This is a series I've been wanting to do for a while, but now that I've decided to go to college after 2 gap years, it think this would be a good (and fun) way to practice my writing skills. Especially since my declared major is in Journalism. Maybe I should opt for a concentration in Sports Media. Anyways, I hope this turns out to be a good read. Also, this is all in humor.
The field of 16 drivers for the NASCAR playoffs has been set. Among them are drivers who have been class acts all season. They rarely show unjustified anger, and all of them have proven their skills... or just got lucky enough (more on that later).
This list is not about them. It's about having a laugh at the most irritating drivers (and others) on the circuit of NASCAR. Call it salt, and you'd be correct. I really don't care. With out further ado, here is my NASCAR Black Flag List:
1. Cody Ware
Quite possibly the biggest example of nepotism in NASCAR, Cody Ware proves time and time again that with enough money, even your dreams can come true! Why yes little Timmy, you can be a star! Just win a championship in the small overseas Asian Le Mans Series where you were uncontested for the championship in your division that year, and you too, can kickstart your NASCAR career! Just ask his dad, Rick Ware, owner of Cody Ware's No. 51 for Rick Ware Racing!
Since joining NASCAR, Cody Ware's performance has been putrid in all three of NASCAR's National Divisions (Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup). With an average career finish of 30.9 in the Cup Series, you'd think he should drop back down to the Truck Series, where he has an much more impressive average finish of... 23.1. Okay, so maybe that won't make too much of a difference. But hey, at least he got his first career Top 10 in The Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona last weekend! He's improving! Gee, it only took 28 of the 37 cars in the field wrecking out of contention... plate racing, amirite?
The only other notable thing Ware has accomplished this season was attracting the ire of a championship contender at Bristol, when he chased down Chase Elliot under caution to show displeasure after he got loose because he ran out of tal- er, got spun out by Elliot. Yeah. That's totally what happened. That's being said, it'll be difficult to get all sides of the story since Elliot might not remember it. He didn't remember who Ware was, after all! You'd think it's because Ware rarely sees Elliot on the track, but I have a counterpoint to prove Elliot's memory loss issues once and for all: He laps Ware several times a week! How could he NOT know who Ware is?!
Ya know, personally I wonder if this whole racing thing for Ware is just a front for Nurtec ODT to sell more migraine pills. He certainly is causing headaches for the other drivers and fans! I know it's bit of an unfounded conspiracy theory, but I'm sure it'll catch on quicker than Ware is on the track.
2. Ross Chastain
The son of a watermelon farmer and one of his watermelons, Ross Chastain is a driver who hit the Cup Series full-time (kinda) in 2018 driving the No. 15 for Premium Motorsports, with which he acheived less than premium results. Chastain failed to score a Top 15 until 2019, when he got a Top 10 at the Daytona 500 after 29 of the 40 cars in the field wrecked out of contention... plate racing, amirite (again)?
After dropping back down to Xfinity in 2020, his fortunes would improve when a dying Chip Ganassi Racing picked him up for a full time ride in 2021 to drive their No. 42 car. With this oppurtunity, Chastain finally got to run at front of the pack every once in a while, where he finally had plenty of opportunities! To wreck out the actual contenders and make every driver around him angry, that is. At the end of the season, Chastain finished 20th in points, Top 3 in most enemies made, and 1st in the I-got-cut-by-Chip-Ganassi-Racing-and-all-I-got-was-this-lousy-t-shirt award. The corresponding trophy Chastain got for his award was: You guessed it! A lousy t-shirt! NOTE: Still more fashionable than Chastain's t-shaped beard.
Fast foward to the present, and Chastain is finally a contender! He scored two wins! By wrecking everyone in front of him out, that is. Now, you might be asking, just who is "everyone?" Well, by "everyone" I mean Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, AJ Allmendinger, Alex Bowman, Chase Elliot, Martin Truex Jr, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Autin Dillon, Erik Jones, and track boundaries. There's probably others, but I'm confident I've spent more time researching this than Chastain has spent racing cleanly. If there's any good news, it sounds like the other drivers are going to pay back Chastain during the playoffs. I am eagerly waiting for the longest YouTuber-level apology Chastain has ever given once it happens.
3. The NASCAR Playoffs
NASCAR as an organization, seems to be comitted to making and defending the worst decisions imaginable. From the 1969 Talledega 500 to the 2022 Coke Zero 400, NASCAR has seen some bad races over the years; In addition, from Jeff Gordon in 2004 to Martin Truex Jr in 2022, drivers have been screwed over by poor format decisions from NASCAR. I would say Bill France Sr. would be rolling his grave, but this seems par for the course for the organization he created. Legend has it, the ghost of France Sr. is still crushing driver unions in the afterlife. Thankfully for him, he doesn't have to deal with the ghost of Lee Roy Yarbrough.
Back to more recent times, the second least competitively fair era in NASCAR began in 2004, after it was decided that drivers like 2003 champion Matt Kenseth can't just walk in and completely outclass most of the field on a weekly basis to win championships. "No, no, no! Bad 1-win driver! Why couldn't you have been more like the 8-win Ryan Newman and have 7 DNFs!" said Brain France after some drinks and pills, probably.
In the Chase era drivers had to be "ACTUALLY GOOD"... for only the last 10 races of a season. So, what does one expect from a system where you only need to be merely decent for the first 26 races of a season? Exploitation, of course! Most notably, 7-time champion Jimmie Johnson would use the regular season as more of a "tune-up" for the Chase by driving at a relaxed pace. While the Chase created artificial exitement for a short amount of time, it would prove to make the sport even less exiting than the average Indy road course wreck-fest. After Johnson captured his sixth championship in 2013, NASCAR decided to drasically emphasise what they believed was the single most important skill a driver needed: Being lucky.
The actual least competitivly fair era began in 2014 when NASCAR introduced the Playoffs. This system revolved around the last 10 races like before; however, the difference was that those 10 races were splits up into four rounds with the first 3 being races each, culminating in a 'winner take all' season finale. This resulted in a system about as reliable as the single-lug wheel. Drivers nowadays frequently have great seasons only to have one bad race mid-playoffs and get screwed. "What's that Carl Edwards? You had a league best average finish of 7.2 and got wrecked out in the final race of the season? I guess that means you're only the fourth best driver!" said Brian France two years before getting arrested for DUI, probably.
Most recently, NASCAR added playoffs points and stage racing (with its own points), creating a motorsport so convoluted they needed a celebrity ad campaign for their system. Personally I think Jim France should've been the guy presenting the system. Nothing makes the public understand what your system is about quite like showcasing the geriatric man behind it all! Unfortunately for us, NASCAR seems to value their public image more than things like good officiating, so we got 4-time Grammy winner Keith Urban to spoonfeed the system to us. Hey NASCAR, since you've shown you can spend money on celebrities, can you spend some money on a car that absorbes impact better? No? Ah, well then. Godspeed in your concussion recovery, Kurt Busch! I hope NASCAR's virtue signaling will help other drivers avoid the same injuries!
Serving Pit Road Penalties to avoid being Black Flagged: Bubba Wallace, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Next Gen Car, Single Lug Tire, Rain Tires, and Chase Elliot fans.