Kenny Wallace shared that NASCAR is not a fan of Jeff Gluck’s social media that he conducts after each race.
Gluck, who covers NASCAR for The New York Times’ Athletic publication, conducts the poll following every NASCAR Cup Series race. He asks, “Was [this weekend’s] race a good race?”
Wallace shared on the most recent Herm & Schrader show that NASCAR does not like the poll and explained why.
“NASCAR calls me and they put me and Gluck together and they said, ‘Hey, what other sporting event judges their own sport? ‘Was it a good race?’ Do we see the NFL saying, ‘Was it a good game?’ Do we see the NHL saying, ‘Was it a good hockey game?’ What other sport judges their ownself?’ NASCAR feels like it is a detriment to our sport. And if it’s a 50/50 deal then out of nowhere we create this negativity.”
“They just wanted us to know what they thought,” Wallace added. “They don’t think ‘Was it a good race?’ is good for the sport. And then at the end, ‘We love you guys.'”
In regards to the NFL or the NHL judging their own sport, they most certainly do. In fact, Sports Illustrated runs a column every week titled “Ranking All 16 Games From Worst to Best“. The article predicts what games are going to suck and which ones are going to be good. So not only are they judging the games, but they are doing it before they’ve even occurred!
It is also not hard to find headlines describing certain Super Bowls as terrible or fantastic. For example, back in 2016, Justin Peters at Slate wrote a headline titled “One of the Worst Super Bowls Ever.” On the opposite end, Christopher Carey at The New York Times raved about the 2015 Super Bowl with a headline that proclaimed “A Super Bowl for the Ages Was Year’s Greatest Game.”
You can even take it a step further and look at analysts employed by a team praising it when they play well and sharing harsh criticism when they don’t. Look no further than Alan May, who works for Monumental Sports Network, the broadcast network that is owned by the Washington Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis. Last month, May was on the network praising the team in their preseason game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
“Once the game got going, they put the heart and effort into it to create lots of opportunities for themselves.”
Head to @Capitals Postgame Live as @alexalandestoy, @AlanMay_16 and @Tarik_ElBashir unpack tonight’s win 🔗: https://t.co/ct1vK57Eza pic.twitter.com/Sg7eOEauMk
— Monumental Sports Network (@MonSportsNet) September 22, 2026
He does not always just praise them either. He offered a blistering critique back in May 2025 during the Stanley Cup Finals.
Furthermore, if you want to make a comparison to another motorsport look no further than Dirt Super Late Models. DirtonDirt.com runs an annual segment where they rank the best races of the year. In 2025, the North/South 100 at Florence Speedway was the top ranked race due primarily in part to the door-banging battle between Bobby Pierce and Jonathan Davenport for the lead.
So, the idea that other sports are not judging themselves is just blatantly not true.
Furthermore, NASCAR has collected race-by-race feedback from fans since 2009 and presents that data as part of its Tuesday morning post-race debrief. NASCAR Vice President of Analytics and Racing Operations Derek Thomas shared during an appearance at OpenAI Forum event about how fan feedback is now sorted via AI, “It was taking me hours, literally hours, Natalie, when I would go through these fan comments. I don’t have a whole lot of time between a checkered flag flying on a Sunday evening and having a Tuesday morning post-race debrief. There’s not a whole lot of time to put together analysis. So it was taking a lot of time. And just think about the human. I mean, as much as I was trying to do a good job, I mean, there’s always the human factor that could be skewed one way or the other. So not just the amount of time, but seeing that this was going to be a way for us to comb through all of the data quickly and get a good representative look at what fans were telling us and sorting it by what were the most common things or common themes that people were saying. That was changing. I’m now down to minutes on a Monday afternoon. And so I’m prepared, certainly, when I get on Tuesday to talk about that.”
Given they’ve been collecting fan feedback themselves on a race-by-race basis since 2009, that begs the question of why NASCAR would not be happy about Jeff Gluck’s poll on X.
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