NASCAR Death Bed

StandOnIt said:
that pretty much validates what I said. :D been racing plates for over thirty years, and some old timers are still griping about it. Doesn't matter if they are some of the most popular races year after year. By gawd it killed Nascar. :D
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Have a question...and would like an honest answer. Were audiences, especially live at the event audiences, growing pre plate, or falling?

Seems to me, being on a waiting list for races was the norm back up to the early to mid '90's...even in the late '80's. Ticket office was jammed at Talladega after the '87 qualifying....everyone wanted to see 43 stock cars maneuver inches apart at 220 MPH.
 
OldTimer said:
Have a question...and would like an honest answer. Were audiences, especially live at the event audiences, growing pre plate, or falling?

Seems to me, being on a waiting list for races was the norm back up to the early to mid '90's...even in the late '80's. Ticket office was jammed at Talladega after the '87 qualifying....everyone wanted to see 43 stock cars maneuver inches apart at 220 MPH.
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I have no idea what the question is. They didn't keep attendance records back then so a person can say anything they want. In answer to the last sentence restrictor plates were used from 88 on 30 years ago.
 
Every trend has its day but usually like the stock market they find their place.
Nascar went from a specific region sport to an all American sport with grand ideas
and a poor manager to this day were it is finding its place. It has now settled in as the nations
most watched motor sport and is quite profitable.
The biggest problem Nascar now has is the poor presentation of the sport ( TV production ) and the laziest journalists in history.
 
Team Penske said:
Every trend has its day but usually like the stock market they find their place.
Nascar went from a specific region sport to an all American sport with grand ideas
and a poor manager to this day were it is finding its place. It has now settled in as the nations
most watched motor sport and is quite profitable.
The biggest problem Nascar now has is the poor presentation of the sport ( TV production ) and the laziest journalists in history.
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While I agree with this to a point, I don't think NASCAR has completely constricted and bottomed out yet. It hasn't found it's place yet among the sports viewing audience, that's still a downfall in progress. The next TV contract and title sponsor will dictate this.
 
a downfall? won't bother me a bit if it happens. Series like the IndyCar working with very minuscule budgets have good racing and there aren't a bunch of robotic sponsor thanking yes men at every turn or the race isn't obliterated with commercials on television, and they have a TV crew that isn't perfect, but light years away from the direction that Nascar's bunch is headed.
 
StandOnIt said:
and there aren't a bunch of robotic sponsor thanking yes men at every turn
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That in itself has turned some people off. I don't stick around for interviews any more.
The sponsors on the car and badges on the uniform should be enough.
 
Whats wrong with NASCAR? Where to start ?
I started being a fan of NASCAR in 1963 as a child reading Stock Car Racing Magazine and watching the ABC Wide World of Sports. I became a Richard Petty fan, and painted by bicycle Petty Blue and build Petty models.
Later I got involved in auto racing as a mechanic and held licenses in the early ASA, in ARCA and Nascar (Sportsman), but mainly worked on a friends asphalt outlaw Late Model.
At one point in my life I was the promoter/General Manager of a small County Fairgrounds dirt track where I was highly successful.
I do not consider my self as special as I have met some very special people in my travelings.

I would like to open up a discussion about how to make NASCAR more popular.

1) How many people think that many of the NASCAR events are Bor-a-Thons lasting 4,5 and even 6 hours long. The Creation of 500 miles came out of the 50's and it was a sort of test for "factory stock" cars.
Cars taken right off the showroom, little to no modifications and then raced as hard and as fast as they could, it was a 500 mile sprint to the finish race. Nascar even paid lap leader money for every lap lead.
That was without question very exciting. It was not uncommon to see the top drivers blow up motors, or tear tires up. There was no just laying back and running laps off because you would get lapped, and back then the only way to unlap yourself was to pass the leader.
But today there is nothing factory stock about these cars. They are special built made for racing machines that can perform beyond the capability of anything the manufacturers could build..
I applaud the safety that these cars afford the drivers.
That said, Nascar should shorten most of their events. I would keep the Daytona 500 as most of the teams still race for the lead. I would keep the Talladega events as these cars are very competitive on just about every lap. But on some tracks the events are gas mileage races and that is no way to RACE !
Many Nascar events could come down to 300 lap events.
And to make things more exciting, the preliminary event should be held the same day.
Imagine a 100 lap sportsman event and then the 300 lap main event held one after the other on the same day ?
That would increase the popularity and increase the name recognition of the Sportsman drivers. It would bring more fans to the stands and increase the television ratings.

