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Mere hours have passed, and already my inbox is hit with a rumor that NASCAR will use ARCA to create the "road racing stock car" series that has over the past couple of years been attached to almost every oval sanctioning body on the planet; USAC, NASCAR, UMP, even WISSOTA at one point!
Needless to say, it's clear these rumors are just somebody out there throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks. But this time around it got me to thinking...
Could NASCAR maybe want to use ARCA as an experimental series for new ideas to try and improve NASCAR itself? Little things that could have big effects but which they want out of the major eye until they're proven?
It would risk killing off the series if they weren't careful, but with ARCA only being a road course or two away from being more diverse than NASCAR in scheduling there's a lot they could try.
NASCAR is in a decline, and they need to at least stop the bleeding soon or they may be in genuine trouble. But doing a major change to their big three series too quickly could make it worse if they're not well thought out. As the only other stock car series that runs on the big ovals, and being made up of predominantly outdated Cup cars, ARCA is the only series that some reasonable data on the ideas could be extracted from. On top of that, ARCA was on an even sharper decline than NASCAR is, so any interest generated by the changes would be more pronounced, and if the efforts ultimately led to the end of ARCA, NASCAR can at least say they tried to revitalize it before pulling the plug.
I could see NASCAR doing this. Whether they actually do remains to be seen.
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