NASCAR

[broblues]

Do you think it's the economy, or all the rules, or the "car of tomorrow"? Do you think it will come back like it was in the 80's and 90's? Or is this the beginning of the end?

 

[beyond the band]

I used watch pretty regularly in the late 80's. I quit when it seemed to turn into wrestling.

 

[ashauler]

I dunno, still serves as a good enough excuse for a few beers and a smoke or three for me.

 

[kann]

NASCAR stopped being about motorsport competition and more about entertainment. That's pretty much the crux of it.

I'm hoping that one day those that bolted from IndyCar when Tony George screwed the pooch will eventually come back around. The excitement and competition is back. Sponsors are returning/jumping on board. Now the TV numbers need to start increasing. However, again, we can thank Tony George for fooking that up, too, with the bullshit TV deal he signed with Comcast and Versus.

 

[grateful1]

Too many left turns!

 

[DePasta]

The "Chase" format sucks.....besides all the drivers these days are pretty boy engineers, not the scrappers like Earnhardt, Labontes, Mark Martin, and their predecessors.

 

[Rural Guy]

I got bored with all the commercials. It seemed that if it was green that meant commercial time. I get they pay the bills but there has to be a balance with how many pay the bills once people stop watching.

 

[kann]

I think it was the Pocono race I actually tried watching here a few weeks ago. There literally could not have been more than ten consecutive green laps without a commercial break. Not to mention that instead of actual consumer commercials, I was stuck seeing the same stupid AFN commercials every four and a half minutes (anyone that has ever had to live through AFN commercials understands). I gave up and went to bed. It was too frustrating with it going to commercial more than actual on-track coverage.

 

[{tpc}]

Huh. I guess lump me into the "sheep" category or something but I still pretty much enjoy watching it. I'm not sure where the "these guys aren't scrappers" comes from because it seems damn near every week someone is getting into a fight, purposely wrecking someone elses car during or even after the race, and the drivers end up being fined or whatever by the officials. Seems like what they were doing way back when, but I was just a kid then. Oh and Mark Martin still races.

The only part that sucks for me is when they repave one of the tracks. It seems like all it does is turn into a "draftfest" which is fairly boring for most of the race, until the end. I feel lucky to have gone to the 500 a couple years ago before they repaved the track. That was a long day. I think they ended up finishing the race under the lights due to having to stop the race to do track repairs and the drivers were like "just put a orange cone in the hole the track and we will drive around it" lol.

 

[broblues]

Years ago, the sport was about the fans. In Charlotte, "The Winston" was a fan appreciation event. The drivers were available to meet their followers. Ticket prices were affordable. Hell, the last time I went to Bristol, including tickets, camping, fuel and food, for 4 of us, it was nearly $2000.00. Priced me right out of the game.

 

[Bayamos]

The days of Fireball Roberts are long, long, gone. Imagine, back then,
Petty winning a race and jumping out his car window in a a flaming, bright,
lime green racing suit. The Boys in NC would be waiting for him.

NASCAR holds it own future in their own hands. It 's a Great American Sport put,
it wouldn't surprise me, if we had a Verizon / Pepsi "Half time show" or should I say
"Half time Pit Stop" . The Black Eye Peas could play along with a Bluegrass Band.
Then we can tune back in for the final ""draftfest".......

 

[broblues]

The days of Fireball Roberts are long, long, gone. Imagine, back then,
Petty winning a race and jumping out his car window in a a flaming, bright,
lime green racing suit. The Boys in NC would be waiting for him.

NASCAR holds it own future in their own hands. It 's a Great American Sport put,
it wouldn't surprise me, if we had a Verizon / Pepsi "Half time show" or should I say
"Half time Pit Stop" . The Black Eye Peas could play along with a Bluegrass Band.
Then we can tune back in for the final ""draftfest".......

What the heck, no dancing girls?

 

[Jonesy]

Years ago, the sport was about the fans. In Charlotte, "The Winston" was a fan appreciation event. The drivers were available to meet their followers. Ticket prices were affordable. Hell, the last time I went to Bristol, including tickets, camping, fuel and food, for 4 of us, it was nearly $2000.00. Priced me right out of the game.

^^^ This. I used to go to all three races in Charlotte every year until Earnhardt died, since then, I've yet to watch a full race on tv or go to see a race since then. The sport used to be about the fans, now it's only about how much money can be made. Two tracks in NC have been closed and Darlington is down to 1 race a year so tracks like Las Vegas, Texas, Phoenix, etc can have races.

