Smack: On a bright stage in Music City, standing alone

1. With Sprint Cup taking the week off, it's time for a Nationwide race in Nashville. Can this series stand on its own, without the big show to back it up?

Dave Rodman: It's a tough call. If pure racing was the deal, the Truck Series would play to packed houses everywhere it went. So obviously it's not that simple.

Raygan Swan: Well, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards always show up, so I believe the fans will, too. I enjoy watching the standalone events, and can even attend more standalone events from home in Indiana now that Iowa is on board.

David Caraviello: As always, the Nationwide Series is a strange animal. It's promoted as a separate entity, yet it's the Sprint Cup regulars that the fans turn out to see. Without them, these races lose a large degree of their cachet. But it's clear there are places where the Nationwide races can be hugely popular. They've done a great job with the race in Kentucky. Montreal seems off to a fantastic start. But you need the right combination of place and driver to make it work.

Dave Rodman: That's progress? Take a swig of Kool-Aid and repeat after me. Is it better? Impossible to say. For the health of everything, it's hard for me to really argue that we're better off today in the Nationwide Series than we were when events like Daytona and Darlington and Charlotte were special for the guys that raced most weeks at Hickory and Orange County and South Boston. Back then, you had to have a lot of respect for guys like Jack Ingram and Tommy Houston and Tommy Ellis and L.D. Ottinger. They were legends, they could compete, and I think they carried a following from the little tracks they raced at.

David Caraviello: But Dave, if NASCAR wants to heighten the profile of its Triple-A series, isn't better drivers and tracks the only way to do it? I remember covering a Busch event years ago at Myrtle Beach Speedway, a rickety old place from a spectator standpoint. The field was all Busch regulars. The crowd was OK, but not great. Surely you can't sell this series that way, can you?

Raygan Swan: I say yes, better tracks in the Midwest! In New York! Just kidding. Look at the Truck Series. You can't argue that Kyle Busch hasn't helped sell those races. Yes, you need the drivers to sell the series.

David Caraviello: I mean hey, I'm all for celebrating history. But you can't keep going back to tracks that are plainly out of date. And why not let fans in Nashville or Memphis or Kentucky see the drivers they really want to see?

Cup overflowing?

Five races into the season and there is one constant in the Nationwide Series -- Cup drivers have won every race. Should they race in the series?

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Raygan Swan: So tell me why again we are going to Montreal? Especially now if we are leaving New York?

David Caraviello: What do those have to do with one another? The acceptance for that race in Montreal, at least what we see on TV, seems miles ahead of the acceptance the banquet received in New York. Enough to the point where I wouldn't be shocked to see the big show go there one day.

Dave Rodman: They've heightened the profile of the Nationwide Series, building it on the carcasses of a lot of tracks and teams and drivers. Ha-ha -- sorry, that was the bitter me. If you want to elevate it, across the board, of course you have to go to more high-profile tracks. Still, I really think a track rotation plan, like I've been hollering about for Cup, would work. Alternate in and out of those short tracks and create some excitement about the series.

David Caraviello: But Dave, how on earth can you go from a place like Nashville or Kentucky to Hickory or Myrtle Beach? I understand the desire for racier, old tracks. But from an amenity perspective, fans have been sitting on wood bleachers and eating bad hot dogs for too long.

Dave Rodman: I'm not talking a lot of races. It would be pick-and-choose spots to maintain some connection to where it came from. It would be hard for most of these tracks to pay the nut, really.

Raygan Swan: I agree with David. I want the food the new Yankee Stadium serves!

David Caraviello: Like cheese empanadas and plantain chips? You may be onto something, Raygan. Let's see if the folks in South Boston will add those to their concession stand menu! (Continued)