Am I nuts?

gearheadmb said:

D2W said:

I think it is the same thing is happening to NASCAR as some other sports. With the flood of electronic information in front of our faces at all times we don't have time to sit and watch a 4 hour race. Condense that into a 10-15 minute highlight video I might watch it.

I would watch a lot of sports if they did this. A local channel used to do this with the basketball games from a small local college team. They would shorten the game down to an hour and air on sunday morning. I liked watching that. I think a nascar race would work great on an hour of air time. Im not interested in investing four hours in the middle of a sunday afternoon in the summer to watch anything.

It used to be that way. Through the 1970's only the big races were televised in full "flag to flag" coverage and that was a big deal. It wasn't until the mid eighties that most of the races were televised. 

Personally I stopped watching Nascar when the cars stopped looking like production cars. By the late eighties and early nineties the cars turned me off. Like most things in life I blame Ford. 

I'm a fan of production based racing. 

I feel attendance starting dropping with the ridiculous raise in ticket prices, the disenfranchisement of the rednecks and the invention of the interwebs.  Bubba can now watch pRon on his smartphone in the comfort of his home.  The COT and NASCARs constant meddling with the rules didn't help.   The Smart car hatred is a red herring though.       

Taking away the Cigarette ad money didn't help either.  The beer industry has changed too.  Many new small brands and less "might" behind the formerly giant brands. 

I agree that it is not the car that are the problem.  If it was that people wanted to see production based cars then Spec Miata races should have sell-out crowds.    If it were the cars then are you suggesting that the Truck Series could be larger than the regular Nascar if they ran real trucks?  I doubt.    Should the Busch League (or whatever it is called now) then have more attendance since they are sampling Camaros which have some rear RWD aspirations?  There is a Trans Am like series somewhere that gains more Camaro/Mustang and it doesn't get much attendance.  

Just have last place go the opposite direction every 20-30 laps. Should increase viewer and attendance records, and make for some more interesting positioning fights. 

STM317 said:

GTXVette said:

point is it's not cheep but shouldn't cost 5 million a year to field 1 car,   when David Person won his first cup it was less than 1 million.

David Pearson won his first championship in 1966.

1million dollars in 1966 is equivalent to 7.95 million in current money. 

Racing at any level has always been a rich man's hobby. That's especially true at the highest levels. But if it took about a million/car in 1966, and it takes 5 mil/car now, it's actually gotten cheaper to field a NASCAR.

I have an Atl.journal picture of a car crashing into the wall at the pit entrance, 1962  two men went to the CHEVY DEALER, BOUGHT A 62 BUBBLE TOP/409 ON A BANK LOAN.. Built a race car in their garage and went racing, sadly crashed in practice and lost the car.  BUT YOU COULD. I think the race winnings and championship money  32,000 sounds right totaled less than 1 mil.  for Mr. Pearson

They are no longer stock cars, they are race cars that sort of look like a stock car.

I doubt that any of todays stock cars could last 500 miles at race speeds.  It would be interesting to find out.

As the only one here who's been there, I have my own ideas.  I would put most of the decline on over saturation and the alienation of a good chunk of their audience.  All the hokey stages and chase, etc. is what is killing it.  All the old timers are not watching like they used to, and are not passing the love on to younger generations.  When they started introducing these and people complained, they were not taken seriously.  Who would ever have thought Bristol wouldn't sell out, I mean people were trying to buy tickets years in advance, now it's vacant.   The cars are not the problem, IMSA is similar in that a chunk are tube frame as well, and where are the complaints?  No, the issue is NASCAR is everywhere and people are burned out, and the core audience was driven away as the sport they loved was changed into something that ringed false to them.  

In reply to John Welsh :

I liked the trucks a lot more in the very beginning. When they looked like street trucks. Maybe I'm an exception but the cars not being production based is the number one reason why I don't care about Nascar anymore. And why I would much rather watch world challenge or whatever it's called now than trans am or F1 or Indy. Hell even the Australian supercars went spec and I've lost all interest in that. 

In reply to Nick Comstock :

The trucks were no more production based than the cars.

In reply to Wally :

And in the beginning they looked much more production based. The same way a 1982 regal Nascar looked a lot like a 1982 Buick regal production car even though they had nothing in common. Once that went away they lost me.

"And in the beginning they looked much more production based. The same way a 1982 regal Nascar looked a lot like a 1982 Buick regal production car even though they had nothing in common. Once that went away they lost me." That and Japanese cars with push rod v8's got me.

In reply to racerdave600 :

As the only one here who's been there

   W h a a t?

Skittles in a toilet, heh. I'd not actually heard that before.

