NASCAR puts changes on hold to hang on to traditional fans
Earlier and more consistent starting times. Drivers that aren’t afraid to show their personalities for fear of being fined. Races that depend more on the drivers than the engineers and crew chiefs that prepare the cars.
After several years of change, from the move to a playoff format to the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow to a new series sponsor, NASCAR has decided it has had enough.
Chairman Brian France kicked off the 2008 Sprint Cup media tour on Monday by basically saying it’s time to go back to the basics, back to the way things were when Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers fought in the infield after the 1979 Daytona 500.
No, France isn’t condoning brawls. But he and the rest of the governing body do see the need to get back in touch with the grassroots fans that made the sport what it is today.
“We’ve got all the change that we think the sport can stand or needs,” France said from NASCAR’s Research and Development Center.
France wouldn’t say the changes are why television ratings have dipped over the past two years anymore than he would admit that the sport is in trouble. But everything he said suggested there is great concern for the direction things are going.
“I know when they change something at my favorite restaurant, it takes me a little while how to get there,” France said. “If you change too many things that’s confusing a little bit.
“Our interest is to make sure that in the future we keep changes to a minimum.”
So instead of a big announcement that has been commonplace at recent media tours there was talk of putting the focus back on the driver and what happens on the track.
“We need to get back to banjos and get rid of the violins,” said H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, the longtime president of Lowe’s Motor Speedway that hosts the tour. “We got a little too fancy there for a while. There were all kinds of forces moving in different directions in this to make it fancy.
“It’s not a fancy sport. It’s guys with big hands and getting sweaty and getting out there and banging on each other and knocking each other around and all-American fans sitting there having a good time.”
Earlier and more consistent starting times is the first move to correct that. When NASCAR announces starting times on Tuesday, races beginning at 2 p.m. or earlier will go from 15 to 18 on the 36-race schedule.
“There were a lot of things that we tried to introduce into this that just flat didn’t work and are not going to work,” Wheeler said. “That’s something that he certainly realizes now. This is meat and potatoes. It’s not caviar and smoked salmon.”
Wheeler agrees with earlier starting times even though his track is the biggest violator, hosting the Coca-Cola 600 at 5:40 p.m. in May and an October race that runs on Saturday night.
“Here I violate all of those things, but it’s good to get things back consistently,” he said. “Earlier start times for Truck and [Nationwide] Series races, that’s going to make a lot of difference. You start the truck race at 9 o’clock, that’s going to make a lot of difference.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/columns/story?seriesId=2&columnist=newton_david&id=3207561
Okay, this means what?
It’s not caviar and smoked salmon.”
So the Caviar and Smoked Salmon are gone but it's been replaced with Continental Cuisine. I want Southern Fried Chicken and Chicken Fried Steak with a lot of California Grillin...