If you're relatively new to NASCAR, you have no idea how busy January used to be. By this point in the month, we'd be wrapping up a week of testing at Daytona and have moved into the Charlotte Motor Speedway's Media Tour, which, if nothing else, was an opportunity to count how many times the word "excited" could be crammed into a 3 ½ day period.
You also would rarely would have heard anything about the Chili Bowl. Largely, that was because the folks who spent last week in Oklahoma, would have had NASCAR duties keeping them away.
While a lack of testing has been blamed for many failures recently; let's be honest, testing for Daytona is….testing for Daytona, and nowhere else. Eliminating that has been a cost savings for the teams and has also opened the door for other forms of racing to move into the January spotlight.
I'm a firm believer that a rising tide raises all ships; and if there is some real racing to get excited about (rather than a bunch of guys running around in primer) it's better for everyone. And, if it brings new eyeballs to either form of the sport; mission accomplished.