There are no true rivalries anymore. You should have seen the Gordon/Earnhardt fans go at it in the early 90's in Charlotte (or any Ford fans and Earnhardt fans for that matter). When I went to the races with my Earnhardt shirt and hat on, I knew at some point I would get hit with a chicken bone during the race. There are no great "personality racers like there were in the late 80's, early 90's. Earnhardt, Petty, Martin, Allison, Jarrett, Waltrip, Irvin, Gordon, etc. These were guys that loved racing that came to no name towns like Rockingham, Darlington, Martinsville, North Wilkesboro, to race like hell for the fans in the seats and not for the money.

Bruton Smith used to be a god in these parts when all the race teams were located within a 50 mile radius of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Now to the fans that this sport really catered to in the eighties and nineties, we felt like he's just whored out the sport by adding racetracks like Las Vegas, Atlanta, Texas, Kentucky, and taking the races from the tracks that made this sport what is and seemingly forgetting about us.

I'm sure this will strike a sore spot with you fans that have just started watching NASCAR in the last 10 years or so or I've named one of your tracks, but these opinions are coming from someone that grew up in NASCAR country when NASCAR was the Winston Cup and Charlotte was it's epi-center. When the drivers like Dale Jarrett, Brett and Geoff Bodine, Harry Gantt, Ernie Irvin, Davey Allison, Morgan Sheppard, etc used to come to the mall in Gastonia once a year, sit in front of their car inside the mall and sign autographs, shake your hand, take pictures, and bullshit with you for a little while because that's how they were. I still have those 8x10 pre printed pictures that they autographed and personalized for me when I was in my late teens. Good luck in finding a group of drivers like that nowadays that will take their time to do that. A few still remeber where this all started, but this newer generation just sees dollar signs.

The sport is no longer about the fans and the love of racing....it's all about money now.

 

[kann]

I am not a fan of plate racing. I am in the minority, I know, but aside from the Daytona 500, I personally feel that the other three plate races should be exhibition, non-points events, because that's about all they are good for. I'm all for the underdog, but how many times do you see the winner of a plate race lead less than two laps the entire day, and more often than that, not even run up front until the closing laps in order to avoid The Big One? It's crap. Changing leaders five times a lap is pointless if there is nothing gained by it. This two car tandem draft is ridiculous and dangerous. Too many good cars get torn up at these races and points blown for no real reason at all. NASCAR should make the All-Star race at Daytona. The shootout formula of that exhibition suits the big tracks better anymore than longer endurance races do.

As for personalities, there are definitely more in the last few seasons than in recent years past. In "them good 'ol days", a driver was a driver. It was his job to wheel the car, and that's about it. Now, it seems that driving the car is secondary to being a corporate shill for whatever sponsor pays the bills. Balancing the fine line between drivers and personalities is hard to do, though understandably necessary in order to gain interest in your sport (again, see what TG did to the IRL). However, there are too many robots out there. It's actually refreshing to see Rowdy Busch and Kevin Harvick have at each other, and even more impressive to see Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton come to blows on the track! I have no problem with the COT, itself. Yeah, it's an ugly brick, but it is safe, and safety was definitely needed. I think the simple implementation of the HANS device was long overdue. Blaise Alexander, Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, (and in more distant past) JD McDuffie and Neil Bonnett all died from BSF's, though it took the headlines from Earnhardt's death to really make NASCAR take action. I still don't think that they have a traveling safety team. NASCAR is still way behind the rest of the racing world (and uses mostly borrowed technology and concepts) when it comes to driver safety. That is deplorable.

I think the economy has a lot to do with it, too. NASCAR is pricing themselves out of the game, as far as live attendance. Ticket prices are ridiculous. Brian France figured that if he kept selling it, no matter what the price, people would keep buying it. A simple race weekend now costs the budgeted savings for the family vacation, rather than a "Sunday of fun at the races". Add onto all of that the tire debacle at Indianapolis a few years ago, the weeping at California, the track falling apart at Daytona two years ago among many other things maybe not directly responsible to the governing body, itself, throw the "mystery debris caution" and what sometimes seems like blatant race fixing conspiracy theories on there, and you have a dwindling product for the fans.

NASCAR is like the NFL for me anymore. If there is nothing else on better, and I find it on TV, I'll watch it. I don't go out of my way to look for it in the listings, though. Sad, because I grew up watching all forms of auto racing, and I used to love Winston Cup.

