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Indeed. This is the best thread I've seen here in quite a while. The kind of discussion this board needs.

IndyCar is finding the right track, and I really, really hope they gain their stature again. It'd be great to see Indianapolis at the top of the heap again.

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-Joe.
Atlanta United FC | Cincinnati Reds | Atlanta Falcons | Tennessee Titans

I've only been following NASCAR closely since last year, but i noticed that it's very similar to wrestling.
Think about it: You have the good guys that never get a good result, the talented douchebags that occupy the top half of the table and then the field fillers, and they "act" these personas on and off the track. Soon enough we're gonna have Kyle Busch making a face turn and JPM going the other way.

NASCAR is more about "entertainment" and ratings and sponsorship than anything else these days, and it spoils the fun of watching the races, Chase or no Chase, COT or no COT.

What are attendance figures like though? I feel like we're seeing more empty seats at the circuits but I could be wrong. Are TV figures up or are the casual fans not buying the changes either?

Well the ticket prices are still sky high despite the fact most Americans are having money worries. They're staying at home and saving money instead.

Great thread here. Paul, I feel your pain. I loved reading about how excited you used to get before races. I was the same way.

A Sunday from my childhood:
Turn on TNN. Dukes of Hazzard was on at noon and then the race came on at one. Buddy Baker and Eli Gold would introduce the race, Dick Berggren would be working the pits. The drivers were already in the cars and he had time to stick the mic in front of one, maybe two of them. And that is all we needed, I don't want to watch 1.5 hours of bullshit before the races. Race started and it was covered beautifully. Those guys knew their shit. It was never boring, even if the racing was. Just the whole feeling of the race was better. The commercials kicked ass too. I specifically remember the Busch Beer commercials with 'The Mountains Win Again' by Blues Traveler playing in the background. They were awesome. People camping, biking, fishing. And then they reach into the cold stream and pull out a 6 pack. YES! I didn't drink back then, obviously, but that was what it was about. It set the mood.

The drivers were like old town sheriffs back then. I remember a few years ago when they interviewed Sterling Marlin about plate racing and how the drivers complained about it so much. He said something like 'lets take the plates off of em and hang em out round the turns, that'll break the packs.' Obviously, that wouldn't happen, but it was more about the attitude than what was actually said. Drivers today have been primped and pampered so much they just don't seem like real people anymore. The only guys who sort of remind me of the drivers of the past are Bowyer and Jr. Yeah yeah yeah jr jr jr blah blah blah, but I'm glad he's here. He always gives a great interview and he never complains about anything. Which has to be tough considering all the shit he gets from the media and the 'true fans' in the stands and on forums like this one. Tony Stewart drives like they used to, but he is a fat bitch so it doesn't count.

So why has everything changed? It's not the money or the ads or anything. It's just a reflection of life in the USA as a whole. Old guys kick ass. They fought in wars and had their teeth pulled for real and all that awesome shit. 'They don't make em like they used to.' NASCAR in the 90s was like the 60's reaching forward in time. Then it lost its grip and now this is what we have. All the old guys are dead and their kids are sitting at the big person table now. The broadcasts can certainly get better, the cars can get better, the races can get better but it will NEVER be the same. I just wish I had taped more races back then.

But hey, new season on the way. WOOO DAYTONA

Here's another one of those little things that somehow makes things incredibly shitty compared to how they used to be.

Why does every "gentlemen, start your engines" command have to be ridiculous and completely over-the-top?

People just used to fucking say it, and that was perfectly fine.

Hell, I wish they would only show it on TV before the "big races", but we don't even have those anymore.

Here's another thing I hate about modern day NASCAR.

They rarely, if ever, go through more than half of the starting line-up for a race. Remember when they used to put on that cool theme music and with the aid of graphics, go through the starting line up two by two and make remarks where necessary?

Yeah, now it's just "Okay here is the front row. There are some popular drivers are starting in these positions. Now it's time for a commercial break, we'll be back for the green flag."

Or if it isn't that, they just instruct you to read the names as they scroll along the bar at the top of the screen.

100% spot on. I seriously hate it when the first words out of a driver's mouth are "the (insert sponsor name here) (insert car tyre here), makes them sound like robots. I want to see real emotion and real character from drivers. Hell, I want to see someone else in tears in Victory Lane like McMurray at Daytona last year than have to put up with another Jimmie Johnson interview.

