Marc: Don’t fret, bud. I’m used to it by now. JK JK LOL!

1. The event went the last 100 miles or so under green flag conditions. The resulting fuel mileage race, won by Gant on fumes, is what many complain about today.

2. I see your point on the many rules, however, this year featured the very same problem.

As a result of a death on pitroad in the final race of 1990 NASCAR implemented a series of new rules that went into effect at Daytona in 1991.

The biggest rule change was banning tire changes under yellow flags. The result was the first five events of 1991 featured strung out fields of cars and what was called at the time “boring races”. Many called the races “gasoline-powered mathematics exercise” because teams spent as much time calculating fuel mileage as the did making their car go faster.

Examples, Daytona only 5 on the lead lap at the checkers, Richmond 7 on lead lap, Rockingham 2 on the lead lap, Atlanta 7 on the lead lap and Darlington 3 on the lead lap with winner Ricky Rudd. Won on fuel mileage BTW. Great if you like math; boring if you like close racing.

“You weren’t really racing other cars; you were racing your own fuel mileage,” said Robin Pemberton, a crew member for the Ford driven by Mark Martin.

NASCAR changed rules in mid stream.

For the April 14 event at Bristol NASCAR allowed tire changes under yellow.

They also changed the way cars lined up for the for the restart. Before, the cars on the lead lap would line up in one file, while lapped cars would form another file alongside.

Starting with this Bristol event, cars in the odd-numbered pits lined up on the inside row, and those in the even-numbered pits will lined up on the outside row.

So you see, the more things change, the more they stay the same.