E
Eagle1
Guest
I thought this was a good article and worth sharing and getting opinions.
Please, let's not make this a bash session but good constructive discussion.
The Customer is Always Right...Right?
Written by: Ben Blake
Brooklyn, Michigan – 6/21/2004
The following statement from NASCAR president Mike Helton, made at Sunday’s pre-Michigan drivers meeting, is brought to you by a sponsor to be named, and certainly by someone.
Mike Helton faces the music at Pocono (Photo: LAT)
“I think everyone is aware of our challenges right now,” he began. “Let me remind you of something that most all of us became participants in NASCAR well after it was began and founded, with the exception of Richard [Petty]. Richard’s been around forever. I suspect that 50 years from now we'll still having driver’s meetings at race tracks there won’t be many of us around to remember this conversation.
“Don’t misinterpret some of the issues we may have with weakness we may have to challenge us. We’ll still police the sport. We will still police what goes on at the race track, and we will still enforce the regulations of this sport. So don’t misinterpret anything that may be going on right now as an opportunity to take advantage of any situation. We’re not going to let that happen.
“In saying that, I would also say we seem to go in this cycle of everybody being very respectful to everyone not being too respectful to get to the point where nobody is respectful at all with each other on the racetrack. I think we’re kind of getting back into the bottom of that cycle where it seems like there’s a lot of beating and banging going on at the race track. So I would suggest, drivers, that you be more respectful on the race track to start with, and that should go a long way to what goes on on the race track and what we have to get involved in.
“The other thing, crew chiefs, we announced last week that when we freeze the field the computer does it, the software establishes it, and the message comes back to you [as to] what your position is. When you ask or are told by an official on pit road what your position is, that’s it. There’s no debate. Go on to something else. There’s no debate to it.”
Helton seemed to be declaring on two clear matters: 1) the on-track dispute between drivers Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick at Pocono last week, and 2) the 12 team’s argument of where driver Ryan Newman was on the track during caution at Dover, an argument which prolonged an endless yellow. That’s all correct. No one wants a 24-lap caution (as at Dover), and few want to see a juvenile hissy fit among two drivers (as at Pocono). NASCAR will keep order in these regards, and that’s a credit.
Reading between the lines, and respect me if I’m wrong in the reading, Helton also seemed to be declaring that NASCAR would spike any incipient or rumored revolt in the garages over NASCAR’s apparent inability to administer its procedures and regulations, as has become evident this season. His mention of Petty (leader of an abortive driver uprising at Talladega in 1969) and his warning not to “take advantage of any situation” could be taken as an admonition to anyone thinking of getting out of order.
NASCAR did a good job Sunday at Michigan, running a clean race and keeping caution laps to a minimum, despite Darrell Waltrip’s antique admonitions on TV about opening the pits. As NASCAR has declared, it has to keep the pits closed for at least one lap to allow the pace car to pick up the leader and to slow the field, and for scoring to get the cars in order. That’s all understood.
Whether that has to do with NASCAR’s competence or with the fact that a wild-wrong situation did not arise (such as in the Busch race at Kentucky or the Truck race at Memphis) can be debated. Let’s just say we got through one without having to bash NASCAR as a bunch of idiots.
I’ve been waiting since Talladega in April for NASCAR to take control, and Helton’s declarations Sunday indicated the sanction is willing to take control of something. I worry, however, that NASCAR is “taking control” tree by tree, instead of looking at the forest.
I talked with several competitors Sunday morning in the garage, and most were shaking their heads and throwing up their hands. There is a general belief that NASCAR’s lack of a big-picture view has thrown the sport into confusion and left it open to ridicule. “At the CITGO where I go for coffee in the mornings, they just laugh at me,” one team manager said. “They say, ‘What the #### is going on?’”
NASCAR likes to talk about its “three-legged stool” -- competition, cost and safety. I’d suggest a larger “three-legged stool” -- sanction, competitors and customers. As much as we criticized Bill France Jr. over the years, he seemed to understand the balance among the three, with an agreement that NASCAR, like it or not, was in charge and would have the last word.