Oh, and the top-35 rule blows, too. I seriously hate that mediocre drivers with big-time sponsors (Speed, Ragan, Logano to a lesser extent) are guaranteed spots every single week. The provisional system was awesome as hell. Remember the time that Michael Waltrip was 17th in points in 1998, but missed Phoenix because 6 of the top 16 teams needed provisionals? That was awesome. Not because I hate Waltrip, but because it forces every single car in the field to go all-out for qualifying, instead of a select few cars trying to make the race. You know the top-35 is a flawed system when, at Talladega in 2007, cars that were 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th and 15th fastest missed the field, and 8th fastest started 43rd. So I say bring back provisionals!

This thread is a sign that enough NASCAR fans are PO'd enough to not in-fight and bicker with each other. In the past, you'd see someone say "OMG teh CHase sux0rz" and the fanboys would jump in and tell them to "STFU, NASCARox!!" Now, even the n00bs and fanboys can see that American stock car racing is a shadow of its former self. We have to resort to youtube to relive the glory days.
Such a shame

I am encouraged by F1 rule changes and IRL's new car in 2012, though. ALways something to look forward to, even if it ends up sucking in reality

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We are witnessing the pussification of America.

Here is one of the reasons that NASCAR has lost it's luster for me. For me growing up the usual suspects won (Petty, Pearson, Yarborough, Earnhardt, etc.) most of the time, but in the back of your mind while watching a race you always felt that any driver had a chance to win. The races were a test of equipment. You never knew when the leader would blow an engine, or lose a cylinder, or when a local short track driver would affect the outcome. It made NASCAR unpredictable, even though certain drivers won many races, so did Ron Bouchard, Greg Sacks, Lennie Pond, Lake Speed and Jody Ridley. Even lesser stars like Dave Marcis, Morgan Shepherd or Charlie Glotzbach would get to victory lane every once in a while. Now with all the top teams being so bulletproof in terms of car, engine and even pit crew you realistically know the race will only come down to a few possible winners. When Keselowski won at Talladega I was psyched and when Regan Smith's win was taken away because of the yellow line rule I was bummed. David needs to slay Goliath every once in a while so you stay interested. Although I don't think Ragan is quite up to that task.

Spot on. While we're on the subject of variation and unpredictibility, I feel that the loss of major support series like IROC and Goody's Dash has also contributed somewhat to Nascar's decline these past few years. They added something different to a race weekend and you were almost always guaranteed an exciting show when they ran. Speedweeks back in 2001 had nine races across six different divisions. Today you have ARCA, trucks, and two divisions of COTs only.

It's really too bad both IROC and the Dash series went under, because if they were still around we would probably be complaining less about every race being the same as the last. I'd love to see and hear V6 cars running around tracks like Daytona or Rockingham or 12 IROC drivers across many racing categories duke it out again. The final laps of the 2006 IROC opener were IMO some of the best I have ever seen in all my years watching stock car racing.

Just stumbled across this and wow.. Where to start?!? This is going to be scatterbrained as hell because, well, so are all the issues.

A little background on myself, I'm 27 and got into watching NHRA drag racing in around 92 because my dad drag raced and he was into it. I had watched nascar occasionally but not very often and mostly for the crashes. In late 94 my sister started dating a guy that was a driver at our local short track. The first race I ever watched fully was the 1995 Daytona 500. I knew nothing really about the sport other than Earnhardt had just won his 7th title. They ran the promos and commercials during the NHRA races on TNN so I was somewhat exposed. We had a little bet going on the race. I picked Earnhardt and he picked Sterling Marlin. Wouldn't you know it they finished 1-2. I had no idea about Dale's Daytona curse or Sterling's first win the year before. From that point forward, after seeing Dale's determined drive thru the field after a late caution and a pitstop, I was a fan for life of his. I began watching NASCAR more and more, learning anything and everything I could about it. I would record every race that was on TV at the time in NHRA, and soon started with NASCAR in 1996. By 1998 I was actually recording NASCAR over NHRA races. I have most of them on tape and about 5 of the NHRA events that year. The competition and different winners and story lines were great. It kept your attention. Like others have said, you tune in, they do an interview or 2 and then it's game on. It was a good 3 - 4 hour entertainment on saturdays and sundays with the Busch Series added in. I guess now's a great time to touch on the tv times of the era.

