If drivers or even race fans don't like this reliance on two-car drafting that has dominated Speedweeks on the Sprint Cup Series this year, they need look no further to the drivers and team themselves for a large part of the problem.
Everyone knew the track was repaved. Everyone knew that would change conditions. Everyone knew - or we thought - how important preseason testing was going to be.
Yet, when it came down to doing the work on the track in January, most drivers and teams took a pass. They spent or no time whatsoever racing with most of their competitors on the track, let alone in two-car tandems.
So, whose fault is that? Not NASCAR's.
Tony Stewart illustrated this perfectly on Friday.
Told of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s suggestion that everyone needs to go to Talladega and Daytona and do a big two-day test and figure out how to change he two-car draft, Stewart replied:
"If I remember right, when we came down for the open test (Earnhardt) did single car runs the whole time he was here so if he felt that way, why didn’t he do that in the test while we were all here together?
“We tried getting in big packs for three days down here and we couldn’t get people to quit doing single car runs and worrying about trying to make the race cars go fast. In the big pack you want master of your own destiny," he said.
"I don’t know where he got that from because you have always been relying on the guy behind you so if you want to be the master of your own destiny, take the restrictor plates off. Figure out how to let us drive race cars again.”
Stewart may not always address things in the best possible way. But on this issue he is dead-on. Ask the drivers who are complaining to look in the mirror for some of the blame if they don't like the conditions in Sunday's Daytona 500.
