Its Daytona Baby!!

It's the day the NASCAR season officially starts. Today is Daytona, and the Daytona 500. There are a few reasons this has me excited beyond belief. Here at the cat house we are huge NASCAR fans. Gives us NASCAR, college football, and baseball over anything else. Nothing, but those three things, and we would be content.

While having NASCAR back is thrilling it signals another coming as well. No not the almighty hyped return of the three.

Daytona signals that spring training baseball is about to start as well. This week the games will start, and we will be in total hysteria around here. Currently the wife is all about the NASCAR, and the cat is torn. There have been some great moves by both my teams the Mariners, and Rockies. Seeing those players in their first action has got me pumped. Enough baseball though let's get back to NASCAR.

NASCAR made some serious changes to the season which I won't get into today. I will say that one of those I am not happy about, and think it might possibly even change my viewing later in the season. When that time comes I'll talk about it, but until then... Its Daytona Baby!!

One of the changes made will rear its head today. While there are many that aren't thrilled about this change, I am one of those that think its a move that has been needed long ago. The change is the way cars can draft in the 500. NASCAR is implementing a rule that cars will no longer be allowed to push draft.

For those that don't know what that means I will break it down for you. Above is a picture of cars push drafting. The cars would lock onto each other. By locking together they travel faster, and save gas. Downsides were the lead car was doing all the steering. The rear car was at the mercy of the front guy while going around the track. In return the front car was at the mercy of the rear driver. If the back car slid down, or lifted the rear wheel of the front car. This was the result.

Now the drivers will be penalized for push drafting. While they will still be locked in as close as possible, the cars won't be touching the entire time. From watching the truck race on Friday, and the Nationwide race on Saturday the new strategy has been to stay as close as possible, and bumping the car forward when they got close. No longer is it an initial bump into you, and you were locked. Now the guy behind you might slam the rear end of your car constantly. Hello bad back!

As seen in the Nationwide race on Saturday wrecks like above won't be as constant as they have been in the past. When it comes down to the last couple laps all bets are off. You will have every remaining driver fighting for victory.