Helton noted that the “sport” would be here 50 years from now, and that NASCAR would be the final authority. That’s good. That’s the way Big Bill and Bill Jr. laid it out. It’s a dictatorship, and if you can find a better game, go play it. As Bill Jr. -- Mr. Big Picture -- told me 10 years ago, “I don't see too many people going broke around here.”
The problem, seems to me, is that NASCAR somehow has lost the balance among its three legs, with impending anarchy as a result. I’m not talking about endless cautions or driver disputes. I’m talking more about the balance between what is expected of the competitors and what is expected of the customers -- the "fans” -- with NASCAR as a firm but benevolent god.
If the sanction gives too much to either the competitors or to the customers, it loses control. Big Bill and Bill Jr. had an astonishingly grand view of the big picture, and a fine touch with the balance, that has seemed to be missing since Bill Jr. got sick four years ago. And listening to Helton Sunday was not reassuring. Somewhere, someone is missing the point.
The point? I think NASCAR is leaning too strongly in the direction of the customers, at the expense of the competitors. This bizarre “chase for the etc.”, scheduled to commence in September, is an example. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done all year, NASCAR seems to be saying. We'll give TV (increasingly the primary “customer”) some tricked-up version of how we race and hope people take it seriously.
Worse is the trend toward GWC finishes, which puts the competitors in danger so as to satisfy some element of fan-dom. Few in the garage like this idea, and fans probably wouldn't have cared had the idea not been proposed in the first place. Now, they believe they are entitled to it, and they throw cans and vegetables and dead chickens if they don’t get it.
I have heard and read some appalling statements from NASCAR officials and from promoters, along the lines that because the customers throw vegetables, we should give them what they want. Are we saying that all the customers need to do is to throw vegetables to get what they believe they want?
Customers: We want GWC, and we’ll throw vegetables if we don't get it. We didn’t know we wanted it before, but since you've given it to us . . .
NASCAR: Oh, anything you say. GWC it is.
Customers: Oh yeah? All we have to do is throw vegetables? All right. Now we want Dale Jr. to win every race. Otherwise, we’ll throw vegetables again.
NASCAR: uh, er . . .
Who’s in charge here?
We can go back to Petty in 1969 at Talladega, where the drivers attempted to take charge. Big Bill wouldn't allow it, and he resisted it, and he maintained the primacy of the sanction. Bill Jr. in the 30 years that followed kept to a firm, fine line in resisting attempts at unionization or franchise. The competitors were in line.
Certainly the whole game has changed. Ownership increasingly has been condensed into a few hands, and the drivers are multi-rich enough to where they don’t have to bow to the boss like they used to.
The tendency toward allowing the customers to dictate is what troubles me most. We have to go back to Talladega in October, and that will be a critical moment in determining the course of the next 50 years, Helton. What are you going to do when they throw vegetables, or worse?
The big problem NASCAR has currently is that its rules are too complicated and its procedures impossible to understand, especially to the customers. Every time NASCAR flips out another “chase for the etc.”, or a GWC, or the latest policy on scoring, or the latest on how to pit, or who gets the free pass under caution, and where the “lucky dog” is to be place, and in what line, and at what time, it becomes more confusing to competitors, fans, even to the officials in charge, none of whom are real smart to begin with.
In other words, no one seems to be in charge of an increasingly complex situation, with this descending from that except in that case, in which case we will do that case, and we’ll all throw vegetables and see what comes out.
What’s the answer? Beats me. I told a couple of colleagues Sunday that we need to begin polling to find ways to put the pieces back together (the dam already has broke) instead of constantly ripping NASCAR for its errors. Even we in the media can help, if we all cooperate.
The Michigan race was good. NASCAR got one out of three right last weekend, and there is some faint reassurance in that. Helton, bless his heart, is trying, and he works hard, and I’ll give him great credit for all that. I’d sleep much better, however, knowing that someone somewhere could see all this from the top down.
By the way, Brian showed up here Sunday morning. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.