2) The high costs of auto racing at the top level. It is a joke to see teams having to find advertisers and sponsors for them to be able to compete in a race so that Nascar can use them to help them get advertisers and sponsors as well as Billions for the rights to televise the event. Shouldn't these teams get a piece of that money ?
All one needs to do is go back when the race teams sold their own souvenirs, that helped them support their team, but NASCAR got greedy, seeing it was a very profitable, bring in 100's of millions and even billions of dollars. Nascar took it from then gave them a piece of it back.
Nascar gets money from the tire companies which sells the tires to the race teams. That is a huge conflict as the race teams have to have those tires because NASCAR says so. The amount of money for one set of tires is nuts and those tires are not built to last long. Teams have to purchase dozens of sets of tires per race.
If you really look at the costs of racing a Nascar event and what it pays I think that most teams if not all teams would lose money.
This is why Nascar teams rely so heavily on advertisers and sponsors, they can't make a living racing on the circuit without them.
Shortening events will also save teams money, on tires, wear and tear on machines and equipment.
Nascar needs to let the drivers and race teams own their own souvenir sales.

In review:
Having a preliminary event, a 100 lap race , held the same day as the 300 lap main event would allow many teams to place an entry into each event. Many of the drivers would participate in both events. That would add interest to both divisions. The Preliminary event could either be a Sportsman event, a Truck event or even an ARCA event. That would be interesting.
 
Time to grab my popcorn and watch this play out
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I literally have very minimal complaints about the sport. It's all in perception just enjoy it or move on people need to adapt to change......I've been watching since 1992.
 
Mike Crayne said:
I like stage racing. There are some things I would change but not that.
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A 300 lap would be perfect for Stage racing, 100 laps, 100 laps, 100 laps

oldgoat said:
I kind of like the stage racing. Before many were halfway riding around for the first 2/3 of the race and then go for it. Now there is a reason to go harder. So all in all I think it is an improvement. The crowds will still get smaller to where it is where it probably should be. Once it gets down to that point the costs of sponsorship will be forced down and help in that sector.
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About a year and a half before NASCAR brought on stage racing I suggested something along those lines. In the past I have commented on pit road speed and on the lug nut situation, (auto manufacturers recommend replacing all nuts nuts when changing a tire.)
Both those submissions dealt with safety issues. I think everyone should comment on improving safety if they have an idea.
 
I also think that Nascar should go to Delaware restarts, in which drivers one by one in order of their running ( provided they are on lead lap ) get to decide which lane they want. One Groove restarts put the 2nd place, 4th place , 6th place and so on divers at a disadvantage as NASCAR FORCES them to restart out of the groove !
 
I'm in the minority but I'm as happy as ever as a fan. I like the stage racing, finally some good young drivers coming up, and to me the on track racing is fine. My only real complaint is that NASCAR is still incredibly inconsistent in officiating races and it makes it feel like it's staged. For example even with stage racing they still throw ridiculous cautions for a car brushing the wall or a hot dog wrapper but then let the 21 ride around for three laps yesterday with half his car destroyed well under minimum speed.

Competition is king. They need to just leave the current format in place and let people adjust to it without changes every two years looking for a magical fix. Only use the All Star package for the all star race, and call the races consistently. As long as there are 40 cars there will be races, they don't have to spend the money they do now to race.
 
And the bad attendance just makes it easier to get to races. I'm in the service and my schedule is completely unpredictable so I can't buy tickets six months hell or even three weeks sometimes in advance but if I get a weekend off and there is a track within driving distance I can just roll up and get good seats.
 
