Earnhardt Jr. Doesn't sound like a 'yes man' to me. I wonder if he'll be a voice of change to maybe get this sport back in line?
A 400-mile NASCAR Monster Energy Cup race started Sunday at 3:47 p.m. ET, which sounded as if it was far too late for the former driver and current stock-car fan, Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr.
After posting a tweet that simply said, “Start this thing,” and was illustrated by a GIF of a bored guy staring at the ceiling, Earnhardt, now retired, tweeted, “I never liked the mid day starts as a driver. The dislike is tenfold as a fan at home.” He punctuated it with a thumbs-down emoji.
Earnhardt, who will become an analyst later this season but should be NASCAR's commissioner, was on the mark -- again. Even though the race was held in Fontana, Calif., it should have started at 1 p.m. ET. Every daytime NASCAR race should start at 1 p.m. ET. People don’t have all dang day any more.
NASCAR was born, and thrived in, the Eastern time zone. Many of its fans live in the Eastern time zone. According to the Nielsen ratings, the top television markets for the Daytona 500 last month were, in order, Greensboro, N.C.; Greenville, S.C.; Indianapolis; Charlotte and Knoxville, Tenn. All five markets are in the Eastern time zone.
Most NASCAR races used to start at noon or 1 p.m. ET. It was perfect for fans in the East who wanted to go to church (or, to the other extreme, sleep in after a wild night out), enjoy a nice breakfast/brunch/lunch and settle in to watch the green flag, snooze, then catch the end. Races were over by dinnertime.
Starting a race at 10 a.m. in any time zone would be fine with the fans, since, as I have discovered over the years, most of them are at the racetrack early anyway. An early start means an early finish. Consider that Sunday’s race, if moved up, would have ended before 2 p.m. on the West Coast.
The capacity at Auto Club Speedway was reduced to 68,000 in 2014, and shots of the stands during Sunday’s telecast showed that not all the seats were filled anyway. So getting fans in earlier would not be like, say, getting 250,000 into the Indianapolis 500.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveca...ascar-we-dont-have-all-dang-day/#16c59d92608f
Oh yeah Greensboro in the house!
