Good article on NASCAR's problems

[kkep48]

I used to live in Charlotte and Tom Sorenson does a good job on his opinion pieces. This is a very good, and accurate, article on NASCAR's problems and what has happened to the sport.

NASCAR's biggest mistake, as he points out, was abandoning the South and heading elsewhere. Those fans they left behind in places like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro were the backbone of the sport.

http://www.thatsracin.com/115/story/23137.html

 

[orangesox]

I kind of think the Chase itself has gone a long way toward ruining the sport. I get the reasoning behind it, but the reality is that the old points system in and of itself wasn't the real problem. All they needed to do was revamp the points system, not scrap it. The proof is no farther away than looking at Jimmie Johnson and his "unprecedented run". Who really believes he is one of the top five or ten drivers that ever competed? Not me. And not you, probably, but that's the system we have to live with.

 

[TennesseeFan07]

Good read.

 

[ptclaus98]

I used to live in Charlotte and Tom Sorenson does a good job on his opinion pieces. This is a very good, and accurate, article on NASCAR's problems and what has happened to the sport.

NASCAR's biggest mistake, as he points out, was abandoning the South and heading elsewhere. Those fans they left behind in places like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro were the backbone of the sport.

NASCAR, not Johnson, driving fans away | www.thatsracin.com

BS. Hell, I wish it would go back to those times so AOWR can get it's sponsors, drivers, popularity and prosperity back. Without expansion, NASCAR is nothing more than novelty, a blip on the radar of American sporting culture, and no recognition worldwide. Guys would be racing for 50 K a race instead of 5 million. Teams would struggle to stay afloat, and safety would be god awful.


The Chase has done much much more to ruin NASCAR, and to be honest, NASCAR fans whining about expansion is a real slap in the face for an open wheel fan like myself. Why weren't you whining 15 years ago?

 

[doozer]

BS. Hell, I wish it would go back to those times so AOWR can get it's sponsors, drivers, popularity and prosperity back. Without expansion, NASCAR is nothing more than novelty, a blip on the radar of American sporting culture, and no recognition worldwide. Guys would be racing for 50 K a race instead of 5 million. Teams would struggle to stay afloat, and safety would be god awful.


The Chase has done much much more to ruin NASCAR, and to be honest, NASCAR fans whining about expansion is a real slap in the face for an open wheel fan like myself. Why weren't you whining 15 years ago?

at the same time, it's not like AOWR did themselves any favors. obviously the split between the IRL and CART thrust NASCAR into the spotlight, but there were many problems that led to it taking a backseat to NASCAR.

my biggest gripe was always the places they chose to race. with the exception of Cleveland, there wasn't a single temporary street circuit that could provide anything more than a parade. even their most decorated street circuit at Long Beach was joke. places like Denver and the old Detroit (pre-Bell Isle) circuit were incredibly terrible places to watch a race on TV, so ican't imagine having been to one in person. the permanent road courses were always entertaining. they really need to get back to Elkart Lake and i'm glad the put Birmingham on the schedule.

second, it became virtually impossible to find a seat in AOWR without first having spent time in Europe. even Danica Patrick had to put time overseas before she could get a seat in the IRL. it used to be that the USAC cars were the way into AOWR fame, but with the increase in road racing and the lack of a decent developmental series in America, it became harder to hone your talents on the road course in the USA.

third, letting Jeff Gordon get away might have been the single biggest mistake of them all. to this day, it blows my mind that nobody was interested in him. let's face it, Americans want to watch American drivers. NASCAR has that.

to get AOWR back, it's going to take a big name driver from NASCAR to decide that running for the Indy 500 crown is larger than NASCAR, and with the money offered in each series, i don't see that happening.

it's gotten a bit better for AOWR, with the addition or a corporate sponsor to the IRL and with the Infinty series, but even it's loaded with international drivers. for the last few years the 500 has drawn larger crowds than the 400.

i, too, would love nothing more than seeing AOWR return to it's glory, but i'm not holding my breath that it's going to happen anytime soon.

 

[ptclaus98]

at the same time, it's not like AOWR did themselves any favors. obviously the split between the IRL and CART thrust NASCAR into the spotlight, but there were many problems that led to it taking a backseat to NASCAR.

my biggest gripe was always the places they chose to race. with the exception of Cleveland, there wasn't a single temporary street circuit that could provide anything more than a parade. even their most decorated street circuit at Long Beach was joke. places like Denver and the old Detroit (pre-Bell Isle) circuit were incredibly terrible places to watch a race on TV, so ican't imagine having been to one in person. the permanent road courses were always entertaining. they really need to get back to Elkart Lake and i'm glad the put Birmingham on the schedule.

second, it became virtually impossible to find a seat in AOWR without first having spent time in Europe. even Danica Patrick had to put time overseas before she could get a seat in the IRL. it used to be that the USAC cars were the way into AOWR fame, but with the increase in road racing and the lack of a decent developmental series in America, it became harder to hone your talents on the road course in the USA.

third, letting Jeff Gordon get away might have been the single biggest mistake of them all. to this day, it blows my mind that nobody was interested in him. let's face it, Americans want to watch American drivers. NASCAR has that.

to get AOWR back, it's going to take a big name driver from NASCAR to decide that running for the Indy 500 crown is larger than NASCAR, and with the money offered in each series, i don't see that happening.

it's gotten a bit better for AOWR, with the addition or a corporate sponsor to the IRL and with the Infinty series, but even it's loaded with international drivers. for the last few years the 500 has drawn larger crowds than the 400.

i, too, would love nothing more than seeing AOWR return to it's glory, but i'm not holding my breath that it's going to happen anytime soon.

That's part of what I was saying. Also think if JJ, Smoke, and Kahne would have been in open wheel and if Hornish had stayed.