I like the stage racing honestly, but the playoffs BS?

What if Kurt Busch points his way to Homestead and wins the race? How the flying you-know-what does he deserve to be champ? How does anyone except Kyle Busch or Kevin Harvick deserve that shot?
 
I dig the stages. The playoff format is eh, the knockout qualifying is eh. 2-4 too many intermediate tracks on the schedule in favor of a dirt race, road courses, and short tracks.
 
Joker said:
I like the stage racing honestly, but the playoffs BS?

What if Kurt Busch points his way to Homestead and wins the race? How the flying you-know-what does he deserve to be champ? How does anyone except Kyle Busch or Kevin Harvick deserve that shot?
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Because that's called the rules as they stand.
 
Johali said:
Because that's called the rules as they stand.
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Not a good argument in favor of those rules.

What if DiBenedetto blows an engine and takes out Harvick at Homestead? It's the equivalent of allowing the Browns to sack Tom Brady during the Super Bowl.
 
Ryan Newman almost pointed his way to a championship, but why does that take away from the format?

My biggest gripe with a Final 4 format is everybody else is supposed to just get out of the way and not race. IE: Elliott Sadler vs. Ryan Preece or Kyle Larson having the fastest car last year and not doing anything with it out of respect.
 
Joker said:
What if Kurt Busch points his way to Homestead and wins the race? How the flying you-know-what does he deserve to be champ?
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Joker said:
Not a good argument in favor of those rules.
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You asked how he would deserve to be champ and I gave my opinion "because that's the rules as they stand". I wasn't arguing for or against the rules.
 
AuzGrams said:
Ryan Newman almost pointed his way to a championship, but why does that take away from the format?

My biggest gripe with a Final 4 format is everybody else is supposed to just get out of the way and not race. IE: Elliott Sadler vs. Ryan Preece or Kyle Larson having the fastest car last year and not doing anything with it out of respect.
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Because Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch have absolutely dominated up to this point. Even Truex is too far behind in points at the moment to deserve a shot at the championship.
 
Cholo said:
And the bad attendance just makes it easier to get to races. I'm in the service and my schedule is completely unpredictable so I can't buy tickets six months hell or even three weeks sometimes in advance but if I get a weekend off and there is a track within driving distance I can just roll up and get good seats.
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So you like lower attendances at the races because it is easier and quicker for you to get in, well, the way they are going they are going to make you even happier.

Its hard to keep from dropping ticket prices when the attendance keeps dropping.
Its also a bad image to show all those empty seats at the track.
This after most of the tracks removed tens of thousands of seats.
Nascar has another company that owns most of the tracks. .
What about the other track owners ? What if they form their own series ?
Crazy, then why did NASCAR buy ARCA ? Nascar then was rumored to be up for sale.
Nascar without the Nascar owned tracks is not worth much and the amount to buy NASCAR and their tracks would be an amount that no one would want to purchase under the current situation of losing fans at the track and a shrinking TV rating.
I think the answer is to get a new person in there that can make some changes and the fans like us, should let them know what we like and what we dislike. No they are not going to listen just to me, but they are listening .
 
Danny Ray Bennett said:
Its hard to keep from dropping ticket prices when the attendance keeps dropping.
Its also a bad image to show all those empty seats at the track.
This after most of the tracks removed tens of thousands of seats.
Nascar has another company that owns most of the tracks. .
What about the other track owners ? What if they form their own series ?
Crazy, then why did NASCAR buy ARCA ? Nascar then was rumored to be up for sale.
Nascar without the Nascar owned tracks is not worth much and the amount to buy NASCAR and their tracks would be an amount that no one would want to purchase under the current situation of losing fans at the track and a shrinking TV rating.
I think the answer is to get a new person in there that can make some changes and the fans like us, should let them know what we like and what we dislike. No they are not going to listen just to me, but they are listening .
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Competition is good for business, but SMI and ISC aren't allowing other businesses to come in and compete. It does look kinda bad on TV seeing that many empty seats, but they've tried to cater to the TV crowd instead of the fans showing up to the track. I think there's been a bit of a lackadaisical concern about the gate/at track product for the fans because of the 2015-present TV deal.

