Gluck: Clean air leaves All-Star field washed up

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

CONCORD, N.C. — Saturday night's dud of a Sprint All-Star Race was the embodiment of everything that's wrong with NASCAR's current rules package.

It can be summed up with two words: clean air.

Denny Hamlin, whose Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team has been a step behind all season on intermediate tracks such as Charlotte Motor Speedway, was magically able to hold off the two fastest cars all year — Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch.

Harvick had several shots at Hamlin in the 10-lap shootout, but could never break through the clean air bubble.

"Aero means so much with these cars nowadays that the person out front has such a huge advantage," Hamlin said.

That was exactly what Brad Keselowski anticipated would happen on the final pit stop, which he claimed was the reason behind him speeding to the timing line — and getting slapped with a race-ending penalty.

"Whoever gets the clean air with this format and this rules package is gonna drive away," Keselowski said matter-of-factly after the race. "We've seen that for the last three years and with this particular car it's probably even more so.

"(Busch and Harvick) were probably two- or three-tenths faster than everybody without clean air and it doesn't matter. I knew when I came out of my pit stall and (Hamlin) was pulling out with me that I either beat him to that line or lose the race."

That's not surprising with this year's rules package, which has raced fairly similar to last year. Keselowski estimated clean air is worth 0.2-0.3 second with the current rules.

But what's discouraging is NASCAR's recent indications that it could stand pat on making big changes for 2016 after it once seemed like a dramatic adjustment was in store.

NASCAR chairman Brian France told Sirius XM Radio this week that officials want to find a package that "gives us much closer competition, more lead changes, more drivers that have an opportunity to get up and mix it up."

But France also said NASCAR hadn't been satisfied with the progress of finding something better for next year — and they weren't keen on making changes just for the sake of making them.

"If we don't have choices or options that don't achieve our goals, then we're certainly not just going to try something that hasn't tested well or that we don't think can make an improvement in the areas that I just talked about," he said.

That doesn't offer much hope for those who weren't satisfied with the show Saturday night. It was an event that was billed as drivers putting it all on the line, but there were no cautions and there was lots of single-file racing — aside from the restarts, of course.

Quite frankly, that wasn't a surprise.

That's not the All-Star Race's fault. It's not the track's fault, either — just look at the thrilling race Friday night with the Camping World Truck Series at the same venue (a side-by-side finish decided by 0.005 second).

Saturday night's result was an indication of a bigger problem in the sport right now.

"It's hard to pass," Joey Logano said. "There's no other way to put it. All the cars are so close that you get in the dirty air and this race track is just a tough place to race at​."

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like there's any end in sight to clean air, the two dirtiest words in NASCAR.

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck

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