 

[615 Vol]

I kind of think the Chase itself has gone a long way toward ruining the sport. I get the reasoning behind it, but the reality is that the old points system in and of itself wasn't the real problem. All they needed to do was revamp the points system, not scrap it. The proof is no farther away than looking at Jimmie Johnson and his "unprecedented run". Who really believes he is one of the top five or ten drivers that ever competed? Not me. And not you, probably, but that's the system we have to live with.

You might not like him but his number don't lie. He is tied with Gordon on championships with only two men in the sport to ever win more and he is still in the prime of his career. No telling what Johnson's final numbers will be when he retires. Not to mention that when Petty and Pearson were running they ran a lot more than 36 races a season. I'm not knocking them for that but it's like comparing Babe Ruth to Albert Pujols, they are just different eras with different challenges and hard to compare. Maybe they shouldn't be compared. The only thing you can compare between Petty to Johnson is that they are/were better than their peers when they were in their prime.

 

[kkep48]

It's not like they weren't racing in larger cities before taking races away from Rockingham, North Wilkesboro and Darlington. They were still in Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. There has to be a balance there of expansion and keeping to your roots, and that has deteriorated. Those fans that were helping fill the seats and make the sport what it is were left behind. Expansion is great to a point, but when you take races away from southern race tracks that have a place in the sport for a half-filled California Speedway or boring-ass race in the northeast, it's not good for the sport.

BS. Hell, I wish it would go back to those times so AOWR can get it's sponsors, drivers, popularity and prosperity back. Without expansion, NASCAR is nothing more than novelty, a blip on the radar of American sporting culture, and no recognition worldwide. Guys would be racing for 50 K a race instead of 5 million. Teams would struggle to stay afloat, and safety would be god awful.


The Chase has done much much more to ruin NASCAR, and to be honest, NASCAR fans whining about expansion is a real slap in the face for an open wheel fan like myself. Why weren't you whining 15 years ago?

 

[615 Vol]

It's not like they weren't racing in larger cities before taking races away from Rockingham, North Wilkesboro and Darlington. They were still in Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. There has to be a balance there of expansion and keeping to your roots, and that has deteriorated. Those fans that were helping fill the seats and make the sport what it is were left behind. Expansion is great to a point, but when you take races away from southern race tracks that have a place in the sport for a half-filled California Speedway or boring-ass race in the northeast, it's not good for the sport.

Much like the NHL moving teams away from Canada and the Northeast and putting teams in Nashville, Atlanta, Carolina and Miami.

 

[JTrainDavis]

Much like the NHL moving teams away from Canada and the Northeast and putting teams in Nashville, Atlanta, Carolina and Miami.

+1

 

[warhammer]

You might not like him but his number don't lie. He is tied with Gordon on championships with only two men in the sport to ever win more and he is still in the prime of his career. No telling what Johnson's final numbers will be when he retires. Not to mention that when Petty and Pearson were running they ran a lot more than 36 races a season. I'm not knocking them for that but it's like comparing Babe Ruth to Albert Pujols, they are just different eras with different challenges and hard to compare. Maybe they shouldn't be compared. The only thing you can compare between Petty to Johnson is that they are/were better than their peers when they were in their prime.

The chase has obviously made a mess of trying to compare drivers from different eras. If there was no chase, Jimmie Johnson would be celebrating his second cup championship this year instead of his fourth. If the chase had started a year earlier, he would be celebrating his fifth.

At the same time, the number of races that a driver could afford to make in a season was a big factor back in the day. Without looking up stats, I am pretty sure Ned Jarrett won one of his championships in a season when he ran two or three more races than any of his competition. Talk about padding stats.

I agree that you can't really compare results. Who knows how some of the drivers of today would fare with equipment from decades ago? At the same time, how would you guess some of the drivers from days gone by would do in an era where your personality and presentation might make up a third of how you are evaluated by sponsors?

 

[ptclaus98]

Much like the NHL moving teams away from Canada and the Northeast and putting teams in Nashville, Atlanta, Carolina and Miami.

No, not at all. Motorsports, especially in this day and age are kept alive by sponsor dollars, and Jimmie Jack's bean shack wouldn't have been enough to pay for todays NASCAR. Expanding it's calendar opened up a whole new audience, bringing in viewers, which brought sponsorship dollars, which brought money to the teams, the drivers, and the organizers, which in turn, brought in new teams, drivers, and organizers. Expansion made NASCAR a motorsport giant. It makes me laugh when people say that the economy is hurting NASCAR. Compared to road racing, oval racing, especially stock car racing is miles cheaper, they don't have to worry half as much about sponsors as say an ALMS team, or even a Grand Am team. They're basically in a massive surplus. Thanks to expansion.

The chase has obviously made a mess of trying to compare drivers from different eras. If there was no chase, Jimmie Johnson would be celebrating his second cup championship this year instead of his fourth. If the chase had started a year earlier, he would be celebrating his fifth.

At the same time, the number of races that a driver could afford to make in a season was a big factor back in the day. Without looking up stats, I am pretty sure Ned Jarrett won one of his championships in a season when he ran two or three more races than any of his competition. Talk about padding stats.

I agree that you can't really compare results. Who knows how some of the drivers of today would fare with equipment from decades ago? At the same time, how would you guess some of the drivers from days gone by would do in an era where your personality and presentation might make up a third of how you are evaluated by sponsors?

How do you know that Jimmie and Chad and the 48 team wouldn't have just changed their strategy to go for all out points over the course of the season?

 

[warhammer]

How do you know that Jimmie and Chad and the 48 team wouldn't have just changed their strategy to go for all out points over the course of the season?

You don't, but you don't know if they would have been successful using a different approach either. The bottom line is it's really hard to make real comparisons.