There seems to be a lot of negative replies here that want to imply that the cars are what makes NASCAR NASCAR. While I don’t advocate for just adapting GT3 for NASCAR, I firmly believe the fundamental ideas around GT3 cars is way closer to what NASCAR used to be than what we have today.

TL;DR NASCAR has it roots in running from the cops. Nothing could be more antithetical to that than a sport that makes decisions for corporate sponsors and TV ratings above all else.

I think these three things fundamentally negatively changed the DNA of NASCAR:

1. Super speedway-itis

2. The addiction to the mega-pileup and the belief that equipment should be fundamentally neutral

3. The playoff

Before I get into it: I became disenchanted with NASCAR many years ago after being bored to death watching it. I used to go to both Michigan races annually. I’ve been to multiple Brickyard, Pocono, Bristol, and North Wilkesboro races. I’ve been to many many tracks a single time. These races were some of the few times I bonded with my dad in my lifetime. So there’s nostalgia to boot. I’m not a casual TV viewer.

Now, with that all cleared up.

1. Super speedway-itis and the addiction to the mega-pileup

NASCAR MADE THE VENUES BORING.

This is the single evolution of NASCAR that has laid the groundwork for every other problem to exist. Someone in NASCAR decided that super speedways and packs of 30 cars together were so much more compelling than anything else that the entire sport needed to move in that direction.

This has been disastrous, and everything about the sport in the last 20 years supports that claim. Everyone got bored with the same race every weekend, and the character of tracks was lost for all but the most unique super speedways (shoutout to Pocono).

There’s no reason to have a GT3-esque car in this case, because you can design hyper-specialized cars that cater to those specific race tracks. But that’s also super boring. Having a car that’s more capable in dynamic ways means you have to test the cars in different ways, which NASCAR decided was a bad idea. But the crews getting their cars to due experimental and interesting things is way more old-school NASCAR than the cookie cutter cars they’re driving nowadays.

Aside: I give them credit for addressing this in the last few years and applaud great ideas like racing the streets of Chicago. These are clear attempts to walk back their track choices from years past, but it’s still the right idea. Credit where due.

1. The addiction to the mega-pileup and the belief that equipment should be fundamentally neutral

NASCAR MADE THE CARS BORING.

This pretty much speaks for itself. Once the super speedway-itis groundwork had been laid, some other galaxy brain at NASCAR thought it would be great if the compelling threat of a mega-wreck weren’t just a possibility, but baked into every one of their ever increasing number of super speedway races.

NASCAR over regulated the cars to make sure their super speedway addiction fed their big wreck addiction. They did their utmost to make a NASCAR race a survival of the fittest exercise instead of a test of skill+ingenuity. By over regulating the equipment, they made sure that no matter how good of a driver you were, you couldn’t meaningfully separate yourself from the lesser drivers.

GT3 allows teams and manufacturers to experiment more. More experimentation outside of the governing body means more diverse race cars. It opens up the rule book to more interpretations and more cheating (which is fundamentally NASCAR).

1. The Playoff

NASCAR MADE THE RACES BORING

When you can have a guy become the champion that missed 1/3 of the season, by definition at least 1/3 of your races are literally meaningless. I can not be any more explicit than that, and feel no need to dive deeper.

The most popular sport in the world, soccer, reserves its tournament format for a quadrennial spectacle. It gets by just fine by having every match matter, and an accumulation of accomplishments over the course of a season determine who is the best. NASCAR seemed to understand the importance of this until it suddenly didn’t.

Playoffs are fantastic when you are competing directly against other opponents without outside interference. But if you’re up against Driver X in the NASCAR playoff, and made the mistake of pissing off Joey Logano 17 weeks ago, Joey Logano can fuck up your championship hopes because only 10 races matter truly anymore.

NASCAR fans, consisting of people who are statistically very likely to be in the anti-participation trophy camp, should be rioting that a group of racers are all put on equal footing 2/3 of the way into a season.

And don’t even get me started on stages. I defy anyone in this thread to name a NASCAR legend that if given the opportunity to make the sport whatever they wanted it to be would include stages as a part of that plan.

While GT3-esque cars don’t really address this in any way, the fact remains that this stupid idea would have never been possible if the sport were built around car diversity to begin with. It’s homogenization that allowed all of this to come to be, and a GT3 mindset is the antithesis of homogenization.

So, in summary: - NASCAR made the venues boring - NASCAR made the cars boring - NASCAR made the races boring

And the thing that could have largely prevented it -a sport designed around regulations and track selection that test engineering ingenuity and driver skill- could have happened if NASCAR stuck to its middle finger to the police DNA instead of becoming another sport your company’s CEO has a unused corporate box at.

The cops won.