Riverside is gone (and a friend who live there says is the home of either a shopping center or a line of condos) and still we try to run nearly 4,000 pound stocks cars on these courses. The results are sometimes spectacular. Witness the big pileup at the end of Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen. Fans love this sort of thing, but the truth remains that putting these drivers on road courses is a miscarriage of justice.

On Saturday, Marcos Ambrose, who sits 10th in NASCAR Nationwide series points, won the race. Why? Because Ambrose is an accomplished road racer. It kind of explains why Foyt and Gurney had so much success at Riverside in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Often, this is not the case and one has to look no farther than Sunday’s race at the Glen. Kyle Busch won on that day—a guy who’s won everything this year anyway, but the truth remains. Ambrose was in the Wood Brothers Ford Sunday and given enough laps, he would have probably won that race too. It’s just not fair to put the regulars of this series, based on ovals, to have them wheel two ton cars around a road course. For the record, I was rooting for Ambrose to win because he was driving for the legendary team. For a team who had shown nothing all year, it seems strange that in this race they had one of the fastest cars. Coincidence? Hardly.

Many will disagree; including those fanatics who flock to the Glen and Sonoma each year to witness the Sprint Cup stars flog the big cars around the road course. I have said from the beginning that if we continue this pattern, we should use smaller, lighter cars on the road courses, but no one listens. Regardless, with tracks like Kentucky Speedway and even Darlington Raceway begging for a date on the schedule, maybe it’s time to consider dropping these races. It won’t happen, but it’s an exercise in futility for most of the accomplished oval track drivers. NASCAR needs to figure out what their niche is. It sure isn’t road racing.