The 2024 NASCAR season flagged off on a wild, turbulent note. A common theme across all series season openers was on-track crashes. Several wrecks ensued at the Daytona International Speedway, some accidental and others seemingly intentional. Regardless, the weekend resurfaced questions about driver safety. Brett Griffin, veteran spotter, and Door Bumper Clear co-host, shed light on the possible reason for these crashes. He squarely pinned the blame on NASCAR for stripping down the time for practice sessions.

NASCAR should not let drivers play with fire

You can usually spot Brett Griffin analyzing races alongside T.J. Majors and Freddie Kraft on an episode of ‘Door Bumper Clear’. Griffin is the most infamous of the trio, known for his razor-sharp candor. He brings in a comedic element along with his unvarnished opinion, often inviting backlash from racers. For instance, Joey Logano bashed Griffin for a ‘character attack’ on him in 2023. But this time Griffin sternly took the side of racers.

The importance of on-track safety reigned supreme in his mind. In a recent Twitter post, he pointed fingers at NASCAR for making the track more dangerous for rookie as well as experienced drivers. He tweeted, “Zane. Hocevar. Even guys like Ty Gibbs. They need practice. It’s even bad for the veterans because if the rookies and young guys wreck em it is really their fault? And crew chiefs deserve to make their cars better. And , teams deserve to make sure the cars are safe to be on track to qualify. No brainer.”

Griffin tweeted this in reply to another post by Walt Neuser. It read, “I can see the Cup guys with no practice but let Xfinity and Trucks have practice. Even if it’s 30 minutes before qualifying.”

Lack of practice has led to trouble on the track. For instance, in 2023, Kaulig Racing’s Chandler Smith had an issue with the engine. Ultimately, he failed to set a time and missed the race. Similarly, Conor Daly from the Money Team faced several issues.

After canceling practice for the qualifying or Duel races pre-Daytona, NASCAR has stood its ground. No practice session will be held before the Atlanta race, either. One reason is cost-cutting, so that a car lasts longer with less stress put on it. Another is to increase parity, as bigger teams can get a bigger advantage with more practice.

Small teams can seek to benefit from less practice

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While on-track safety is a non-negotiable factor in races, there is another side to cutting down practice. It puts small Cup teams on the same level with three- and four-car operations. When given more time to practice, big teams use more resources to maximize their car’s potential. Both Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael McDowell agree with this.

Michael McDowell, who won the 2021 Daytona 500 and the 2023 Verizon 200, laid it down – “If you allow them the opportunities to go get everything just right when you’ve got 75 eyes back at the shop, looking through videos and looking through pictures and running simulation … you’re gonna make it better than a team that doesn’t have those resources.”

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2023 Daytona winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr said something similar. “If you start stretching that (practice) out, the big teams definitely, I think, start collecting more data on a weekend and can send all four cars in a different direction and kind of hone in on something.”

Less practice may be bridging the gap between big and small Cup teams. But let us hope that it does not enhance the chances of the ‘big one’ enfolding in the coming races.