TV - When I first started, there was no NASCAR Raceday, NASCAR Today, NASCAR Race Hub, NASCAR In a Hurry, Inside NASCAR, NASCAR NASCAR NASCAR. There was Inside Winston Cup on saturday, which was the only time you'd find out qualifying results from friday. Then they had TNN Raceday on sunday morning, and then a sunday evening ediition with race highlights. When ESPN2 came about and had nothing to show, they started in with RPM2Night. That was one of the greatest shows ever! Not only for the NASCAR world though. ESPN needed sports programming. You saw NASCAR, NASCAR Busch Series, NASCAR Goody's Dash Series races at Daytona and Bristol, and even some others thrown in on late night time slots, NASCAR Modified Tour, NASCAR Late Models, USAR, Hooters Pro Cup, the Winter Heat series from Tuscon, NASCAR Southwest Tour. THEN you also got to see IROC, CART, IRL, Indy Lights, Barber Dodge Pro Series, The whatever touring car championship that raced dodge stratuses and whatnot in the mid 90s, the other Indy Car feeder series - Formula Atlantics? TNN took care of NHRA, some NASCAR BGN and Winston Cup races, ARCA, and the ASA series. Racing was everywhere and there were a TON of series covered. What happened? The other series all went away. Now it's all NASCAR all the time. If I watch qualifying live, I don't need to see it recapped on NASCAR Today, NASCAR Race Hub, and then a 2 Hour NASCAR Raceday before the 1 Hour NASCAR Countdown before the 20 minute intro to the race. Oversaturation of the market. It's the old supply and demand theory. Give less and they want more. Give them 24 hour NASCAR access and people don't want it. (This is another reason attendance is down too - every fucking minute of the race weekend is on tv, why do I need to spend $$ to go to the track? I can't go meet my favorite driver but I can sure buy his merchandise. I can DVR every practice and qualifying session and have a weekend doing whatever then catch up on them later. Plus see them from all the tv cameras, not just the view from my seat. That is esp important since on of my main tracks is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where you can't see shit. There is no bonus or special incentive to be at the track anymore.) Take the Home Depot Raceday and use that money to put into the race broadcast and take 2 or 3 less commercial breaks during the race. TV coverage is shit because it's all one big fucking commercial. Every aspect of it. Why? The network pays NASCAR billions to show their shit product. Where does that money come from??? Advertising! That's why FOX tried to recoup their losses in 01 by not showing a cars sponsor in their graphics UNLESS that sponsor PAID FOX money to put it there. Why has it gotten worse?? LESS people are tuning in. That means the airtime the races cover need to have MORE advertising to make up for the lost viewership. You'd have to understand how the advertising process works to fully comprehend. It's like the superbowl. You know 50 million people are going to watch this game, so you charge someone a million bucks for a 30 second commercial, knowing they will reach 50 million viewers. NASCAR doesn't have 50 million viewers. Sometimes I wonder if they have 50,000 viewers. They still have to pay for the 4 hour window they are using to air the event though, so since 1 company isn't going to pony up a million bucks for 50,000 people to see their stuff, they need to find 100 sponsors to spend 100,000 on commercials, and show alot more of them! Infomercials run rampant late at night because it's dirt cheap air time. This is part of the tv issue. You can't possibly make a shit product tolerable when you are trying to cover your own ass. It also has to do with the fact that companies like ESPN that used to be all sports all the time are now into whatever pays the bills. NHRA drag racing is a prime example. They are exclusive to ESPN, and they pay millions of dollars for the priveledge. It's in their annual tax return. They pay big bucks to be on the air. Yet they STILL get pre-empted by things like a tennis match running long, little league world series, football, basketball, etc... The commercialism in tv in the USA (along with every other aspect in life) is getting worse by the year. The shows will NEVER be like they were, no matter how much we hope. Oh and the other thing killing TV, on the NASCAR end anyways, is the on-air talent thinking THEY are the show and not the race. DW I would love to watch a 3 hour show of you telling stories of your hay-day, just don't do it during the race i'm trying to watch okay? Thanks.

