I was talking to a fellow race fan at work today and he really believes that NASCAR is on it's way down. I can't agree with him on that just yet but sooner or later, I do believe the trendiness of NASCAR racing will wane and those "johnny come lately's" will find another avenue for their entertainment, leaving the old guard fans in the lurch. I only hope that I'm in my grave when that does happen, but it all goes in the direction of how happy are the fans. For the most part, if one only looks into the stands of the newer tracks, one can see that this is a thriving sport and seems to still be growing. That's all good, but if we look at the fans crowding into these new tracks, I'm sure that the majority of them are relatively new fans of the sport, and gung ho as they may be, no one knows just how long they will continue to be fans of the sport. If one looks at, or can find many fans of the old tracks, especially those that have been closed down, or at least relagated to lesser series of racing, I belive that what you willl/would find are of course some new fans that have come aboard in recent years, but many many old fans of times gone by, who are not at all happy with the state of things in NASCAR. I'm sure that if you ask an old season ticket holder from Pocono what he/she would think of them closing that track down, you'd find some pretty negative comments. On the other hand, if you asked new fans from out west what they thought of the same idea, I'm sure you would hear a completely different story. The phrase "Go westward young man" has a totally different meaning in the sport of NASCAR and though money is still what it's all about, it isn't the young man that is going to get the money, rather the promoters and track owners, as well as the gladiators and their crews that will get the money. The "young man" in this case are the new, and some old, fans that are being exposed to this great sport and have not been given the opportunity to experience it first hand unless they spent big bucks traveling to the southeast, primarily.
I don't know how long the surge of fans will last in this sport that I so love, and quite frankly, I don't really care. I can remember as a fan living in the state of Iowa that I didn't care where the races were, just as long as they televised them. I am still that way, though I've become accustomed to some of the various tracks that I hate to see them lost on the schedule. But what I want to watch is some great racing, and that means I want to see cars racing each other, not following each other around a track. If the rules make tracks like Pocono follow the leader tracks, then the faster those tracks leave, the better. However, I really hate to see tracks such as Pocono that are so unique in their design, lose a date or go away all together. In the last ten years, we've seen some pretty unique tracks go by the wayside in this sport, only to be replaced with what we have all called, "cookie cutter" tracks. That might be the best way to make a new track for those like Bruton Smith or the France family, but that isn't the way this sport started. I really hate to see something like this get so one sided, or two as it is in this case.
Oh hell, I believe that I've rattle on long enough with my thoughts. I'll just have another glass of wine and head out and fix dinner. I think that most everyone knows how I feel about all this anyway.
