NASCAR has faced a lot of debate in recent weeks over the length of the races. Several drivers, fans, and now Bubba Wallace’s spotter, Freddie Kraft, has given his opinion about the same. 

The debate began after IndyCar driver Scott Dixon pointed out how long the races were. But the debate escalated further after Kyle Larson commented that he agreed "that a lot of our Cup races are too long". 

Addressing the same on the podcast "Door, Bumper, Clear" during their spot-on-spot-off segment, Kraft shared his thoughts about the race length. 

"Tommy's going to get mad at me, and a lot of people will be," Kraft said on the podcast uploaded on YouTube. "Some of them are too long. Like, and it's listen, it may not be the race length. It's what we do in those. If you would have told me that Wilsboro was under three hours, I would have told you you're crazy cuz I felt like we were there a long time."

Before the NASCAR fans listened to the podcast, the title and the thumbnail of the video caught their attention. The podcast episode was titled "NASCAR is hurting itself with long races," while the thumbnail had Bubba Wallace’s spotter alongside a few cars. 

However, the title and the thumbnail were seemingly changed shortly after fans began reacting to the same. The updated version no longer carries the same title and thumbnail, as the title has been changed to "Hocevar Gave Heim The Finger, Then Heim Gave him an L".

NASCAR fans react to Freddie Kraft's take on race lengths

Before the thumbnail and the title of the podcast episode were changed, the screenshots of the same were shared by ElitePrecision29 on their X account. Many fans took to the post's comments section to give their opinion about the same. 

One fan criticised the narrative that was being pushed out through the episode. They wrote, 

"The NASCAR media corp needs a massive shakeup. There are some good eggs, and I’m sure all the media folks are very nice people, but there are some bad apples that just have 0 pulse on the sport and the fanbase whatsoever. Stop pushing this stupid narrative."

A fan argued that the calls for shorter races were coming from within the sport. They commented, 

"I notice it's only @NASCAR Affiliated people who are complaining and not actual Fans. Seems Some people have been at their job to long and the Magic has wore off."

Another fan pointed out that shortening the races will harm the teams, and it will be criticised by the same people voting towards shorter races. They wrote, 

"Once they shorten the races the same podcasts will complain about the teams losing advertising revenue."

One fan rejected the idea of shortening the race length altogether. They commented, 

"These stupid sons a b******* either don't know what we the fans like. Or don't care. When u go to a race u go for an event. Not for a 2 hours gone so fast your head spun thing. Lower the amount of time u spend under yellow. Including the fun flags. Boom. Problem solved."

Another fan argued that they have been criticized for not wanting shorter races. They commented, 

"I’ve been told for 2 weeks I’m wrong cause I don’t want shorter races. Another thing I haven’t seen anyone mention is cup ticket prices will go down if we shave 100 miles off a bunch of races right?"

Should NASCAR shorten the races? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco