NASCAR running thread

I don't even know who Brad Sherman is.

And the DUIs is the key. I'm just saying that for a sport of DRIVING, having a really shitty DRIVER with a DUI on his record isn't good. At least Annett basically did everything right after his.

 

So will The Dinger be hanging around the IndyCar paddock this weekend?

 

For all the hand-wringing about why attendance is down, to me a core issue for every racing series is that younger generations increasingly are giving less of a shit about cars and driving general.

 

I don't buy that. Motocross does pretty well when it comes to Anaheim (at least it did when I was there a few years ago) and I don't know that more or less people are interested in motorcycles than were 10 years ago. I think you can make a case that younger viewers have shorter attention spans and aren't interested in watching three hours of "cars going around in a circle" so they can see if there will be any drama in the last 10 laps.

 

Is it wrong to snicker rather loudly?

http://www.nationalspeedsportnews.com/nascar/sprint-cup-nascar/championship-contenders-fastest-at-pocono/

 

I've shared this thesis before, but NASCAR's rise coincided with the era when "country music" became the new mainstream, and the urban cowboy era was in full bloom.

Through the 2000s, it became passe to be "country" except, you know, in the country. NASCAR's appeal is largely in 2 areas. It's cultural, as much a part of southern culture as country music and apple pie. And it's centered on the drivers' personalities. Other than the then-reviled Jeff Gordon, most of the guys who were around in the 1990s are either dead, retired or yelling "boogity, boogity" into a microphone. Dale Jr. has his fan base, but other than Tony Stewart with hard-core race fans, nobody really seems to move the needle as much as Waltrip, Gordon, Jarrett, Elliott, used to.

 

I think the boom in the 90s was what it was. Petty was retiring, Gordon was coming on, (Days of Thunder - DUCKING!), it was moving from the outskirts of cable to broadcast in primetime.
More TV people got involved (hence The Chase), newer tracks without the history or the fans came along and I also think the rise of the "super teams" shouldn't be overlooked.

 

The Chase has a lot to do with it. Now, nearly half the field is racing for points instead of racing for wins, and NASCAR's points system rewards consistency and really doesn't place that much of a premium on winning as much as it penalizes a DNF, which prevents drivers from taking risks and, you know, actually racing.

It was supposed to create excitement, but instead, it has really made the racing much more dull.

The post-merger era has made it difficult to keep up with the teams. At the Brickyard, Jeff Burton's RCR car was pretty close to Petty blue, the #43 was green. And, a lot of the drivers from the 1990s boom are gone. Dale Jr. has the legacy fans, but in a lot of ways, they feel like a group trying to hang onto something that has passed them by.

Add in the oversaturation, the races are too long, and the ditching of places like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro for Kansas City and Chicago, and turning the Southern 500 into a nondescript race in Los Angeles, and it's just not holding audiences. It's why they're banking on Danica Patrick to save the sport. It's not going to happen -- she's moved the needle so much, a few family & friends showed up at her home track (Chicagoland) and maybe 30,000 were at Indy to see her run at a place where she's likely to have the biggest fanbase.

 

Couldn't have said it any better.

 

On top of the excellent points you both made, I'd also say events at the Brickyard in the 1990s had a HUGE impact, both on NASCAR and IndyCar. NASCAR coming to Indy as the sport was just starting to expand made NASCAR legit. Then the first two races were won by the two biggest names at the time. Meanwhile, the open wheel split was in high gear by 1995 and most of the big names (Foyt, Mario, Mears, JR, Unser Sr.) had retired from IndyCar. When the 1990s started, IndyCar was the big form of motorsports in the U.S.