Running 2023 Motorsports thread

Even worse, they let the quality of the product go to hell in the process. Like New Coke. Except NASCAR lost the original recipe and keeps making it worse.

"Let's add stages! And elimination rounds!"

 

As much scorn as Bruton deserves, Marcus gets credit for reviving North Wilkesboro. Redneck Jesus, too, because he pushed hard for it.

 

2011: Ryan Blaney says on Twitter that he’d marry the waitress who just served him at Hooters.

2023: Ryan Blaney gets engaged to his girlfriend, a former Miss Hooters International.

Probably just a coincidence.

 

I wouldn't got to war for most of these, but at least someone is nostalgic and thinking.
I'd like to see a return to Cleveland. They left Nazareth off. Is that track even still in existence?

https://www.autoweek.com/racing/indycar/g46176051/10-race-circuits-indycar-back-on-the-schedule/

 

Fairly certain Nazareth doesn't exist anymore.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate on the NASCAR of the 2000s and suggest that the sport attempted to double down on its surge in popularity and lost, but the trajectory would have largely stayed the same regardless. When you're in the position the sport was in, say 1998, you have to expand your reach and your money base. Was it bad for the culture that the sport futzed with the Southern 500 and took races from places like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro and such? Yes, but the economic factors like the late 2000s recession and a general decline in interest in cars that dragged the sport down were much bigger than that.

I hate the Chase. Cost Jeff Gordon two championships. But NASCAR had to do something to avoid college football and the NFL eating their lunch. It turned out that was gonna happen anyway, but that has more to do with the NFL than anything.

I guess my point is NASCAR was basically going to get where it is now regardless of what they did over the past 20 years. They just took the 'scenic route.'

 

Maybe. But NASCAR's arrogance/hubris/chutzpah accelerated its circling down the drain. The France family - and Brian in particular - turned into a slow-motion train wreck.

 

NASCAR was still growing even after Saint Dale lost his head from the neck up. The sport needed a massive safety overhaul but not at the expense of the totally unraceable COT. And the overrreaction to Kenseth winning the championship in a runaway in 2003 resulted in the Chase and the famous "we need Game Seven moments."

Brian France let TV networks and Marketing take the wheel, and they fudged around with the product and found out. Plus, Junior nearly killed himself at Sonoma and Kansas, Goodyear's shitty tires went to shreds at Indy and Michigan, and tracks/hotels gouged families to the point where NASCAR lost the interest of anyone under the age of 40.

That was Big Bill's No. 1 rule: "Don't f--- with the show." And NASCAR has f---ed with the show to the point where nobody knows or cares. And Daytona Beach/Charlotte doesn't want to hear anything negative about their sport, so they insulate themselves from people who could help fix it.

 

@maumann If you were commissioner for a year (let's make it a year because a day is not long enough, I'm sure), what changes would you make to NASCAR? (Anyone else can feel free to jump in.) Fundamentally, what would make it better that might engage older fans and some newer fans?

I'm glad MLB finally made some changes that clearly helped the experience of watching a game last year. So what should we do with NASCAR?

 

I honestly don't know that you can save any motorsports. NASCAR, NHRA, Indy are all in a decline, and it's not the racing product.
What made racing was the personalities, not the cars, honestly.
There are no more Petty/Pearson/Earnhardt/Prudhomme/Bernstein/Force/Mears/Unser/Foyt.
Yeah, race fans were brand loyal, but it was about "I like that guy" or "I hate that guy."
That's what Sunday was about.

 

maumann would be a dictator for only a day ...