You also have the privilege of owning, through your taxes, a street and road grid connecting every residential street all the way up to the largest highway network in the world. We all own million dollar on-ramps and flyovers where there was once prime property, billion dollar tunnels to make our commutes marginally quicker and 10 lane interstates rammed through the heart of dense cities. The end result is that here in the US 90% of all trips taken are in a personal automobile. That's a staggeringly high percentage compared to the rest of the developed world, but what else would you expect when we've poured so much money and concrete into infrastructure for cars?
Yeah, a lot of people grow up playing football, baseball, basketball or hockey or whatever sport (about 56% of kids these days, so not an overwhelming amount actually). But the vast majority of those watching an NFL broadcast, or the Stanley Cup or going to a Friday night baseball game to have a good time didn't ever play that sport themselves. It doesn't mean that they can't understand and enjoy it though.
On the flip side, pretty much everyone of those viewers has taken their diver's ed, gotten a license, owns a car and drives it twice a day at minimum. So why can't NASCAR, and motorsports in general, make that connection between the sport on TV and something we do every day? IMO, this goes back to the cars themselves. It's one thing to say "make the cars stock again", but we all know that can't happen or the drivers will revolt. But the opposite attitude that yourself and others have on here, that "these are race cars so stop pretending they are anything else" is equally misguided. I think that in order to re-kindle that connection, the cars need to be more "stock" beyond just looks. The current Gen6 cars do a decent enough job of imitating the shape of economy sedans, but that isn't enough it seems.
When a family goes to buy a new car, they have reasons why they pick a fusion over a camry or a Malibu, whether it's power, fuel economy, reliability, or plain looks. They clearly aren't all the same on the showroom floor. So if that family happens to tune in on a Sunday in the summer, I think a lot of them subtly expect to see those same characteristics played out on the racetrack. Right now they aren't seeing it and it's a big missed opportunity. People don't just want to see stock elements of the car just for looks, they want to see these elements effect the race itself. It's not like NASCAR has completely abandoned the stock characteristics of the cars; they still carry 18 gallon fuel tanks and five lug nuts per wheel and I don't see any "race car only" fans complaining about either. NASCAR needs to re-introduce more elements like those back into the cars.
This is very true, and hometown boosterism is enough to overcome many faults in stick-and-ball sports. I've posited before that maybe the concentration of NASCAR teams around Charlotte is a negative in the long run. However, that's all ignoring the fact that NASCAR has, or at least used to have, strong fan rooting interests based on manufacturers. People pledged allegiance to a driver based on what he was driving, because they themselves owned and drove that make of car. Does that still happen today? Sure, but not as much. Like I said above it's harder now to make that connection between what the fan owns and what their driver drives. Also, the increasing market penetration of foreign brands such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda has further eroded that connection. That's why it is crucial to attract more than the current 3. Getting Toyota in NASCAR was huge. Getting FCA would immediately put the NASCAR manufacturers over 60% in terms of representation of new car sales.
