NASCAR needs to change start

Change, the old saying goes, is really the only constant in NASCAR. But so much change, in such a short period of time, can have a numbing effect. So much of this sport is bound by tradition, in sons following fathers as drivers or spectators. In many minds, the constant change in the past few years has pulled those bonds to a breaking point.

"We need to get back to banjos and get away from the violins," said H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway. "We got a little too fancy there for a while. There were all kinds of forces moving in different directions to make it fancy. It's not a fancy sport. It's guys with big hands getting sweaty and getting out there knocking each other around, and all-American fans having a good time. A lot of things we tried to introduce into this just flat didn't work, and aren't going to work. I think that's something [France] certainly realizes now. This is meat and potatoes. This is not caviar and smoked salmon."

Toward that end, Wheeler said the start times for many Sprint Cup races this coming season will be earlier, a departure from the mid-afternoon green flags used to try and entice West Coast viewers. "I think we all yielded to pressure from the networks a little more than we should have," Wheeler said. "We paid the price for it, and we're getting back to sanity again."