They're doing an OKish job at listening to the fans, in all honesty, could be better.. But can anybody really argue that we probably have 2-4 too many intermediate races on the schedule?
 
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For those that do not think NASCAR should change, NASCAR is all about change. Nascar started out as a dirt track racing series based in the south- eastern part of the country. As their popularity grew the moved their events to venues that had more seating as back then that was Nascar's primary source of income. The series continued to grow and moved to more and more asphalt tracks as those usually held more seats. Then super speedways started being built and I believe the last dirt track race was held in 1970 and won by the "King".
Nascar soon started trading off the short tracks for events at more Super Speedways and they moved from being a "southern " sport by moving events to the major market areas.
Their decisions were based primarily on making more and more money. I do not fault them for that, but I believe Nascar started getting greedy. The worst case of that, in my opinion, is when NASCAR took the souvenir sales away from the drivers and teams.
But I digress, Nascar has to start making some changes as it must stop the continued decline in track attendance and in TV ratings.
Again my Suggestions:
1) Shorten most of the events to 300 laps, except at Daytona and Talladega,
2) Start using the Delaware restart system allowing all drivers on the lead lap their preference of which lane they want to start in
3) Stage Racing, this should be considered a Competition Yellow, and all cars allowed to pit and line up in the order they were running..
4) Award points for each lap lead, plus a bonus for most laps lead. ( More cars will try to take the lead.)
5) Change many of those 1.5 mile cookie cutter tracks.
6) How can they not have Daytona in the Play-offs ? Why did they build another track in Florida ?
7) Go back to a 43 car starting field, and for the 2 mile and larger tracks, start more cars. Say (50) Yes you may have a few start and park cars but aren't most of them trying to get experience and are usually underfunded..
 
Danny Ray Bennett said:
For those that do not think NASCAR should change, NASCAR is all about change. Nascar started out as a dirt track racing series based in the south- eastern part of the country. As their popularity grew the moved their events to venues that had more seating as back then that was Nascar's primary source of income. The series continued to grow and moved to more and more asphalt tracks as those usually held more seats. Then super speedways started being built and I believe the last dirt track race was held in 1970 and won by the "King".
Nascar soon started trading off the short tracks for events at more Super Speedways and they moved from being a "southern " sport by moving events to the major market areas.
Their decisions were based primarily on making more and more money. I do not fault them for that, but I believe Nascar started getting greedy. The worst case of that, in my opinion, is when NASCAR took the souvenir sales away from the drivers and teams.
But I digress, Nascar has to start making some changes as it must stop the continued decline in track attendance and in TV ratings.
Again my Suggestions:
1) Shorten most of the events to 300 laps, except at Daytona and Talladega,
2) Start using the Delaware restart system allowing all drivers on the lead lap their preference of which lane they want to start in
3) Stage Racing, this should be considered a Competition Yellow, and all cars allowed to pit and line up in the order they were running..
4) Award points for each lap lead, plus a bonus for most laps lead. ( More cars will try to take the lead.)
5) Change many of those 1.5 mile cookie cutter tracks.
6) How can they not have Daytona in the Play-offs ? Why did they build another track in Florida ?
7) Go back to a 43 car starting field, and for the 2 mile and larger tracks, start more cars. Say (50) Yes you may have a few start and park cars but aren't most of them trying to get experience and are usually underfunded..
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Some of your suggestions I can agree with but much of it won't help. Nascar must shrink and find its place in the natural entertainment field. What goes up must come down and every sport goes through this. Nascar properly run will remain the top racing sport on the continent but it will never again rise to the numbers it once had.
As the number of fans shrink so to must the cost of racing and the days of the owners outspending each other will have to be curtailed. SOMEHOW
 