Please, let's not make this a bash session but good constructive discussion.
The Customer is Always Right...Right?
Written by: Ben Blake
Brooklyn, Michigan – 6/21/2004
The following statement from NASCAR president Mike Helton, made at Sunday’s pre-Michigan drivers meeting, is brought to you by a sponsor to be named, and certainly by someone.
Mike Helton faces the music at Pocono (Photo: LAT)
“I think everyone is aware of our challenges right now,” he began. “Let me remind you of something that most all of us became participants in NASCAR well after it was began and founded, with the exception of Richard [Petty]. Richard’s been around forever. I suspect that 50 years from now we'll still having driver’s meetings at race tracks there won’t be many of us around to remember this conversation.
“Don’t misinterpret some of the issues we may have with weakness we may have to challenge us. We’ll still police the sport. We will still police what goes on at the race track, and we will still enforce the regulations of this sport. So don’t misinterpret anything that may be going on right now as an opportunity to take advantage of any situation. We’re not going to let that happen.
“In saying that, I would also say we seem to go in this cycle of everybody being very respectful to everyone not being too respectful to get to the point where nobody is respectful at all with each other on the racetrack. I think we’re kind of getting back into the bottom of that cycle where it seems like there’s a lot of beating and banging going on at the race track. So I would suggest, drivers, that you be more respectful on the race track to start with, and that should go a long way to what goes on on the race track and what we have to get involved in.
“The other thing, crew chiefs, we announced last week that when we freeze the field the computer does it, the software establishes it, and the message comes back to you [as to] what your position is. When you ask or are told by an official on pit road what your position is, that’s it. There’s no debate. Go on to something else. There’s no debate to it.”
Helton seemed to be declaring on two clear matters: 1) the on-track dispute between drivers Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick at Pocono last week, and 2) the 12 team’s argument of where driver Ryan Newman was on the track during caution at Dover, an argument which prolonged an endless yellow. That’s all correct. No one wants a 24-lap caution (as at Dover), and few want to see a juvenile hissy fit among two drivers (as at Pocono). NASCAR will keep order in these regards, and that’s a credit.
Reading between the lines, and respect me if I’m wrong in the reading, Helton also seemed to be declaring that NASCAR would spike any incipient or rumored revolt in the garages over NASCAR’s apparent inability to administer its procedures and regulations, as has become evident this season. His mention of Petty (leader of an abortive driver uprising at Talladega in 1969) and his warning not to “take advantage of any situation” could be taken as an admonition to anyone thinking of getting out of order.
NASCAR did a good job Sunday at Michigan, running a clean race and keeping caution laps to a minimum, despite Darrell Waltrip’s antique admonitions on TV about opening the pits. As NASCAR has declared, it has to keep the pits closed for at least one lap to allow the pace car to pick up the leader and to slow the field, and for scoring to get the cars in order. That’s all understood.
Whether that has to do with NASCAR’s competence or with the fact that a wild-wrong situation did not arise (such as in the Busch race at Kentucky or the Truck race at Memphis) can be debated. Let’s just say we got through one without having to bash NASCAR as a bunch of idiots.
I’ve been waiting since Talladega in April for NASCAR to take control, and Helton’s declarations Sunday indicated the sanction is willing to take control of something. I worry, however, that NASCAR is “taking control” tree by tree, instead of looking at the forest.
I talked with several competitors Sunday morning in the garage, and most were shaking their heads and throwing up their hands. There is a general belief that NASCAR’s lack of a big-picture view has thrown the sport into confusion and left it open to ridicule. “At the CITGO where I go for coffee in the mornings, they just laugh at me,” one team manager said. “They say, ‘What the #### is going on?’”
NASCAR likes to talk about its “three-legged stool” -- competition, cost and safety. I’d suggest a larger “three-legged stool” -- sanction, competitors and customers. As much as we criticized Bill France Jr. over the years, he seemed to understand the balance among the three, with an agreement that NASCAR, like it or not, was in charge and would have the last word.
