I’m not a NASCAR guy and I know this would only be a part of the problem even if true, but fairly recently I saw someone say that the NASCAR demographic is exactly the demographic that has never recovered post recession and doesn’t have the disposable income anymore.
I simply mean I’m not a big fan. I once narrowly avoided going to the Talladega county jail after climbing into the flag stand during a rain delay. My buddy’s cousin was a cop working the race and saved my ass. If that ain’t NASCAR as hell I don’t know what is.
It depends on which demographic you are talking about. The classic NASCAR guy that is from the South, owns a 20 year old Earnhardt shirt, drives a beater pickup, and scraps together a week's worth of pay to afford a ticket for the weekend and two week's worth for beer is that guy and fits right into that narrative. The folks they were courting before I lost interest were a little different. You had folks of that economic fortune mixed with young people, professionals, and others with more means at their disposal. I imagine the economic downturn did affect these folks, but I'm not 100 percent sure the "NASCAR" demographic was all that well defined right at that time.
My last trip to the race, I and a friend of mine escorted a couple of guys who had never been. It's honestly the main reason I went. We sat in the grandstands near the start finish line behind this guy wearing FSU colors (hat and that maroon colored hemp hoodie). My buddy and I tried striking up a conversation with him, but he was a bit of an ass. We were slightly intoxicated at that point and decided we needed to flick ashes in the guy's hood to make him feel better (or maybe it was us, I forget). It was all fun and games until about 60 laps in when one my buddy decided to up the ante and flick them on top of his head. He said nothing, but got up for a long while. Having seen something like this before, I realized he was pleading his case to get us run out or worse. Sure enough, a cop showed up a few minutes later and started looking our way. One of the guys who hadn't been to a race before, despite having lived nearby all his life, was sitting on the aisle and looked up, saw the cop, and started talking about mom 'n 'em. Our friend asked what he was doing there. The cop pointed at me and my buddy and asked, "Did you say those guys were with you?" Our friend replied yes and went on talking about how he knew us. Cop says to him, "Man, I heard something was going on around here, but I can see that was wrong. Y'all have a good time..." We flicked ashes on that guys head for the rest of the race. And yeah, we were assholes.
We always stayed at the dirt track, and one night we did a few laps around it with the water truck after we got it started by dropping the clutch. Should have died, but instead got it stuck at the top of the banking in a turn. And took part in a lot of other dumb shit too. Somebody got stabbed on Talladega Blvd one year and that was that for the party on the street.
Cop car getting flipped nearby put an end to "the ditch" in the west campgrounds past the pecan grove back in 97 or so.
I am not a racing fan at all, but from an outside perspective, I wonder if the death of Dale Earnhardt was really the beginning of the end. I know my sister-in-law was so shocked, that I don't think she ever watched much racing again, and she was a freaking HUGE fan. I know nothing like this is as simplistic as that, and I think it is a confluence of over expansion, leaving your core demographic, recessions, death of Earnhardt and the change from ex-bootleggers to guys who grew up racing cars and just race cars.
I'm not a huge fan, but I would watch a couple of races on TV years ago. Shit got too fancy. Put the cars out there, race 500 miles, first one across the finish line wins. I understand the theory behind the different stages, but its dumb ass [uck fay]. The other thing that ruins it for me is, everyone loses their shit the last lap and there's a crash, then the green white checker. Figure out how to stop the last lap crashes, and you solve part of the problem. It's not just one or two tracks were there's a last lap crash either, its every race I see. Last problem I see is too many Yankees racing now. Just kidding on the last part.
