A Good Year for the Outlaw

Continuing my other post (I’ve edited the timestamp on this one to put it below the first one) on what is REALLY wrong with NASCAR.

We’ve already discussed Toyota, right-wing jingoism, and the dreaded “Car of Tomorrow” as reasons NASCAR is down. Here are more:

4. Track duplication. In their continued efforts to break free from Southern-only tracks, NASCAR encouraged construction of new tracks throughout the 90’s and early 00’s. But they screwed up. First, they wanted every one of them near a “major market” to draw fans from. Unnecessary, as old-time NASCAR fans will travel as far is it requires to get to the show, but understandable. The real problem is not location, but track DESIGN. People are sick to death of 1.5 mile length tracks, which for some reason NASCAR has deemed “the perfect size”. You’ve got the disgusting tri-oval shape (Las Vegas and Chicagoland) which results in cars never really going straight, but in some kind of continuous circle, and then you’ve got the myriad quad-ovals (Lowe’s, Atlanta, Texas) all 1.5 miles per lap, all with the same shape. Gone from the modern schedule are legendary short tracks like North Wilkesboro and Nashville, replaced by longer (i.e. “more boring”), bigger tracks. People love short tracks (See: attendance at Bristol, Richmond and Martinsville), but we continue to get fed a steady diet of bigger, similar, more boring facilities.

5. The “Playoff System”. What a joke. For some reason, Brian France (AKA The France Family Member Not Blessed With Common Sense) decided that NASCAR needed a “playoff” to inject more excitement into the series, like hockey or football or basketball. Result? Same boring end-of-season-decided-before-the-last-race championships (there really has been NO improvement in making the late-season any more exciting than the first part), plus you alienate the first 26 races on the schedule, making them “less important” (perceived or otherwise) and therefore ticket sales and TV ratings go down, and it’s “welcome to the NBA, NASCAR”. Idiotic. Add to that the fact that a couple of your more important venues (Daytona, Darlington, to name two) are NOT included in the playoff events while borefest tracks like Homestead (Miami) and California ARE included, it makes no sense. Not having “Daytona” as part of a “playoff package” is like having the Red Sox play their playoff games in Washington, D.C. instead of Fenway. That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?

6. Night races. NASCAR is the first to tell you that “Saturday Night short track racing is the heart-and-soul of stock car racing.” All drivers come from these venues. All fans start by going to these venues. Around here, it’s Peoria Speedway, Spoon River Raceway, Macomb Speedway, Lincoln, Fairbury, Farmer City, etc. Those are the local tracks. Most of them race on Saturday night. So what does NASCAR do? They schedule more and more Cup events on Saturday night every year. Now drivers and crew members of local tracks all have to decide…do I go racin’ or do stay home and watch it on TV? Fans say “do I spend 9 bucks and go to the local track and miss seeing the big boys that I have stickers all over my truck supporting, or do I stay home, watch TV, and help my local track suffer?”

Turns out, it’s leading to the suffering of both short track racing AND NASCAR racing. Too many people who would watch NASCAR every Sunday now have to make a decision, and too many of them have a) stopped watching NASCAR (hurting NASCAR) and too many of them have also b) stopped going to local tracks so they CAN watch NASCAR, thus hurting the roots of the sport.

If NASCAR needs short track racing to be strong (it does) than it needs to stop racing on nights when short track racing needs the spotlight. But they won’t. They’ll just keep blindly adding more Saturday night races (even though the ratings keep sinking) and more and more mom-and-pop short tracks – paved AND dirt – will keep suffering and eventually closing.

Again, to use a baseball analogy, how would MLB do if it completely shut down it’s farm system? As it is, because of expansion and TV, there are about 1/4 the minor league teams now than there were in baseball’s “golden age” of the 50’s and 60’s. In the meantime, football (ugh) has passed baseball in popularity. Does NASCAR want to follow that path to destruction? Do they want to kill the lead they’ve built and give the audience back to open wheel? They’re on that path.

More to come.