 

[broblues]

Years ago, the sport was about the fans. In Charlotte, "The Winston" was a fan appreciation event. The drivers were available to meet their followers. Ticket prices were affordable. Hell, the last time I went to Bristol, including tickets, camping, fuel and food, for 4 of us, it was nearly $2000.00. Priced me right out of the game.

^^^ This. I used to go to all three races in Charlotte every year until Earnhardt died, since then, I've yet to watch a full race on tv or go to see a race since then. The sport used to be about the fans, now it's only about how much money can be made. Two tracks in NC have been closed and Darlington is down to 1 race a year so tracks like Las Vegas, Texas, Phoenix, etc can have races.

There are no true rivalries anymore. You should have seen the Gordon/Earnhardt fans go at it in the early 90's in Charlotte (or any Ford fans and Earnhardt fans for that matter). When I went to the races with my Earnhardt shirt and hat on, I knew at some point I would get hit with a chicken bone during the race. There are no great "personality racers like there were in the late 80's, early 90's. Earnhardt, Petty, Martin, Allison, Jarrett, Waltrip, Irvin, Gordon, etc. These were guys that loved racing that came to no name towns like Rockingham, Darlington, Martinsville, North Wilkesboro, to race like hell for the fans in the seats and not for the money.

Bruton Smith used to be a god in these parts when all the race teams were located within a 50 mile radius of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Now to the fans that this sport really catered to in the eighties and nineties, we felt like he's just whored out the sport by adding racetracks like Las Vegas, Atlanta, Texas, Kentucky, and taking the races from the tracks that made this sport what is and seemingly forgetting about us.

I'm sure this will strike a sore spot with you fans that have just started watching NASCAR in the last 10 years or so or I've named one of your tracks, but these opinions are coming from someone that grew up in NASCAR country when NASCAR was the Winston Cup and Charlotte was it's epi-center. When the drivers like Dale Jarrett, Brett and Geoff Bodine, Harry Gantt, Ernie Irvin, Davey Allison, Morgan Sheppard, etc used to come to the mall in Gastonia once a year, sit in front of their car inside the mall and sign autographs, shake your hand, take pictures, and bullshit with you for a little while because that's how they were. I still have those 8x10 pre printed pictures that they autographed and personalized for me when I was in my late teens. Good luck in finding a group of drivers like that nowadays that will take their time to do that. A few still remeber where this all started, but this newer generation just sees dollar signs.

The sport is no longer about the fans and the love of racing....it's all about money now.

You keep leaving out Awesome Bill from Dawsonville. MY guy.

 

[Jonesy]

You keep leaving out Awesome Bill from Dawsonville. MY guy.

Sorry...as an Earhardt fan, I just couldn't include him! :laugh:

Actually, it was more forgetfulness. Bill was one of the better people in racing back then (pretty decent driver too!).

 

[ashauler]

snip......
The sport is no longer about the fans and the love of racing....it's all about money now.

This could just as easily be said of virtually all professional sports today. NASCAR isn't alone. NFL and NBA lockouts.......MLB strikes, etc...etc....etc.
As far as expense goes, it costs me just about as much to go to one KC Chiefs game as it does to attend the entire weekend of racing at Kansas Speedway.

 

[The Green Monkey]

I think it was the Pocono race I actually tried watching here a few weeks ago.

I think I've identified the source of your discontent!

I've only been following it for a few years, so I don't really have the historical perspective that most other fans do, but one factor that's been overlooked in the criticism and dissection so far is that part of the reason we have so many sterile personalities involved is that with the increased role of the 24 hour sports news/media/entertainment industry, plus the whole social media thing, as well as the whole evolving culture of knee-jerk outrage and scandal for the sake of discussion that we're adopting as a society every time a public figure dares walk outside of lockstep in any way, there's really nothing good that can come from being anything but a soulless drone when the cameras are rolling--and they're always rolling. The few guys who don't give a shit these days and who don't mollycoddle the media are, not coincidentally, thought of as villains by some fans.

This obviously dovetails with the whole money/sponsorship thing in a couple of ways. First, making sure to thank all the sponsors before answering a question or giving any candid contributions in a postrace interview (and then taking a deliberate drink of Beverage of Choice) eats up some of the airtime with meaningless fluff. Second, showing any personality or saying anything interesting could be offensive to somebody, so lest the drivers upset their sponsors, there's risk in baring one's soul. Express any piss and vinegar, and suddenly the companies who pay the bills may yank their sponsorship, thereby dooming the driver, the crewmembers, etc. Hell, even "old school throwback" Mark Martin's postrace interviews are virtually indistinguishable from one another these days--'great car, don't know what happened, must have just been one of those things, racing incident, just an accident, etc.'

