Jumping towards the twenty first century at Nascar

In reply to Wally :

Good point!

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to Dave M :

Chase Elliot, Martin Truex, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, and half a dozen more.  Half a dozen in the Xfinity series. Watermelon dude in the trucks.  

There are tons of compelling guys.

The difference is two fold.  One the real fan base of NASCAR  is aging baby boomers who remember the early stuff  and hero’s that made it.  They  want that but it doesn’t exist anymore.   There is much to respect about fighting your way up by grit and determination.  As compared to corporate selection of a spokesperson. 

And today’s short attention span, highly caffeinated, multiple alternative spectator..  Why should they see cars as entertainment?   Cars are the problem.  Traffic jams, complexity, expense, pollution, and conflict. Helicopter Mommy provides transportation until adulthood when that is provided by Uber/Lyft etc. or mass transit.  

Wally said:

Other forms of racing had much lower viewership at their peak and didn't have very far to drop.  A lot of the fans that jumped on the bandwagon in the 90s were very casual fans that NASCAR won't get back no matter what they change.

Tony George did Nascar a huge favour by screwing up the hugely successful Champ car series, too.  

That really contributed to the huge influx of Nascar watching.

In reply to frenchyd :

Yeah, Kyle Busch is a lovely, bland corporate schill.

No, he's an exciting, engaging, corporate shill.

The stands at Taladega looked pretty full and most sat through the rain delay.

Nascar in the '70 and '80 was something new and exciting with a bunch of interesting drivers and car companies were involved.    Then came television , much cheaper to set home in comfort.   This could be behind some of the empty seats.

STM317 said:

Tom_Spangler said:

secretariata said:

And I thought this would be about TBI or some other type of fuel injection...you know some late 20th Century technology... ;)

They've been using fuel injection for at least 5 years.

Throttle body injection. The finest GM tech from the early 90s!

Actually, GM introduced TBI in the 1970's on a few Cadillacs and Buicks( Or Olds, cant recall clearly.) It went more mainstream in '84

In reply to Appleseed :

Most Dale Earnhardt fans weren't fans when he was winning a lot and tearing up cars. I know this because when I was ten I had worn an Earnhardt shirt to Dover and during driver introductions I had a beer thrown at me because he dumped someone's guy the week before.  GM spent a lot of money making Dale the folk hero he his today, prior to that he was a guy that either won or crashed and complained.  The difference was Dale didn't have 24/7 coverage following him around.

In reply to Wally :

I met Dale (sr) back in the 1980’s, I was already a big fan but I was on business with the guy who painted and decayed his trailers.  We had an appointment and discussing him buying more equipment from me. When he got a call. He cut the appointment short because his friend Dale was stopping by. ( both he and Dale kept Elk) 

I pleaded to stay promising I would quietly stand in the corner and never say a word.  He explained Dale really didn’t like his personal time interrupted by fans, he got enough at the race track.  I understood that because even in my small world I answered the same questions 200 times a weekend. I could imagine what 10,000+ times was like.  

They talked about Elk and I stood quietly having nodded to him as he entered and kept quiet. They were talking about how the elk ate through the top rail of a fence so quickly it  was a constant battle replacing them.  

That’s when I said,” Use white oak, Elk won’t eat it.” 

Dale looked at me with interest, the guy gave me daggers. 

I explained  the tannins in White oak tasted too bitter for horse, cows, and I assumed Elk to chew on. 

Suddenly we were involved in discussions about white oak and I was Dale’s new buddy.  He even bought me lunch. 

So I could see how non-Dale fans might have a problem with his aggressive driving. But he really was a nice guy. 

frenchyd said:

So I could see how non-Dale fans might have a problem with his aggressive driving. But he really was a nice guy. 

The same could be said for Kyle Busch.  He's aggressive, gets emotional when he doesn't win, which Dale also did but had the benefit of not having a camera in front of him all the time, and away from the track is a nice person. I've met him several times and he's been as nice as could be.   One night at a fund raiser he stayed way longer than scheduled because a ton of little kids showed up and he made sure everyone got an autograph that wanted one then he went to talk to a bunch of them that were playing on a simulator M&Ms brought.  

Streetwiseguy said:

 

Still looks like a full sized Hot Wheel to me...

In reply to stroker :

You say that like it's a bad thing.

In reply to Wally :

Have you watched the doc on Fox Sports about the Earnhardt/ Gordon rivalry?  It's pretty good.  They touch on the early days, but a lot of it is the behind the scenes business of managing his own image.

In reply to Wally :

was it in a can/bottle with remaining contents and if such were you allowed to dispense with the contraband in the original spirit of NASCAR at ten years old? 

frenchyd said:

In reply to Wally :

I met Dale (sr) back in the 1980’s, I was already a big fan but I was on business with the guy who painted and decayed his trailers.  We had an appointment and discussing him buying more equipment from me. When he got a call. He cut the appointment short because his friend Dale was stopping by. ( both he and Dale kept Elk) 

I pleaded to stay promising I would quietly stand in the corner and never say a word.  He explained Dale really didn’t like his personal time interrupted by fans, he got enough at the race track.  I understood that because even in my small world I answered the same questions 200 times a weekend. I could imagine what 10,000+ times was like.  

They talked about Elk and I stood quietly having nodded to him as he entered and kept quiet. They were talking about how the elk ate through the top rail of a fence so quickly it  was a constant battle replacing them.  

That’s when I said,” Use white oak, Elk won’t eat it.” 

Dale looked at me with interest, the guy gave me daggers. 

I explained  the tannins in White oak tasted too bitter for horse, cows, and I assumed Elk to chew on. 

Suddenly we were involved in discussions about white oak and I was Dale’s new buddy.  He even bought me lunch. 

So I could see how non-Dale fans might have a problem with his aggressive driving. But he really was a nice guy. 

If you wanted to talk about racing off the track he could be a tough guy to deal with, but if you wanted to talk about fishing, farming, the outdoors, that sort of thing he would be more likely to perk up; I've heard at least.