Danny Ray Bennett said:
For those that do not think NASCAR should change, NASCAR is all about change. Nascar started out as a dirt track racing series based in the south- eastern part of the country. As their popularity grew the moved their events to venues that had more seating as back then that was Nascar's primary source of income. The series continued to grow and moved to more and more asphalt tracks as those usually held more seats. Then super speedways started being built and I believe the last dirt track race was held in 1970 and won by the "King".
Nascar soon started trading off the short tracks for events at more Super Speedways and they moved from being a "southern " sport by moving events to the major market areas.
Their decisions were based primarily on making more and more money. I do not fault them for that, but I believe Nascar started getting greedy. The worst case of that, in my opinion, is when NASCAR took the souvenir sales away from the drivers and teams.
But I digress, Nascar has to start making some changes as it must stop the continued decline in track attendance and in TV ratings.
Again my Suggestions:
1) Shorten most of the events to 300 laps, except at Daytona and Talladega,
2) Start using the Delaware restart system allowing all drivers on the lead lap their preference of which lane they want to start in
3) Stage Racing, this should be considered a Competition Yellow, and all cars allowed to pit and line up in the order they were running..
4) Award points for each lap lead, plus a bonus for most laps lead. ( More cars will try to take the lead.)
5) Change many of those 1.5 mile cookie cutter tracks.
6) How can they not have Daytona in the Play-offs ? Why did they build another track in Florida ?
7) Go back to a 43 car starting field, and for the 2 mile and larger tracks, start more cars. Say (50) Yes you may have a few start and park cars but aren't most of them trying to get experience and are usually underfunded..
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1) Shorten most of the events to 300 laps, except at Daytona and Talladega, NO
2) Start using the Delaware restart system allowing all drivers on the lead lap their preference of which lane they want to start in NO
3) Stage Racing, this should be considered a Competition Yellow, and all cars allowed to pit and line up in the order they were running. NO
4) Award points for each lap lead, plus a bonus for most laps lead. ( More cars will try to take the lead.) NO
 
1) Shorten most of the events to 300 laps, except at Daytona and Talladega,- Daytona and Talladega? The only thing that matters outside of the last ten laps in those races is trying to avoid the inevitable wrecks, why leave those at full length and not the others?

2) Start using the Delaware restart system allowing all drivers on the lead lap their preference of which lane they want to start in- I've never heard of this one and I guess I don't quite understand how it works. Aren't they all going to want the same lane?

3) Stage Racing, this should be considered a Competition Yellow, and all cars allowed to pit and line up in the order they were running.- Maybe, it would eliminate some of the games that are played around the stages at the road courses.

4) Award points for each lap lead, plus a bonus for most laps lead. ( More cars will try to take the lead.) This is ridiculous, only one car can lead at a time. Nascar could give a billion dollars to the leader of every lap and it isn't going to matter. It's not like there are a bunch of cars riding around in the top ten that could go up and lead but they just don't feel like it. (unless you are talking plate racing, the rules of common sense don't apply to that style of racing)

5) Change many of those 1.5 mile cookie cutter tracks. How?

6) How can they not have Daytona in the Play-offs ? Why did they build another track in Florida ? Why on earth would you put another plate track in? Nobody controls there own destiny at a plate track.

7) Go back to a 43 car starting field, and for the 2 mile and larger tracks, start more cars. Say (50) Yes you may have a few start and park cars but aren't most of them trying to get experience and are usually underfunded.. Can they get 43 cars anymore?
 
Switchback said:
2) Start using the Delaware restart system allowing all drivers on the lead lap their preference of which lane they want to start in- I've never heard of this one and I guess I don't quite understand how it works. Aren't they all going to want the same lane?
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The primary characteristic of "Delaware" style restarts used by many short track series is that the leader is in his / her own row, and everyone else lines up double file behind. I prefer it for that reason, and believe that the leader of the race should always truly control the restart.

He is speaking of an element that is used in some quarters but not others. The second place car gets lane choice, inside or outside. The third place car takes the other. The fourth place car gets lane choice, and so on. If he believes that all cars get lane choice, he is incorrect.

This would ostensibly end the odd game of cars purposely falling behind another car on pit road to get the preferred lane. However, the entire issue is probably something less than 2% of NASCAR's audience cares about, and seems odd to focus on in this context.
 
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