I wish that there was more of an effort to incorporate the safety measures into each manufacturer's cars a little better instead of the Car of Tomorrow spec series system that they've currently got in place. The days of racing on Sunday and selling on Monday are obviously long gone, as is any semblance of being a stock car, and while it may make for more parity, it dilutes some of the brand and diminishes some of the appeal. I think there could be more of a compromise made between the homogenization of the current system and the complete hodgepodge of yesterday, but I'm not so sure anyone in charge (or even the drivers and teams themselves) really want that anyway...

 

[kann]

I think it was the Pocono race I actually tried watching here a few weeks ago.

I think I've identified the source of your discontent!

Ok, I'm admittedly a bit biased, here. Pocono is my home track, and I used to go to both races for quite a few years before moving away in the mid-'90's. Pocono is one of the races I WILL look forward to on TV. I do concede, however, that the racing can get a bit boring, and I don't think both (if either) need to be 500 mile races. I'm not sure there even really needs to be two races there. However, it is nice to see a track with two stops that isn't owned by the same Evil Empire. I wish that the owners would sink the necessary funds into track upgrades in order to lure back open wheel. Especially since Nazareth is dead and buried.

I've only been following it for a few years, so I don't really have the historical perspective that most other fans do, but one factor that's been overlooked in the criticism and dissection so far is that part of the reason we have so many sterile personalities involved is that with the increased role of the 24 hour sports news/media/entertainment industry, plus the whole social media thing, as well as the whole evolving culture of knee-jerk outrage and scandal for the sake of discussion that we're adopting as a society every time a public figure dares walk outside of lockstep in any way, there's really nothing good that can come from being anything but a soulless drone when the cameras are rolling--and they're always rolling. The few guys who don't give a shit these days and who don't mollycoddle the media are, not coincidentally, thought of as villains by some fans.

This obviously dovetails with the whole money/sponsorship thing in a couple of ways. First, making sure to thank all the sponsors before answering a question or giving any candid contributions in a postrace interview (and then taking a deliberate drink of Beverage of Choice) eats up some of the airtime with meaningless fluff. Second, showing any personality or saying anything interesting could be offensive to somebody, so lest the drivers upset their sponsors, there's risk in baring one's soul. Express any piss and vinegar, and suddenly the companies who pay the bills may yank their sponsorship, thereby dooming the driver, the crewmembers, etc. Hell, even "old school throwback" Mark Martin's postrace interviews are virtually indistinguishable from one another these days--'great car, don't know what happened, must have just been one of those things, racing incident, just an accident, etc.'

I agree, 100%. Damned if you do/Damned if you don't. But, if you DO, you had better have the talent of Tony Stewart or Kyle Busch to back it up!

I wish that there was more of an effort to incorporate the safety measures into each manufacturer's cars a little better instead of the Car of Tomorrow spec series system that they've currently got in place. The days of racing on Sunday and selling on Monday are obviously long gone, as is any semblance of being a stock car, and while it may make for more parity, it dilutes some of the brand and diminishes some of the appeal. I think there could be more of a compromise made between the homogenization of the current system and the complete hodgepodge of yesterday, but I'm not so sure anyone in charge (or even the drivers and teams themselves) really want that anyway...

I failed to mention this in a previous post about the COT, though I thought about it. The days of an actual "stock car" are long gone and never to return. It's virtual spec car racing now, so with what it is (and not changing), I'm comfortable with the COT. I would love to see how some of the racing technology gets passed on to the consumer automobile, though I doubt there is very little, anymore. At least NASCAR is getting with the 1980's and incorporating fuel injection soon!

 

[The Green Monkey]

Some of the other GT and prototype race series (and I suppose F1 to an extent as well) are much more involved in the sort of "trickle down" technology these days than NASCAR--I submit NASCAR's days-old experimentation with fuel injection...

I don't think the media frenzy/conservative sponsors angle is wholly to blame for the blandness though. I don't disagree with the position that there really are some boring-assed drivers. Matt "Mr. Whiskey and Fistfights" Kenseth, Ryan "For Being Kind of a Dickhead, I'm Shockingly Boring" Newman, and Paul "Good Thing I Stepped On That Nail, Otherwise Announcers Would Have Nothing to Say About Me" Menard are just a few of the guys I find dreadfully soulless. I bet they're all hoping that Kimi comes to NASCAR full time so that they'll suddenly look like the life of the party, though at least Kimi is so boring it's actually always funny...