[John V.]

Keith, I think it is actually 358.

I only attended one Nascar race, the last Daytona 500 before the resurfacing. I was very disappointed and went home early enough to see the finish on TV. We've discussed the live vs. TV before but I still have no interest to go back. Whereas I would do the SpeedTech Auto Racing School at Atlanta again in a heartbeat.

Since the vast majority of cars today are V6, I have often wondered why Nascar doesn't switch to V6s and require stock engines with few if any mods, at least add some semblance of "stock" to the format.

The problem as I see it for most racing lies in the old adage, racing is expensive, how fast do you want to go.

With virtually unlimited budgets, we now know that you can more or less take the mystery out of racing. I think I liked it better when there was some doubt whether an engine or trans might fail. In the interest of safety (never a bad thing) we've kinda reached a point where the machinery is about bullet-proof. It still is dangerous no doubt, but if there was some doubt whether the car would hold up to the end, it would add excitement. The closest we get to that now is wondering if they'll run out of gas.

I don't watch much drag racing, but even there, equipment failure rarely seems to be an issue, tire traction issues are common but that is rarely entertaining.

I don't know how to "fix" it, but I think it would be more entertaining if the engines were more prone to failure and same engines we run on the street.

After all, as beautiful as the old Pontiacs were, the intrigue was who had the best engines. So keep the COT, but I would like to see stock engines duking it out. Make them run at the ragged edge although I'm sure the sponsors would hate all the DNFs.

Just a thought.