Timed NASCAR Races

dpkimmel2001

dpkimmel2001

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Forget the # of laps. Instead let's make this fit into a neat little time slot for television. :eek:

I really, really don't like the idea of this but they are pushing this theme pretty heavy today on NASCAR Radio. Is this something that you'd like to see? They are getting a lot of calls in favor of this idea and I'm afraid Brian may be listening. Do you want to see the race run for an allotted 3 hour window? Thoughts?
 
Two shows. Four hosts. All four like this idea. They all seem to be trying to push this agenda today.
 
I don't HATE it, but I don't think it's necessary. The biggest problem I see with it is, say driver A is out front at the 2:57 mark of a 3 hour race with driver B closing in, and NASCAR throws a questionable caution, everyone will swear up and down that the race was rigged for driver A. At least now if a situation like this happened in the closing laps, there would still have to be a GWC, unless NASCAR would institute some kind of "overtime" for a similar situation in a timed race.
 
Timed races may be necessary when Sprint Cup races end up on Fox Sports 1 squeezed in between basketbore, MMA and baseball or when NASCAR pushes the start of the races back to 3pm and 4pm during football season when the races are on the same channel airing the game of the week.
 
Keep in mind, it's very likely that FOX Sports gets NBA rights. We've already seen NASCAR go to the back burner for college hoops. Imagine what will happen when NBA comes in to rule the roost.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Keep in mind, it's very likely that FOX Sports gets NBA rights. We've already seen NASCAR go to the back burner for college hoops. Imagine what will happen when NBA comes in to rule the roost.
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Maybe I'll have to start watching in on Fox Sports 3? Who knows? Wherever it's at I'll be watching it.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Keep in mind, it's very likely that FOX Sports gets NBA rights. We've already seen NASCAR go to the back burner for college hoops. Imagine what will happen when NBA comes in to rule the roost.
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I have noticed that i don't see even a fraction of the nascar commercials that i did in the past.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
Maybe I'll have to start watching in on Fox Sports 3? Who knows? Wherever it's at I'll be watching it.
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What I'm saying is, there's no guarantee that, if a NASCAR race goes beyond it's television window, FS1 will stick with it. In fact, based on what we've already seen from Fox Sports 1, there's no guarantee that Fox Sports 2 is an option. Even then, it's easy for you or me to say, if they move the race to FS2, I'll just flip the channel. This isn't like ESPN moving something to ESPN2. Millions of people don't get Fox Sports 2 and, for millions more, it's on an upper-tier cable package.

Nitro Dude said:
I have noticed that i don't see even a fraction of the nascar commercials that i did in the past.
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I noticed that as well. I was watching the NFC Divisional game, on FOX. The game was in Charlotte. They even showed pictures from the NASCAR Hall of Fame museum as a popular tourist attraction in Charlotte. In spite of all that, I never once saw Joe Buck and Troy Aikman FOX Sports will have coverage of NASCAR beginning in February or mention the Daytona 500 on FOX or anything. I didn't see commercials for NASCAR on FOX or anything. That's unusual. Last year, during the NFC Divisional and NFC Championship games, FOX promoted the hell out of the Daytona 500. But they found plenty of time to mention college hoops and Ultimate Fighter Nations on Sunday. :rolleyes:
 
I don't like the idea of timed races. But F1 does it and TV probably wants it so things can be scheduled (which is important to TV).
 
Is the month of January dedicated to NASCAR and their media pissing on the sport???????

Timers are for endurance racing... Not race shortening. What the **** are they smoking??
 
Zerkfitting said:
I don't like the idea of timed races. But F1 does it and TV probably wants it so things can be scheduled (which is important to TV).
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It's something NASCAR has to consider. This sounds like textbook PR from NASCAR - throw it out there and see where the public stands on the issue.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Unfortunately, it may be necessary. It's been done before when tracks don't have lights and a race runs long because of rain - which is stupid by the way, every single track should have lights.
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There's a difference because those scenarios weren't planned.

The whole thing is ridiculous. 'Cant wait for the 3 hours of Fontucky!'

Ugh. I never imagined the thing that exploded NASCAR's popularity is the same thing that is ruining it now. Television, that is.
 
If they even think about putting a time limit on events like the Southern 500, Coke 600, both Martinsville (almost always 3.5+ hours) races, etc. the answer is no.

Unfortunately, it realistically is probably not far away. FOX Sports has been calling for this for a few years and now with FS1 they have even more reason to.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Fox Sports chairman David Hill believes NASCAR races need to be shortened to fit into a three-hour broadcast window.

Hill said Monday night the length of races -- many stretch well into a fourth hour -- is one of the problems that's contributed to NASCAR's sinking television ratings.

"I think the racing is far too long," Hill said during Charlotte Motor Speedway's annual media tour. "There is more diversion, more opportunities for stuff than any other time in man's history."

Hill said the ideal for Fox would be a four-hour broadcast window, with 40 minutes of pre-race coverage and 20 minutes of post-race coverage. Asked if he'd push NASCAR to shorten any of its races, Hill didn't miss a beat.
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http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/news/story?id=6056097
 
Zerkfitting said:
I don't like the idea of timed races. But F1 does it and TV probably wants it so things can be scheduled (which is important to TV).
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Kind of... F1 has a time limit, but it still abides by a lap count for its races. The time limit is just a maximum. Races almost always end at the designated lap count determined for the race.

