In my experience, young people today have very little attachment to automobiles except as a source to get from point A to B. They do not appreciate how an automobile works nor how to maintain it. Cellphones have replaced the automobile as a "status symbol" and as a focus of their attention. I graduated high school in 1992 but damn, I feel old.
NASCAR will exist in a decade or two but in my opinion, will be smaller and less important, ala INDYCAR. Sad, but true.
Yeah, honestly this is by far the biggest problem facing NASCAR and the auto industry in general. Car culture is dead among millenials. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 8 years, the millennial generation is flocking to live in dense inner cities over suburbs and rural areas and they are willing to pay a premium to live within walking distance of amenities. I know this may be hard to believe for some on here, but by living in a city, the fact that you don't have to hop in car and drive a minimum of 10 minutes to do anything is deeply appealing to this generation. Cars are now just a tool to provide mobility, that's it, and young people are increasingly voting with their feet to live where they have other tools, like walking, biking, public transit and a friendly Uber driver at the touch of a smartphone. The "American Dream" of a McMansion in a 4th ring suburb with a 3 car garage is dead to this generation, the housing bust and recession they grew up in made damn sure of that. Plus there's the whole fact that burning gas causes global warming, so that's not appealing to an increasingly educated generation.
I read an interview in Delta's skymag a year ago with Ford's CEO talking about marketing cars to the new generation. When asked if Ford needed to adapt to the trends above, his response was pretty much "F@&k if I know, all I know is that when my two sons graduate from the U of M they can't wait to move to New York and sell their car". That's what this sport is up against.