Helton noted that the “sport” would be here 50 years from now, and that NASCAR would be the final authority. That’s good. That’s the way Big Bill and Bill Jr. laid it out. It’s a dictatorship, and if you can find a better game, go play it. As Bill Jr. -- Mr. Big Picture -- told me 10 years ago, “I don't see too many people going broke around here.”
The problem, seems to me, is that NASCAR somehow has lost the balance among its three legs, with impending anarchy as a result. I’m not talking about endless cautions or driver disputes. I’m talking more about the balance between what is expected of the competitors and what is expected of the customers -- the "fans” -- with NASCAR as a firm but benevolent god.
If the sanction gives too much to either the competitors or to the customers, it loses control. Big Bill and Bill Jr. had an astonishingly grand view of the big picture, and a fine touch with the balance, that has seemed to be missing since Bill Jr. got sick four years ago. And listening to Helton Sunday was not reassuring. Somewhere, someone is missing the point.
The point? I think NASCAR is leaning too strongly in the direction of the customers, at the expense of the competitors. This bizarre “chase for the etc.”, scheduled to commence in September, is an example. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done all year, NASCAR seems to be saying. We'll give TV (increasingly the primary “customer”) some tricked-up version of how we race and hope people take it seriously.
Worse is the trend toward GWC finishes, which puts the competitors in danger so as to satisfy some element of fan-dom. Few in the garage like this idea, and fans probably wouldn't have cared had the idea not been proposed in the first place. Now, they believe they are entitled to it, and they throw cans and vegetables and dead chickens if they don’t get it.
I have heard and read some appalling statements from NASCAR officials and from promoters, along the lines that because the customers throw vegetables, we should give them what they want. Are we saying that all the customers need to do is to throw vegetables to get what they believe they want?
Customers: We want GWC, and we’ll throw vegetables if we don't get it. We didn’t know we wanted it before, but since you've given it to us . . .
NASCAR: Oh, anything you say. GWC it is.
Customers: Oh yeah? All we have to do is throw vegetables? All right. Now we want Dale Jr. to win every race. Otherwise, we’ll throw vegetables again.
NASCAR: uh, er . . .
Who’s in charge here?
We can go back to Petty in 1969 at Talladega, where the drivers attempted to take charge. Big Bill wouldn't allow it, and he resisted it, and he maintained the primacy of the sanction. Bill Jr. in the 30 years that followed kept to a firm, fine line in resisting attempts at unionization or franchise. The competitors were in line.
Certainly the whole game has changed. Ownership increasingly has been condensed into a few hands, and the drivers are multi-rich enough to where they don’t have to bow to the boss like they used to.
The tendency toward allowing the customers to dictate is what troubles me most. We have to go back to Talladega in October, and that will be a critical moment in determining the course of the next 50 years, Helton. What are you going to do when they throw vegetables, or worse?
The big problem NASCAR has currently is that its rules are too complicated and its procedures impossible to understand, especially to the customers. Every time NASCAR flips out another “chase for the etc.”, or a GWC, or the latest policy on scoring, or the latest on how to pit, or who gets the free pass under caution, and where the “lucky dog” is to be place, and in what line, and at what time, it becomes more confusing to competitors, fans, even to the officials in charge, none of whom are real smart to begin with.
In other words, no one seems to be in charge of an increasingly complex situation, with this descending from that except in that case, in which case we will do that case, and we’ll all throw vegetables and see what comes out.
What’s the answer? Beats me. I told a couple of colleagues Sunday that we need to begin polling to find ways to put the pieces back together (the dam already has broke) instead of constantly ripping NASCAR for its errors. Even we in the media can help, if we all cooperate.
The Michigan race was good. NASCAR got one out of three right last weekend, and there is some faint reassurance in that. Helton, bless his heart, is trying, and he works hard, and I’ll give him great credit for all that. I’d sleep much better, however, knowing that someone somewhere could see all this from the top down.
By the way, Brian showed up here Sunday morning. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.
Screw the dumb stuff, it will all work itself out in the longrun.