Other series - Why did the Goody's Dash Series die? What about ASA? Where did CART go? How come IROC closed up shop? Look at the list of racing series operating in the mid 90s to early 00s and look at what's left. What the heck happened?? It got too damn expensive to compete! There are no more john doe's just picking up racing as a hobby anymore. That's why there are the same drivers in NASCAR every year. You see more leaving than you do coming in. Why? The almighty dollar and lack thereof. It's killed plenty of other racing series. On the drag racing side, IHRA is a shadow of it's former self, and the NHRA continues raising entry fees for it's backbone, the sportsman racer. You pay a 300+ dollar entry fee, plus gas, plus crew, plus hotel. Then let's don't forget safety! Your perfectly good seatbelts expire every 2 years, every year in some instances. Why are the seatbelts in my street car not replaced every few years if they are that bad? Gotta have a new SFI rating and new safety equipment. I know the same has to hold true in NASCAR and the other series. The little guy is getting driven out, so there is nobody left to replaced the big name superstar when he leaves. That's why Elliott, Labonte, Martin, etc have "retired" yet race 15+ races a year. To the guy who says I'll go watch something else... I got news for ya buddy! The water is just as muddy on this side of the fence. I've been a fan of most every racing series there is and they are ALL in decline. IRL has gotten a possible transfusion with this 2012 hype, but if it's a bust, that series is bye bye, Indy 500 or not. NHRA? Shit, since Kalitta died and they shortened the track, the racing is pointless. You think JJ winning 5 in a row here is bad.. John Force won his 15th title last year in Funny Car. Infact aside from 92 he won every year from 1990-2003. That's dominance. Larry Dixon broke Tony Schumachers streak of 6 straight Top Fuel titles in 2010. The haves and have nots are just as bad there as it is in NASCAR. Same winners every week, same champions every year, ho-hum racing. Those fans are just as upset with their series as NASCAR fans are with it.

The product - Any fan from any generation in any series always looks back at "their first time watching" as that series hay-day. Ask someone who watched in the 60s and they'll say that's when stock cars were stock cars and the 70s-10s are nothing like it. Then so on and so on.. The sad reality for those of us that are fans today is, it's always going to be stagnant or in decline. Take indycar or the indy 500. How cool must it have been to see them break 100, 150, 200, 210, 220, 230mph beariers? They came damn close to 240, then Scott Brayton was killed and IRL was going to a new slower car. The CART series did manage 240 at california, but never again. NHRA surpassed 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 310, 320, and 330 in the quarter mile, as well as the 6, 5, 4, 4.5, 4.4 second ranges. Then they (or the insurance companies) decided that's a bit much. Scott Kalitta's death sealed the deal and the 1,000 foot tracks have yielded a 325mph best. The records will forever stand at 4.42 and 337mph for a quarter mile. They've said already IF they ever go back, it will be with slower cars and smaller engines in place. NASCAR saw 200+ on the superspeedways, until Bobby Allison's trip to the catch fence. They will NEVER take off the restrictor plate. The factor of open competition is gone. The rulebook in each series is so tight there is no more gray area. THAT is what has killed the product. The NASCAR COT not only tackled the safety issue, it took care of the ingenuity factor. THIS is how you will build our car and we will put a lifesize template over it, if you are off by .006" you're out. Really? How about Daytona and Talladega.. We'll give you the shocks and springs we want you to run. No need to try to go faster, this is what you get. The rules go to the officiating of the sport too. How many times have we seen Ernie Irvan blowing his right front tire to pieces down the backstraight in the first Brickyard 400? For the debris that littered the track.. where was the caution? I watched the 1995 BGN race from talladega not too long ago. Jeff Green spun into the infield and hit the inside wall. He SPUN out of the pack and HIT THE WALL. Drove the car back with NO caution. You so much as sneeze and they throw a yellow today. In the name of safety they say. Racing back to the line for a yellow? Nah we're good. We don't think you're good enough to not kill yourselves. Although Pirate himself did blast the back of Greg Sacks car at Texas in 1997 trying to get a lap back, but that's about the only time I can think of an accident caused by it. Yellow line rule is b.s. Green white checkered I'll actually give them. Double file restarts I'll give them. It's trying to put on a better show. Let's face it, that's all it is anymore, a show.

NHRA is being questioned for its "non for profit" status by the IRS due to the board members running the place into the ground with stupid entry fees and spectator charges, while their salaries are 700k + per year. I'm sure NASCAR heads make even more than that, but they have a bigger product. Let's cross sports. How about the Chicago Cubs? They suck and will never win another world series ever. Every game is a sellout. Why? Who the hell knows. There are enough idiots passionate about them to pay the price to see them lose. They have no NEED to win a world series ever because the yearly sellouts pay all the bills and earn them the $$$. Sound familiar? We are passionate about NASCAR and racing as a whole, to spend our weekends watching, spend our $$ attending a few events, and spend $$ on a t-shirt or diecast here and there. Why? Well for me it's all I've ever known. If I stop watching now, what the hell else would I take up? Golf?

Ah, I'd forgotten about Regan Smith's Talladega win. I've wanted to see him do well ever since that race.

