during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Overton’s 400 at Pocono Raceway on July 30, 2017 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.

In order to try and improve the NASCAR experience, the sanctioning body is experimenting a new weekend structure this season where the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series begins their race weekend on Saturday for the race on Sunday. Normally, it’s a three-day weekend where cars begin practice on Friday and continue practice and qualifying Saturday for the Sunday race. This past weekend, Pocono became the first to try this out and a few other tracks will do the same the rest of this season to see if it can be used widespread next season.

It took a little getting used to but personally, as a fan as well as a member of the media, I loved the two-day weekend concept. I was in Pocono for the first race in June and while a three-day weekend wasn’t bad, it left some open spots of downtime throughout the day. And while that might be great for the media to get things written, that might not be so great for fans.

With this, three days became two and it is two days of jam-packed madness on-track. Fans who are only coming Sunday are now getting more bang for their buck by getting qualifying as well as the race. And for those still planning on coming for the entire weekend, there are still things going on Friday and Saturday. This past weekend, ARCA practiced, qualified and raced on Friday while the Camping World Truck Series practiced on Friday as well as qualified and raced on Saturday. The MENCS side started Saturday.

This makes it not only great for fans who can come Saturday, get most of the racing action and maybe save money by not having to stay in a hotel as long, but this is great for drivers and teams because it means an extra day at home because they didn’t have to arrive at the track until Friday night. And to take advantage of the day off, Pocono Raceway had a Fan Fest party in the infield for campers who have been there the entire week. We got to see drivers show another side as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. and Landon Cassil assisted in a cooking contest, Kurt Busch answered questions about his career, Kyle Larson and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. played “Name That Tune” with a couple fans while Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell finished things with a lip sync contest. McDowell really took the competition seriously as he busted out some sick moves as Eminem lip syncing “Lose Yourself.”

Something like that done on the Friday where drivers aren’t on-track is a great thing to do for those who still want to come to the track on Friday. Giving drivers an opportunity to have some downtime as well as doing something that shows fans their personality when not on the track can only help a driver’s popularity and be a great chance to gain some new fans. I wish all tracks will do something similar to what Pocono did for their Friday activities on a two-day weekend.

One unintended consequence that I noticed that might not have been considered was that traffic was a lot more manageable in this two-day weekend Pocono race than the three-day race weekend. Putting qualifying in the morning is going to entice more fans to show up at the track earlier in the morning rather than an hour or two before the race so that means that race traffic is going to be more spread out over the morning and afternoon. It might cause people to experience more traffic earlier in the morning but this is for the greater good.

Despite all the great things, there are a couple potential pitfalls with a two-day weekend. With more things happening in a two-day weekend, rain could really disrupt a race weekend. Rain cancelled Truck practice and delayed the ARCA race on Friday but Pocono was spared of rain overall. A rainy weekend could prevent drivers to have any practice or qualifying before a race and if a supporting series race is rained out on Friday or Saturday, there’s a chance they can’t race until Monday and that would be less than ideal for teams trying to operate on a budget to stay an extra couple days. Pocono did a great job on Saturday because by the time the Pocono race ended at around 3 pm, that left plenty of time for ARCA to race in case they rained out.

In addition, Kyle Busch raised an important point in his postrace press conference. With two days, that makes for some long days and not a long turnaround for team members even if they don’t run into issues. Sure, crew members get Friday off but that just means an even longer weekend, not to mention when crew members work on multiple teams and have even more work packaged into a shorter period of time.

But through those potential issues, two-day NASCAR weekends are definitely great for a race weekend. With lagging attendance, and tracks trying to come up with any way to increase value of a race ticket, two-day weekends may not solve every issue NASCAR is facing but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

About Phillip Bupp

Producer/editor of the Awful Announcing Podcast and Short and to the Point. News editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. Highlight consultant for Major League Soccer as well as a freelance writer for hire. Opinions are my own but feel free to agree with them.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @phillipbupp