Our changing relationship with cars as one reason NASCAR is hurting. People are not fascinated by cars anymore. I think it's a result of lack of innovation in car design, rising car prices, expansion of available brands, and folks simply seeing that they love an asset that depreciates in value.
I was at Talladega the first time they did it to Gordon, and while I can't compare it to N. Wilkes, I can't imagine it being worse than that.
This, and the fact they have priced themselves out of their core base along with over saturating the market, are the biggest issues.
The one thing I dislike most is allowing the championship to come down to one race. If they want to do eliminations, fine but at least make the championship be the last four races or something.
I'm hoping some driver not in the final whatever race says the heck with it and puts all 4 into the wall at Miami.
Excellent point, that I've never considered. But, with that, the decision to make all of the cars carbon copies of one another couldn't have helped that one bit.
I love the idea of an elimination - where the bottom 1-2 cars in each race get thrown out of the Chase. No exemptions. No "saves". No "make it up next week". Gone. Out. Every Chase race would matter. And running "consistently" in multiple races (read: doing laps) wouldn't help you, as everyone starts anew the next week. Don't want to be eliminated? Don't be in the bottom 1-2 of any race. Simple. Oh, you dominated at track "X"? Great, you move on. You suck at the next week's race? You're gone. Yeah, we know you dominated last week. But this is this week. And you sucked. But, I don't want the the final race to only be four cars battling for the title.
I think it stinks. I am in no way a race fan, but there is too much that the racers cannot control for it all to come down to one race. I think NASCAR had it right 20 years ago, as racing really is a long marathon. You should not be punished because some schmuck in front of you blew a tire.
This is my take as well, there's too many variables at play to make it a knockout style event. It might be entertaining for a bit, but I think its garbage. The NASCAR brain trust is short on brains.
This is my take. I used to be a decent enough race fan. I didn't watch every lap of every race, but I caught a lot of it. They've ruined it. Personally, I wish they'd just go back to a marathon and award winning A LOT and penalize finishing in the bottom 5-10 A LOT. If they really are hellbent on making some races bigger than others, give bonus points for winning at Daytona, Talladega, Bristol, and some other track.
There is a lot that racers cannot control - but it's the same for all of them. Rewarding "consistency" over winning races is my biggest turnoff.
Allowing drivers to accumulate points over multiple races is akin to allowing football teams apply points from one game to another. The NFL is the reigning king of sports - I don't even know who's second - and they seem to do just fine with the win-or-go-home format. As does the NCAA tourney, the new BCS playoffs, Boxing, tennis, curling, badminton, judo, etc etc. Surely there are things beyond the direct control of the participants in those sports, too. They seem to manage.
But those sports are Team vs Team or Person v Person. One team tries to do something, another team tries to stop them. NASCAR is more like golf. What if, because John Daly flew off the handle in your two-some, and left at the 8th hole, and you were told "You cannot finish the round because your playing partner quit."
Except NASCAR is an entirely different model with a different core fan-base. And the more and more they try to become more like the NFL, the worse and more watered-down their product becomes. And when they decided to allow only those four cars on the track the final week, we'll talk about it. When they legitimately pair it down week by week from 41 to 16 to 13 to 10 to 7 to 4...and I mean cars on the track, we'll talk.
You think that NASCAR's problem is that they're becoming too much like the NFL? In what way? And how is that a bad thing, exactly? Their product sucks because they've made it suck, namely with the abomination of the COT and by employing WWE-style competition management. I don't agree with your assertion that significant overlap of NASCAR and football fans does not exist. And I spoke to the possibility of only four cars running laps in the final race - I was aginnit.
They are trying to appeal to everyone and reach masses that will never embrace their product. It doesn't work. In some ways, they are a forerunner to what might happen to the nfl. By the wussification of the sport (I use that loosely), they are turning people off. NASCAR can regain their base by going back to what works. What they are doing now is running people off faster than the intended plans are bringing in even fans. I literally don't know if I can tell you one person who has "become" a fan in the last decade. I, however, can give you plenty of fans who have washed their hands of it.
They've failed to realize that the public at large is fickle, and the product is basically a bunch of men driving around in circles. Edit: NASCAR brings out my best grammar and proofreading skills.
