Nationwide Stands

Hypothetically speaking, what would Nascar do if the top 30 Cup drivers and their respective teams decided to race in the Nationwide series as well?
 
The NW Series lost its identity......!5 years ago it was a great series, you had NW regulars who were content to be NW regulars, a feeder series for young guns with promise who could move up to Cup and occasionally guys like Earnhardt MM, Terry Labonte etc who would run a few select races. Today the field is essentially about 75% field fillers with NO chance to win. 5or 6 NW Regulars that can actually win and go for the championship and the Cup guys who dominate every week.
 
hasn't lost anything as far as I am concerned..it HAS gained notoriety and tougher competition and bigger purses for the drivers, and most importantly attracted big money sponsors. So yeah, it has lost it's little bity cult following, without any popularity and any decent purses, because there wasn't any way for millions to watch it.
 
StandOnIt said:
hasn't lost anything as far as I am concerned..it HAS gained notoriety and tougher competition and bigger purses for the drivers, and most importantly attracted big money sponsors. So yeah, it has lost it's little bity cult following, without any popularity and any decenIt purses, because there wasn't any way for millions to watch it.
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I see your point and it is a good one.

But there was something special about running the small venues like Hickory, GPS, or even IRP.

It was like Nascar was rolling into your town with a really big time race. Ingram, Ard, Ellis, Jarret, Spencer, Moroso, Gordon, Larry Pearson etc they weren't slouches.
I was a Dale Sr fan and saw him race two of the Hickory races, and he was off the lead lap in both of the races. DW was good on.short tracks in the 80s, arguably one of the best and he probably didnt even lead lap at the Hickory race.

I guess I am one of the cultist, I wear the title with pride :)lol , it was the series finest hour imo. I cant prove it but I dont think Kyle would have dominated the series back then against the powers of Ingram and Ard.
 
It started growing a long time ago when wide world of sport and local/regional TV started carrying the races. When it attracted a big boy sponsor like Bud and Busch and TV coverage nationwide, it started getting a whole lot bigger, and for some better. Most are nostalgic for the good old days and forget how lopsided it was. In 82 Earnhardt won Daytona in a Grand National (bushwacking) and only 4 cars were on the lead lap, at Hickory the same year they only had 15 cars still running, 9 others DNF. In 83 they had 17 out of 24 still going and only 2 were on the same lap at the finish. The race paid a whopping 2500 bucks for the winner. Doesn't give attendance, but it couldn't be very many with a purse like that. If the biggest whiners would go back years ago and look at the stats, there have been cup guys racing in the series from the very beginning. They probably wouldn't figure it out though, you have to know who the cup guys are that were racing cup at the time.one of the drivers mentioned above Dale Jarrett ran 27 Grand National races and 24 Cup races the same year in 1987...26 years ago. Cup guy runs 12, 15 races now on this board and they come out of the wood work. uh waaa uh waaa.
 
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Greg said:
I liked the old Busch Series better when they ran at places like Hickory.
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Those were some great races. There are quite a few tracks that could handle a Nationwide race. Five Flags, Hickory, Motor Mile (Radford), Franklin County, South Boston, Langley, Greenville, Orange County would all be good additions.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Those were some great races. There are quite a few tracks that could handle a Nationwide race. Five Flags, Hickory, Motor Mile (Radford), Franklin County, South Boston, Langley, Greenville, Orange County would all be good additions.
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I don't believe Franklin Co. is NASCAR sanctioned, is it? It didn't used to be, but that could have changed since I lived in Va.
 
pjmolo said:
Which leads to the question, if Kyle decided to add a few K&N Pro Series races to his schedule, do those wins get added to his NASCAR total ?
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Heck ya ............ add em all on there, the more the merrier
 
I still watch NW races, but it's not "appointment television" for me anymore like it used to be. I like the Trucks better because that series more closely resembles what the NW (Busch) Series was 15-20 years ago: a series for drivers either on their way up or on their way down in their careers, with a handful of Cup guys thrown in.
 
