Jeff Gordon wins Brickyard 400

No it isn't. Especially if you know where to sit, which takes about 5 minutes to ask somebody or do some research.

 

I am not a NASCAR fan at all, in fact I couldn't care less for it, as my care is already at 0.

As an outsider looking in, I see many factors that led to the current state of the sport.

1) De-regionalization (is that a word?) of the sport. New Hampshire? huh?
2) Cars I. You cannot recognize the cars they are driving as one you are driving.
3) Cars II. How many people still get in fights over Ford vs Chevy? I doubt a new fan picking up the sport would even understand that.
4) Pricing.
5) Making it TV friendly with starting times all over the joint.
6) The Chase. I am not sure the "playoff" format, at an unconscious level, didn't hurt it far more than helped it.
7) Pricing.
8) Death of Dale Earnhardt. He was really the last tie to the Old Guard of bootleggers.
9) Pricing.

And if college football is not careful, there are a lot of parallels going on between the two sports.

 

If I were guessing I'd say the best place to sit was in the turn 4 or turn 1 corners.

 

Yes. Turn 1 is easily the best spot in the whole joint, but both allow you to see at least half the track.

Actually, any corner is the best spot but I'd rank them 1, 4, 2, and then 3.

 

The times I've been my wife's uncle has always gotten the seats, so I just sit where he gets them. They were there again yesterday.

I've never paid attention to turns 2 and 3 but it seems that 1 and 4 always had some action going on.

 

I hear this excuse a lot and it is patently false. NASCAR would not be what it is if it hadn't reached out beyond the South. There's plenty, and I mean plenty, of grassroots racing history in the Northeast. Modifieds and supermods are as big up there as anywhere else in the country, and NASCAR also provides a home for the best young sprint car drivers, who for the most part are some of NASCAR's biggest names. (Gordon, Stewart, Kahne, Edwards, Stenhouse, and now Larson). Had NASCAR stayed regionalized, it would have been better for all of us who like other forms of racing, because NASCAR wouldn't be this marketing behemoth that makes NASCAR synonymous with the word racing everywhere but Indianapolis, but for NASCAR, and I'd argue it participants, it would be awful. Once the tobacco sponsorship left, NASCAR would have had a very limited pool of sponsorship, and once Dale died, the sport would have tanked without the likes of Gordon, Stewart, and Johnson.

It hasn't been that way for a while, though. I'd argue NASCAR's heyday the cars were further aesthetically to what you could get in the showroom that what we have now. And todays cars are way better looking, too.

I think a new fan would easily be able to pick up on the the fact that Ford and Chevy are competing against each other, but it's basically the same engine. Yeah, Roush and Hendrick both tune it better than anyone else that does a Ford or Chevy, but what they both get are packages that aren't much different than one another.

Personally, I'd love NASCAR to allow different kinds of engines so that we could get a sort of late 80s Trans Am vibe in NASCAR, but I realize that's basically blasphemy.

I hate it too, but NASCAR would have never got that oh-so-coveted casual fan without some manufactured drama. Hopefully it's on it's last legs, but with the Frances these days, you never know how dumb they can go.

 

I agree. They really do need to do something. The product NASCAR has been feeding the fans has sucked for a while.


I'll say that I've enjoyed this year more than the last few. I wasn't sure about the rules changes, but I like the focus on winning rather than semi-stroking because of points racing. They've also improved the cars. When they went to the cookie cutter cars, brand recognition was lost. At least now you can look at the nose of a car & tell the make. I hope they continue to improve the car. In the old days, all you heard was loose. Now it's all about tight. It's a domino effect too. Bad handling cars lead to rock hard tires to keep from burning them up. Hard tires seems like it has reduced a lot of close racing.

It's been better this year. Hope it keeps improving.

 

Good article. I just don't find flat tracks, Martinsville being the exception, to be all that exciting. "Stock" cars are too heavy & the tires are too narrow to put on a goid show, imo. Indy wasn't built for "stock" cars. And the racing there shows it.

 

I liked sitting in the turns looking up or down the straightaways at Bristol. It really lets you get a sense of the crazy speeds they hit on a half-mile track.

 

I agree with all of this. Once Gordon was snubbed and ran to NASCAB it opened the door for everybody. I cringe every time I hear Harvick or Johnson or the like say it was always their dream as a kid to race in the Indy 500

I would have loved to see Larson in an IndyCar. That kid is going to be a superstar.

 

The novelty wore off for us in 1998. I went a few times after that so some friends could see what the Speedway was all about since they were too dumb to go to the 500 with me.

I'd love to get to Martinsvile. Unfortunately, the fiancée hates NASCAB and doesn't appreciate going to tracks for the sake of going to tracks. She's become pretty die-hard IndyCar so I can't complain much.

 

It's insane

 

At Indy I like turn 4 because you can sit higher there, and there are less obstructions of vision than turn 1. Turn 1 of course is the place to be for the start and on restarts. The pre-race activities are pretty special too. At least they are to me, and I think Dooz will agree.

 

Dooz, holler. I'll meet you at Mertinsville sometime. I always wanted to go myself. I've got to try one of their famous hot dogs or twelve.

I can't believe track owners haven't built more short tracks. Fans love 'em.

 

NASCAR discourages it.

 

I would have loved to see him get a funded ride up the ladder to IndyCar. But throwing him in an IndyCar would be a lose lose situation. He's got all the talent to be an ace in IndyCar, or really anything. But it takes more than talent to succeed in racing and his knowledge is better suited to stock cars right now.

 

If the leadership was different I'd say that they'd probably be changing direction. Short tracks would be easier and cheaper to furnish with the proper safety enhancements(SAFER and fences), less potential people means less space for parking, and also a ticket thats worth more.

 

Fair enough. And the bold part I had completely forgotten about. Hell, it was the Winston Cup.

That said, is it not possible that racing is a niche sport in this country, and once you moved NASCAR out of the south, it experienced a big growth, but alienated your core fans. When the fad wore off elsewhere, what were you left with? My brother was as big a NASCAR fan as there ever was, but about six years ago, he pretty much quit following it. Gave up his tickets to Bristol, too.

Does the dominance of Jimmy Johnson have anything to do with it as well? I know there is no one reason, but I think NASCAR got too big, too fast and they lost sight of the big picture, and when the casual fan lost interest, it all came crashing down on them, with no core fanbase to fall back on.

Have they rebounded at all? I know the last time my brother took me to Bristol, shortly before he gave up his tickets, the stands for the day race were half empty. I was shocked.

 

Who do NASCAR TV ratings look like right now? I've not paid attention.

 

I don't think expanding outside of the south brought the casual fan. I think it was the push as they became "Americas fastest growing sport" that brought the casual stick and ball fan. The fans that came with the expansion up north and to the midwest didn't like what NASCAR became, either. They didn't leave because they necessarily got bored of NASCAR, they left because it wasn't as pure as they wanted. The Chase, Lucky Dog, and GWC chased most of them away.