it was in the section after Busch’s pit stall. We didn’t see a tweet with the monitor confirming which section Busch sped in, but we’ve got no reason to believe it was anything but an honest mistake.

That said, we’re all for mandatory tweeting and/or posting of the speeding data for public consumption. It seems like something that would be easily integrated into the NASCAR Stats Twitter account. After round of pit stops (or penalty) the account could post a picture of the speeds and fans can see which drivers did what on pit road. It would not only help the sanctioning body’s credibility with its teams and fans, but it would also enhance the fan experience immensely.

@NickBromberg why did NASCAR choose the narrowest track to showcase the best aero/tire package it’s had all year for passing?

— Rich Tucker (@iamrich83) August 27, 2015

This is a great question.

Darlington is an entertaining track and it’s a good fit for the low downforce package with appropriate tires (the tires will be softer than they were at Kentucky). However, it’s not a place where you’re going to see side-by-side racing on a consistent basis. You have to pass a driver entering or exiting a corner at Darlington to be effective. Driving two-wide in the corners is a recipe for disaster.

However, its utilization at Darlington shows us (we think) that the sanctioning body wasn’t ready to change things up in the middle of the year like it has.

If it was, wouldn’t it have worked with Goodyear to ensure the appropriate tires would be available at Kentucky? But with the complaints about the lack of passing at the beginning of the season, the sanctioning body felt like it had to do something, and Goodyear apparently didn’t have enough time to react too.

And given that NASCAR wanted to try the high-drag tweaks at Indy and Michigan, Darlington was about the only place to do it. They’re not going to be as fruitful as possible at a short track or road course and you’re not going to start the Chase with a completely different set of rules. By process of elimination, Darlington was the choice. Hopefully fans realize that and the track’s characteristics when rendering a judgment after next Sunday night.

@NickBromberg Throwbacks. Which Race Sponsor you want back? Point system? Anthem singer? Command giver? Maybe a throwback Chrome Horn?

— Brian Cullather (@Briancullather) August 27, 2015

The throwback schemes for Darlington are great, though we admit that we giggle a bit when we see a “throwback” scheme from a sponsor relatively new to the sport. And we also wonder why we’re not treated to these awesome paint schemes on a regular basis.

The Darlington schemes are a sign that NASCAR teams still know how to design awesome-looking cars. Hopefully these ideas bleed over into 2016 paint schemes, because we’d greatly appreciate some change from the current batch of cars.

As far as race sponsors, few things beat the Goulds Pumps ITT Industries Salute to the Troops 250 Presented by Dodge. Points system? Hmmm… the old system really wasn’t bad. And it wasn’t as complicated as people thought it was. Oh, and it didn’t punish bad finishes as much as this one does.

Anthem singer? Anyone who doesn’t take a long time is fine with us (we’ve never really understood the NASCAR fascination with the renditions of the National Anthem). For the command and pre-race prayer every week, we’ve gotta go this guy.