Give me Richmond or give me death!

Being that it's an off-weekend and (thankfully) Martinsville produced no officiating blunders, we at NASCAR.com chose to use the hiatus from competition as an opportunity to impersonate Kevin Costner.

If you build it, would they come?

Like me, many of you would choose watching grass grow over the straight-line racing at many of the venues on the Winston Cup tour.

Vegas, Chicago and Kansas City each offer a viable solution for insomnia. Turn on the tape of the Tropicana 400, and you're out quicker than Chris Bingham in a Busch Series race.

No lie, one of my colleagues slept through three-quarters of the Chicago race last year, put his face on the keyboard of his laptop 50 laps in and wasn't startled awake until Jeff Gordon started questioning Kevin Harvick's driving tactics -- after the race. Scintillating action, I tell you.

Give me Richmond or give me death!

Aside from a dire lack of toilets, the place is perfect. It's a short track that produces high speeds and no aero-push. Plus, it has enough width to accommodate three-wide -- and sometimes four-wide -- racing.

That promotes side-by-side action from start-to-finish and, hence, passing. Passing in racing? A novel thought, I know.

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Moreover, and in today's NASCAR more-importantly, it's in a major television market - Washington, D.C. - and the city that encompasses it offers a vast array of amenities.

Sure, if I had a limitless pool of greenbacks, RIR could use a significant traffic-flow upgrade, but so could everyone else on the tour minus Rockingham. You do not fear traffic issues when only 40,000 people show up.

I still don't understand that.

The Rock produces awesome competition and the drivers love it, yet no one shows up. Like Milli Vanilli, blame it on the rain...

People say, 'Why not just build another Bristol? They sell out every race, every year.' True, but these days, you don't build a NASCAR track anymore.

In order to justify the absurd cost of digging and building and pouring, you build a venue that is capable of accommodating open wheel cars, too. Richmond does so. So well, in fact, that RIR produced one of the closest Indy Racing League finishes ever.

So there you go. Build a Richmond clone in the New York market -- that assures that NASCAR will sanction events there forever -- with 20 clean bathroom stalls, and you've got heaven on asphalt.

"If you could design a brand-new track for the Winston Cup Series, what kind of track characteristics would you include?"

Dustoff: "Ultra-smooth, high bank, concrete, 1.5-mile oval."

Dust off those brain cells, buddy. Ever heard of Dover? One-mile, ultra-smooth, high banks. Pretty close to perfection for ol' Dusty Bottoms.

Fitch18: "The thing here is it needs to be UNIQUE, something that will be challenging, yet at the same time offer great racing. Since we have too damn many 'Cookie cutters,' it's gotta be a short track. Let's make it an oval, and throw in something unique. I've got two ideas here, one is a quarter-miler, and so flat it's almost got negative banking.

"But let's be realistic, you can't fit 43 cars on a track that small. So let's go around half-mile, make one of the straights go downhill and the other one go uphill. Make it almost flat, but not quite, and then make it so it eats the hell outta tires. So if I were to build a new Winston Cup track, that's what I'd build -- NORTH WILKESBORO!"

D.W. is obviously more computer-savvy than I gave him credit for.

Speaking of tire wear, let's talk Darlington Raceway for a moment. Does it get any better than that place? It's like an ornery old man.

Talk back to him and he'll kick you square in the pants. But show him respect and he'll educate you on life's greatest lessons - patience, perseverance and cooperation.

Tri2: "I would build a figure-8 style track that would have a tunnel in the center that split the difference from both crossovers so that neither would be to drastic up or down, and the banks would be steep like Bristol.

Cars would be set up similar to road coarse. It would be a one-mile track. The grandstands would be solid in the shape of the track, tight and steep so there would not be a bad seat in the house.

Pit stops would be made to exit out of the beginning of turn-1, return out of turn-2 or exit turn-3, return out of 4. End zone type pits.

I am sure there would be problems with this, but I think it could be done and what a show for the fans. They could even run IRL and CART, and super bikes here."

This particular entry takes me back to my childhood, when my daddy bought me one of those plastic tracks with the trigger-gun cars.

Eventually, they'd meet in the middle of the 8 and WHAM! Yard sale. Suddenly, I recall the roots of my love for racing: Trigger-gun gars and the General Lee.

Racinmacdaddy: "Hello, hello. I would like to see the big one -- a true 3-mile long track. It would be huge and without restrictor plates. OH yeah!"

Oh noooo. I love going to Indy, but once a year is plenty, thank you.

29Harvickfan: "How about a track like Bristol except with about 10 degrees more banking and completely indoors (i.e. with a dome and A LOT of ventilation) which means NO RAIN DELAYS!"