ToyYoda said:
I still watch NW races, but it's not "appointment television" for me anymore like it used to be. I like the Trucks better because that series more closely resembles what the NW (Busch) Series was 15-20 years ago: a series for drivers either on their way up or on their way down in their careers, with a handful of Cup guys thrown in.
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why don't ya look at the statistics 15 20 years ago. back when you were in your teens.12 of the 28 races were won by cup drivers 20 years ago.
 
StandOnIt said:
why don't ya look at the statistics 15 20 years ago. back when you were in your teens.
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Don't need to look at the stats, I remember watching the races. How many Cup guys won BGN championships back then? That'd be zero. Full time Cup guys won the NW title every year between 2006-2010, giving birth to the "one championship" rule. They'd have probably won the '11-'13 titles too were the rule not in place. The only Cup guy back then I can really remember dominating the series was Mark Martin in the #60 Winn-Dixie car. Other than that, the Cup guys pretty much did spot duty in that series, and there was enough schedule conflict between BGN and WC too keep things from getting too far out of hand.
 
The NBC/TNT Busch Series races back in 2001 averaged a 1.4 TV rating when the only full-time Cup drivers to compete and win were Harvick, Jimmy Spencer, Todd Bodine, Joe Nemechek, Matt Kenseth, and Jeff Burton. Not exactly a who's who of Cup racing, and they only combined to win 58% of Busch races (compared to 77% this season). Those who say claim jumpers give the Nationwide races better TV ratings just say so but there's nothing to actually support that.
 
ToyYoda said:
Don't need to look at the stats, I remember watching the races. How many Cup guys won BGN championships back then? That'd be zero. Full time Cup guys won the NW title every year between 2006-2010, giving birth to the "one championship" rule. They'd have probably won the '11-'13 titles too were the rule not in place. The only Cup guy back then I can really remember dominating the series was Mark Martin in the #60 Winn-Dixie car. Other than that, the Cup guys pretty much did spot duty in that series, and there was enough schedule conflict between BGN and WC too keep things from getting too far out of hand.
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Cup regulars have dominated the win category since Sam Ard.
It was back when you didn't have to win a lot of races to win a championship.
Like I said, the Nationwide Series would fold if it were a standalone series with a bunch of no-name drivers. There's no way a network would sign a Nationwide Series only contract.
 
BobbyFord said:
And what evidence of that do you have?
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I can't prove that hypothetical, but it's more reasonable than saying there's no way the series would get picked up. FS1 and NBCSN need all the live programming they can get and while Nationwide Series TV ratings aren't anything mind-blowing it pulls in better than most of what they currently show.
 
ToyYoda said:
Sam Ard made one Winston Cup start. How is that a Cup guy dominating the Busch/Nationwide Series?
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Maybe you misunderstood my post or maybe I didn't make it clear. Sam Ard was the winningest Busch Series driver. Sam Ard only won 22 Busch Series races but was the leading driver in the win category until Mark Martin surpassed Sam's 22 wins. Sam's last win came in 1984. Since the reign of Sam Ard, the winningest driver in the Busch Series has been a Cup regular.
*Edit* Another website credits Jack Ingram with 31 Busch Series wins (which is half as many Busch Series wins as Kyle Busch and 18 wins less than Mark Martin.)
8 of the top ten All-time Busch Series winners are Cup regulars.
 
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BobbyFord said:
Maybe you misunderstood my post or maybe I didn't make it clear. Sam Ard was the winningest Busch Series driver. Sam Ard only won 22 Busch Series races but was the leading driver in the win category until Mark Martin surpassed Sam's 22 wins. Sam's last win came in 1984. Since the reign of Sam Ard, the winningest driver in the Busch Series has been a Cup regular.
*Edit* Another website credits Jack Ingram with 31 Busch Series wins (which is half as many Busch Series wins as Kyle Busch and 18 wins less than Mark Martin.)
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Ok, I see what you're saying. I did misunderstand. My apologies.
 
ToyYoda said:
I don't believe Franklin Co. is NASCAR sanctioned, is it? It didn't used to be, but that could have changed since I lived in Va.
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It's not. I'm saying we have the capacity to handle a Truck or Nationwide race. Track seats over 7,000 and it would be possible to accommodate media.

The problem is that even Truck Series races, the corporate sponsors want a thousand corporate suites at the tracks and that's why we, the fans, can't have nice things.
 
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