Is NASCAR thinking of doing that, or are they just simply racing to the X hour mark?
 
The networks seem to have time for all the pre-race crap. Just cut that out and they'll be lots of time left to finish the race. There's plenty of areas that NASCAR could "trim the fat" none of which would include the end of the race. Perhaps they could look at shortening some of them by taking some laps off but personally I wouldn't even do that.

If there's a single person out there that says they're ok with a race being cut short due to time constraints, but don't mind listening to Waltrip and co. rant for 30+ mins before hand; really ought to give their head a good shake.
 
Another dumb nascar idea. If TV coverage is the problem, do an A and B main with nascar paid announcers. Then 2 different channels can pick up a race, and we'll get more actual racing and less riding around.
 
shark77 said:
Kind of... F1 has a time limit, but it still abides by a lap count for its races. The time limit is just a maximum. Races almost always end at the designated lap count determined for the race.

Is NASCAR thinking of doing that, or are they just simply racing to the X hour mark?
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Cause F1 doesn't have phantom cautions, and usually can get it done in less than 2 hours.
 
3wideinturn1 said:
The networks seem to have time for all the pre-race crap. Just cut that out and they'll be lots of time left to finish the race.
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This. The pre-race shows are garbage, IMO. Go on YouTube and check out an ESPN broadcast from 20 years ago. There was usually about 10-15 minutes between the time they took the air and the drop of the green flag. Nowadays, it's nearly an hour and a half. If anything, I'd rather see that time used for POST-race coverage.
 
Never seen a sport bent over backwards so much to please the media like NASCAR does.

Hopefully Gordon would have retired before they further dumb this sport down more than it has so I dont have to care for it anymore.
 
Kyle18fan said:
Why cant they just leave **** alone
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This.

I think NASCAR's biggest problem (if they really even have one) is the numerous changes we've seen over the last several years. The rules, the points system - everything feels like it's in a constant state of flux. For once, I'd like to see NASCAR just pick a format and stick with it. I understand that they need to bring in new fans, but changing things just for the sake of change isn't the solution.

I really hope this latest gem of an idea was just something randomly blurted out during a brainstorm session amongst the powers that be and doesn't actually gain traction.
 
Mr. Gregory said:
This.

I think NASCAR's biggest problem (if they really even have one) is the numerous changes we've seen over the last several years. The rules, the points system - everything feels like it's in a constant state of flux. For once, I'd like to see NASCAR just pick a format and stick with it. I understand that they need to bring in new fans, but changing things just for the sake of change isn't the solution.

I really hope this latest gem of an idea was just something randomly blurted out during a brainstorm session amongst the powers that be and doesn't actually gain traction.
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They dont give anything a chance to come together. If its not a night & day change to exactly what they were looking for then they go back to the drawing board. I understand the business rationale behind this but I still dont like the concept.
 
Sirius nascar radio sounds like they found a good, pull it out of the air discussion topic. The media loves it all tied up in a neat bundle, no rain delays, no running over because of wrecks and too many cautions. Fox puke one just skips the driver interviews if it runs over so they can show the crowd goes wild or some other no ratings show. They interview the winner because they have too, and cut to their crap in the hopes that the Nascar fans will not turn it off. Espn wasn't much better, so I am not surprised this is popping up. It used to be that speed would have extensive TV time with the winners and other top placers regardless of what network carried the race. ah the good ol days.
 
StandOnIt said:
ah the good ol days.
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Good old days you say? Back in the 90s they didn't even bother to interview race winners live. If the race ran long they would just tape the inteview and show it several hours later.

Cant even comment on how it was in the 70s but I bet you would be lucky to read it in the newspaper.

At least now they HAVE to interview the winner right away. If they want to save up time they should do what people here already said; do away with the pre shows and all that nonsense.
 
Mr. Gregory said:
This.

I think NASCAR's biggest problem (if they really even have one) is the numerous changes we've seen over the last several years. The rules, the points system - everything feels like it's in a constant state of flux. For once, I'd like to see NASCAR just pick a format and stick with it. I understand that they need to bring in new fans, but changing things just for the sake of change isn't the solution.

I really hope this latest gem of an idea was just something randomly blurted out during a brainstorm session amongst the powers that be and doesn't actually gain traction.
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Next will be the talk of shortening all the races to 100 miles or so, utter nonsense IMO. I dont wait all week to watch an hour of racing and I damned sure aint buying tickets to see a 100 mile race, unless it happens to be a small local track.
 
reck said:
Back in the 90s they didn't even bother to interview race winners live.
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Huh? I've been watching since the early 90s and I can't recall this ever happening. Even the 80s races I've seen had live interviews in the winner's circle.
 
TooSweet said:
Huh? I've been watching since the early 90s and I can't recall this ever happening. Even the 80s races I've seen had live interviews in the winner's circle.
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The human mind is fickle.

There were plenty of instances where a race would end without a live interview. There were more than a few, mainly the early years of Gordon's career where he won and no interviews were shown right away. You had to tune in to one of those ESPN shows at night.

Even Gordon got a few of those.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Rainbowarriors24?feature=watch

Check that guy's channel. It contains 98% of his race wins. There are a few races where they jus flat out cut it off because they ran over the time.
 
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