No rain: Excellent Blind Melon tune, bad manufacturing idea. Sure, a roof overhead would assist greatly in remedying the weather-related hell we so often endure.

But I'd rather sit through a downpour than rupture an eardrum or inhale toxic fumes.

Note to self: Remember that statement at Atlanta in October.

The decibel-level at Bristol is already akin to a pack of screaming young girls at a Dale Jr. autograph signing, much less having a roof overhead.

And with the issues the drivers are already experiencing with carbon monoxide, putting a cap on their already suspect airflow isn't happening.

Kretar: "I would like to see a kidney bean-shaped two-mile track with a .750-mile straightaway ending in a tight turn with 15-degree bank loosening into a more gentle turn which continues into the gentle switchback which then switches back into a short straightaway into another tight turn.

"This turn continues to the pit entrance, but otherwise continues with a more gentle sweep into the straightaway. The exit from the pits would be at the end of the straightaway just before it enters the tight turn. That way, cars entering would almost immediately be up to speed. Such a track would be fast but also require upshifts.

"I hope you don't find my idea too loony."

In the immortal words of NASCAR's finest talents: Do what?

DrummerboyDT spent his whole lunch break laying this one out:

"This is my idea for an anti-cookie cutter track where a superspeedway package and a short track package collide into one. You have the speed of a superspeedway to the speed of a short track.

"2.5 miles; 500 miles; 200 laps; 3 1/3 hours long; Darlington-style turns; 33 degrees in turns 1 and 2; 36 degrees in turns 3 and 4; turns 1 and 2 are wide curves; turns 3 and 4 are tighter curves (this will affect tire strategy and will give the brake pedal a chance to warm up.

Tri-oval like Richmond; 6 lanes wide like Michigan; offset pit road; pit road exits at the start finish line (which means, no unfair advantages of pitting on the last lap and crossing the line just like Jeff Burton did at the Winston; the entrance to pit road would start off turn four, but drivers will slow onto the apron before the entrance of turn 3.

Yellow line rule enforced; speeds vary from 130-190; drafting and the aero-push would be a factor; no restrictor plates since the cars will not carry speeds over 200 due to turns 3 and 4; Lap times would be around a 50 sec to a minute; $40-$95 a ticket; can hold over 250,000 fans due to the shortness of turns 3 and 4 (figuring that grandstands would not be safe around the curves of superspeedways).

Plenty of room for fans in the infield, larger garage space, and facilities; soft walls; a pond near the backstretch that mimics the shape of the track with a fountain in the middle and walkways all around; a road course for different forms of racing in the infield.

A museum celebrating the origins of NASCAR in the infield; a Goodyear walkway bridge just before turn 3 on the backstretch; tunnel under between turns 3 and 4; fan trailers, plenty of parking, and easy access all around."

Lil' Drummerboy must have gotten Roller Coaster Tycoon for Christmas. He didn't leave out a single detail. Remember, though, Drummerboy. Bathrooms are crucial, man.

TbodineFan: "Talladega with Bristol banking and no restrictor plates. Please, no more 1.5-mile Charlotte clones."

Agreed on the Charlotte comment, but totally disagree with the no plates comment. As much as they take away from competition, they are a safety measure -- as much for the fans as the drivers.

Hunter4u9: "First a road course, with a real long straight away (one mile paved) in front of the grand stands. The pits would parallel it , both would be wide and flat. The back would be a lot of rolling turns with dips. All of it would be dirt except the straightaway and pits. Just like when they ran moonshine on the back roads."

Hunter4u9? I get it. Good idea, Jim.

Staying with the dirt theme, many of you want to return to a dirt oval. And after spending an evening at the Talladega Dirt Track two weeks ago, I'm with you. Dirt racing is an amazing talent, and could really separate the great drivers from the good ones.

dewman92: "Create a race track simulated like a highway. The drivers could be on both the left and right side of the track. Also have broken lines like on a highway indicating when it's ok to pass. Have kind of like an exit indicating where to go.

"When the leaders come back around the track they will meet the cars in the back of the field. The leaders will be on driving on their right side and the cars in the back of the field will be driving on their right side, which will be to the leaders left side of the road.

"Make it a short track, creating even more difficulties and more chance that the drivers would meet each other making it difficult to run fast and difficult to pass. Or another track idea is come up with is to run NASCAR in the desert. Sandstorms and sand clogging the filter systems would make it difficult."

Have another, Dewey.

I'll join you. It's my birthday, after all.

The new Richmond traffic pattern can wait until tomorrow.

The Last Lap appears on NASCAR.com every Tuesday.

The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.