My in-laws live in Rockingham. My FIL was a big NASCAR fan until they abandoned the Rock. He's hard to get riled up about much, but even with the new owners of the complex possibly trying to tempt NASCAR back, they lost a fan in a *BIG* way when they did that. NASCAR was likely a big part of that areas revenue, and it hurt when they left. He's not the only one who is unhappy with them for moves they made outside of racing in the heart of their core fanbase areas.

How do they lure that kind of fan back?

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

I don’t know that anything could get back fans like your FIL. When they expanded and dropped races they alienated a lot of people. The best they can do is find a way to introduce new fans to replace them. 

I think that the popularity they enjoyed from the mid 90s until 10 years or so ago was a bubble. It was a fad. It was the 40 years before that boom that should be considered the norm. We are getting back to that. So it doesnt matter what they do to the cars.

The good news is if you feel like "Nascar would be awesome if they did [X]" there is probably already a series in existence that fits your description, it is probably available to see online, and they would love to have you watching.

I used to be a huge NASCAR fan. Went to the races, watched it every week on TV. Frankly, it got boring. My kid actually fell asleep at an afternoon race.

Gripes: You can't see 80% of the track most places. There aren't any super-stars or super-rivalries anymore. Restrictor-plate racing was/is a joke. When they started changing the points system and then instituted the Chase, I was livid. And I quit going and watching.

It still has appeal. I watched part of last weekends race on tv. I like the stages now, but it's hard to justify going to a race when I can DVR it, and watch over 2 or 3 days. With the live updated scoring and so many camera angles that make it easy to see and all the extras that go into a broadcast, I doubt I'll go in person again. 

PS. Couldn't care less about being not-production cars. Fast and safe is all that matters.

GTXVette said:

In reply to racerdave600 :

As the only one here who's been there

 

   W h a a t?

I crewed for a Nascar team for a few years.  You could see the downturn starting and the grumbling of the fans over the direction of the sport.  It all seemed to fall on deaf ears as they seemed to be milking it for all its worth, and heading down paths further and further from a racing series and more into the entertainment realm.  That was not a popular move for the long time die hards, and the new popularity that sprang up came and went with the next sports fads. 

I can tell you stories from our involvement about race manipulations, at least as far as car prep, so they could get the story lines they wanted.  Nascar couldn't manufacture a win for someone, but they could make sure you had the strongest car, or in turn, the weakest one.  Rule books were different for different teams.  

racerdave600 said:

As the only one here who's been there, I have my own ideas.  

I think we have several people on the board who have been involved in NASCAR in one capacity or another- crew, builders, engineers, etc.

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

Yes there are a few of us.

racerdave600 said:

You could see the downturn starting and the grumbling of the fans over the direction of the sport.  It all seemed to fall on deaf ears as they seemed to be milking it for all its worth, and heading down paths further and further from a racing series and more into the entertainment realm.  That was not a popular move for the long time die hards, and the new popularity that sprang up came and went with the next sports fads. 

I think this is the best ive seen the rise and fall of nascar summed up.

I enjoy stock car racing.  While I find the playoff format to be a bit hokey, the correct guys are in it to win tomorrow, and I will watch the race with great interest.  I have a guy I want to win, and have two guys that I think will win, and I won't be upset with either of them, and I have one weasel faced little prick that I will be unhappy about if he pulls it off.

So, "Go 78".

Brett_Murphy said:

racerdave600 said:

As the only one here who's been there, I have my own ideas.  

I think we have several people on the board who have been involved in NASCAR in one capacity or another- crew, builders, engineers, etc.

OH I Just remembered I still have a paper copy of a NASCAR Drivers license AND a Check from NASCAR I never cashed.

I didn't think it would mess there accounting up too much ,It was for $3.35 but it is what it is.

I may be the outlier, but my biggest beef with the sport is the dirty racing at the end of nearly every race. These guys are good and they show it throughout the race for the most part. At the end of the race they have no problem spinning or wrecking someone for the win. That’s cheap and dirty. The officials don’t seem to care about it either. They’ll hand out dozens of pit lane penalties, then turn a blind eye to the leader getting stuffed. 

Spoolpigeon said:

I may be the outlier, but my biggest beef with the sport is the dirty racing at the end of nearly every race. These guys are good and they show it throughout the race for the most part. At the end of the race they have no problem spinning or wrecking someone for the win. That’s cheap and dirty. The officials don’t seem to care about it either. They’ll hand out dozens of pit lane penalties, then turn a blind eye to the leader getting stuffed. 

I would imagine that falls under “entertainment”. *shrug*

In reply to GTXVette :

I had some old licenses, pics, shirts and stuff but lost most of it in a storage unit fire.