But that's another thing. The big teams are really powerful and it's almost as if you can't achieve anything in a small team anymore. There's never any real upsets, with the occasional exception at a restrictor plate race. It sucks watching Robby Gordon, Travis Kvapil and co lining up on the 21st row every single week. They're better than the car allows them to be. Surprisingly predictable for what is considered a spec series.

I can't believe I forgot to mention car reliability. In my opinion the lack of mechanical failures (not just in NASCAR) is a bad thing for racing. It's another thing we've talked about on Spamgasm.

Sounded a lot more organized than most of the things I say, lol

I have skimmed through this thread, and it makes a lot of good points. I've defended NASCAR about debateable decisions they've made in the last few years, but it just seems like they're grasping at straws.

I'm not as mad as others here will be, and we can remenisce and talk about the good ol' days if we want, but they're gone, and not coming back. I'm still gonna watch every weekend, and drop everything I do for NASCAR because football's just a little too gay, F1 is a bit too predictable, Indy Cars aren't quite there yet (push to pass? are you fucking kidding me?), baseball's alright, hockey isn't a summer sport, and there is absolutely nothing else to do on Sunday.

Unless you go to church, but if I'm gonna kill an hour of my time wanting to gouge my eyes out from boredom, I'll just stay home and watch NASCAR.

Oh, I might also add that there's a serious lack of good personalities in the sport, and that's affecting it pretty badly. I grew up a Jeff Gordon fan, just because he was quite different from all the other guys in the field, and I found him to be quite likeable growing up.
Now, all the guys who have an "attitude" don't really come off as hilarious, or entertaining in any way. Denny Hamlin has the personality of a rubber boot, and even disliking him leaves an entirely unsatifying feeling. Then there's Kyle Busch, who has a mammoth amount of talent, but couldn't be any more immature than he already is. How is that entertaining?

That's pretty much it.

This entire thread needs to be sent to NASCAR.

There's still plenty of options for undercard divisions/series that could run that NASCAR hasn't tapped or used to their full potential:
- Pro Cup
- K&N East/West
- UARA/LMSC
- CRA/PASS/SRL
- Grand-Am/SCCA competition
- ISCARS Dash Series

If they were to do it correctly, I'd imagine even Indy Lights or even ISMA could be brought into play, for the right price and at the right track.

Hindsight's always 20/20, but cutting the Dash series was a pretty stupid decision by NASCAR. With the emphasis of the manufacturers on fuel savings, going green and smaller vehicles, the Dash series would have been a perfect division to reach significant segments of the population. With the ISCARS Dash series seeming to constantly be in financial issues, axing the Dash series could be a mistake NASCAR could fix relatively quickly.

Speaking of series in dire financial straits, NASCAR probably should have bought ProCup when they had financial issues a few seasons ago, and when the specs between K&N and ProCup were closer. If they had done it right, NASCAR could have had 4 successful Grand National divisions (West, North, SouthEast and Midwest) available to go to untapped markets, run as companion events and be utilized as development divisions, without throwing away virtually all of the northern competitors in doing so. A lot of the goodwill towards NASCAR amongst GN teams and tracks is gone, but NASCAR probably still has sufficient clout to make something like this work, and regain the ground in the NE lost to ACT.

But they'd just put it in the ignored pile

For me, the final straw was the TV coverage becoming unwatchable. I'm a late comer to NASCAR (2002) but even in the 8 or 9 years I've watched, there has been a very visible down turn in the quality of the presentation. Now I've had enough.

I'd love someone to do the maths on how much of the coverage is commercials and how much is racing. And I don't mean a simple "There was 30 minutes of commercials", I mean take into account all of the commercials covering your screen the whole time.

When the racing is on, the top and bottom of the screen is commercials. Then when you go to commercials, they give you outro commercials. Then you watch your commercials and when you come back to racing you get intro commercials, telling you about the official female body spray of NASCAR and who is associated with the broadcast. Then during the racing you get more commercials, but they try and hide them by calling them Aflak facts and shit like that. If you take into account all of this, then you're getting to the point where you tune into commercials, and every so often a motor race interupts them.

And this is before you get into all the other crap like how the commentators are cunts. Rusty Wallace is a moron, and Kyle Petty spends the entire time looking for things to have a go at Montoya for. It's just awful.

I know that the TV presentation is relativly small compared to all of the issues Paul mention (I agree with almost everything that has been said), but for me that is the biggest factor. Even if the racing was awesome, you can't possibly watch it.