Two weeks ago, most of us read a report that NASCAR after being in control for 70 years with Bill France, Bill France Jr and Brian France might be up for sale amid loss of fan interest and TV ratings.
Disclaimer: I'm a old school NASCAR fan (anything up until about 10 years ago) and personally think there are several things wrong with how the sport is ran.
- Length of Races.
With the exception of some races (Daytona, Talladega, Darlington, Coke 600, Road Course Races, and Richmond) people will not watch the sport for three or four hours at a time on Sunday afternoons. About 20 years ago, Dover and Rockingham addressed the issue by reducing their 500 mile races to 400 mile ones, since they were both one mile tracks, 100 laps were cut off.
I believe in order to get our generation to watch (High schoolers) to watch races on a constant basis they've seriously got to consider shortening some of these non historical races. Do you really want to watch 500 miles around Texas?
- NBC/FOX TV Deal
When NBC and FOX announced that they were going to reunite to cover the whole NASCAR season much like they did from 2001-06 many people were excited and rightfully so. The problem is that neither network shows that they really care about the viewers nor the race itself because both the networks have had their issues. With Jeff Burton's nearly nonexistent commentary and Darrell Waltrip's love affair with Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon's saying "look at this" every damn time something is happening.
NBC's problems
FOX's problems
Back in the day, race fans even if they were not going to the track knew they were going to get awesome coverage every weekend in the 1990's. ESPN's example is here
Skip around portions of the race and tell me even before that historic race you would not be excited to see it with them is delusional. It was like friends at a BBQ on Sundays. Sadly it is not that anymore.
TNN's example (This is presently known as the Paramount Network)
- Too much technology
How many times have you've seen a driver had a great race only to be messed up by fuel issues? In 2012, NASCAR announced that they were switching from carburetors to fuel injection systems. This didn't take long to have issues with drivers.
Kenny Wallace Duel
Tony Stewart Phoenix
Brad Keselowski Texas
At least three issues in the first seven races of 2012 and it occasionally pops back up. Also back in the 1980s instead of going directly to a mechanic or putting a computer chip back in, you get underneath the car and get grease on yourself and you would be proud as hell if you got the issue fixed yourself.
With technology, every teenager gets less and less interested in watching races or being a car guru. There are exceptions I'm aware.
- Season is too long
Unfortunately the video I intended to use for this example was deleted but Kyle Petty in 2012 said we have way too many races and I agree with the statement he made. There have been 36 races for the last 18 years and now NASCAR won't announce attendance figures, I wonder why...
In 2016, only 20 percent of seats were sold at the Brickyard, From 1994-2007, Indianapolis was the most attended track. What changed?
- The addition of Chicagoland and Kentucky to the schedule.
- In 2008, there was a major tire issue that NASCAR essentially made the race heat races themselves.
- Muggy weather in late July
I think for a sport like NASCAR to continue to the next generation, they need to cut down from 36 to about 28 races. Look at IndyCar/Formula 1 and NHRA are the greedy and return to a race track twice? They know better than to do that. What can go?
All of these racetracks have two races, one can be taken off
- Pocono
- Kansas
- Texas
- Phoenix
- Las Vegas
- Dover
- Spring Richmond
- Michigan
That leaves 28 races, the season can still start in February but either end in October or be stretched out to November still. 36 races are way too many especially cookie cutters like most of those above.
- Caution Clocks/Stages
Formally known as debris cautions, these stop the race after a certain number of laps to bunch up the field. I completely understand the reason why they do this with short attention spans but with NASCAR not doing this until now, why?? Here are examples where it ruined people's days for either a car brushing the wall or no debris.
Tony Stewart 2007 Phoenix
Kasey Kahne 2009 Fontana
Carl Edwards 2016 Homestead
In 1992, Kyle Petty led 484 of 492 laps at Rockingham, did they throw a debris caution once? Nope. Everyone wasn't as good as him that day and they went onto the next race, not cry and complain.
- Chase for the Cup/Points System
Take a look at Matt Kenseth's 2003 Championship season. 1 win but 25 top tens and an average finish of 10.6 but with ONLY one win many people cried and moaned until NASCAR announced that they were going to start with a playoff the following year.
Initially, the reception was mostly positive but quickly fell out of favor with changes in 2007, 2011 and 2014. My issues with those are:
- 16 drivers is an insane number, they need to go back to ten. Even in those ten, there are only three or four drivers realistically able to win the championship.
- The point system changes every other race it seems like. Hell, I'm 17 and if I can't keep up with it how is anybody going to understand?
How about go back to where it was from 1949-2003 and let the driver with the most points win the championship or the driver with the most wins? Not that hard. Keep it simple. The simpler, the better for new fans to understand.
- Also NASCAR can never make their mind about rules. Not going to get into detail but watch a race and you'll see.
- Toyota in, Dodge out
If NASCAR is an American sport then why is a Japanese manufacturer competing?? When Toyota was going to enter the top level in 2007, most people gave Toyota the black eye so to speak and rightfully so. Races in America=Only American cars right?
Dodge after a 15 year absence returned to NASCAR in 2001 with the advice of one of the best crew chiefs of all time, Ray Evernham. After little success though its first 11 years back and with Evernham, Petty and Penske all leaving the manufacturer, Dodge in 2012 stated it wouldn't be back in 2013.
I watched the announcement live and couldn't believe it. I will admit, Dodge is my favorite car but this hurt NASCAR racing in bigger ways then expected.
Closing Thoughts:
Everything evolves and after 70 years of control from the France family, it's time to experiment with new owners. Hopefully, the sport will start to see its faults and fix them one step at a time and will start catering to NASCAR fans, not TV networks or the average person channel surfing on the weekend.
NASCAR needs to take a long, hard look at itself or its next chapter can be far less than desirable.
Thoughts?
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