I've been around racing since I was an infant when my mom and dad would carry me to our local race track in Claremont, NH where he was the flagman and she was one of the scorers. I traveled to other modified races all over New England every chance I got and sat in the grandstands for hundreds of races before I ever began broadcasting Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series events back around 1982. My opinion as to what makes a good race comes first from a fans perspective.

I say all that to say this - what we saw at Kansas Speedway last Saturday night and the week before at Talladega is the recipe for the kind of NASCAR races that will make new fans and cause old, disgruntled ones to return.  Both had a lot of passing, the competition was fierce and the winner was in doubt right up until the end. Those are three key ingredients to be sure, but there was something else that put those races over the top and that was heart-stopping wrecks that drivers walked away from.

Now, before you say I'm crazy or stupid or both. Why was Talladega almost sold out? I think people saw the "crashfest" the Daytona 500 turned into and they wanted to be there if that happened again.  They were rewarded with the "Big One" late in that race, triggered by Chase Elliott and A.J. Allmendinger.  No driver was hurt and they then got the added bonus of a last lap pass for the victory.

In Kansas, the fans got more of the same. The stage racing created some strong action early and the late cautions created a ton of drama at the end.  It also featured a fiery accident between Joey Logano, Danica Patrick, and Aric Almirola that had anyone who saw it breathlessly saying "oh my god!" Yes, you hate to see Almirola get banged up and hurt, but the injury is relatively minor and was never life threatening.

The owners, teams, and the drivers certainly won't be happy with me saying we need to have more cars running into the wall and each other, yet that's a vital piece to the puzzle in returning this sport to past glory. From day one NASCAR sold the danger, the fear of the unknown and people bought in by the millions. Without the risk or peril, the race can take on the look of cars just running circles, something we have seen too much of in recent years. And more crashes lead to more hard feelings. More hard feelings lead to more rivalries. More rivalries lead to more suspense.

If you still think I'm the only one that thinks this way let me offer one more piece of evidence. You can bet Fox is going to show the Kansas crash over and over again this week. You can bet Kansas Speedway's TV advertising for their fall date with have the fireball front and center. You can also bet when NASCAR puts the highlight reel together for 2017, the multi-car collisions at Daytona, Talladega, and Kansas will make the cut.

I repeat no one wants to see a driver seriously hurt and we all want them to be able to return to their loved ones at days end. A lot of race fans reading this will say I don't know what I'm talking about, but deep down, maybe in a place they dare not admit, part of the reason they tune in every week is to see cars destroyed, smoke and fire…and drivers dropping the window net to let them know they're okay.  

I prefer to be up front and be politically incorrect. We need more than debris to bring out the yellow flag, we need more crashes.  Like they used to say "wrecking is racing". It was true then and it's still true today.