THE CURE ~ For NASCAR, It’s Elusive
|
|
Here’s
an article that started off being about schedules. I went to
RacingReference.info and copied down the Cup/GN schedules for 2020, 2010, 2000,
1990, 1980, 1970, 1960 and 1950, with an eye toward showing how the series had
things going for it in those earlier years that it doesn’t today.
I
still think that’s the case. This year’s early season races, after Daytona, could
end up having a certain same-ness to them: Vegas, California, Phoenix, Atlanta,
Homestead and Texas, before Richmond and Bristol bring in a bit more short-track
excitement (we hope). Twenty years ago we had Rockingham and Darlington as part
of that mix, too. Punt back another 10, and you add North Wilkesboro – all
tracks with a little quirkiness to keep your interest.
There’s not real chance
of Cup racing returning to Rockingham, but if it did, “The Rock” wouldn’t be
considered a cookie-cutter track.
Pre-Winston
days, we also had the minor races, which in 1970 meant Savannah and Columbia.
Ten years before that, the trail passed through Hickory, Wilson and Greenville,
and Charlotte’s stop was a ¾-mile dirt track.
I’m
OK with saying the schedule could use a bit more variety, and I’m OK with
saying current tracks could alter what they have to provide that, but I’m not
willing to say that schedule changes alone are the fix.
For
that matter, I’m not willing to say there IS a fix.
Did
you notice that, despite all our handwringing about NASCAR’s plummeting TV
ratings in recent years, the Auto Club/Fontana race was the most watched sports
event of its weekend?
When
I was a kid, and I wanted to watch TV sports with the grown-ups on Saturday or
Sunday afternoon, there were three networks; if you didn’t like what they were
showing, you could check out radio or find something to attend in person.
Back in the day . . .
By
the time I was a parent, we had cable, and all of a sudden there were maybe as
many as 10 options, between the traditional networks, cable operations like
ESPN (only one channel back then), Home Team Sports and USA, and a few
independent stations from nearby major markets that showed local teams.
Look
at things today. Almost every network has multiple sports channels, there are
lots more networks, and if that’s not enough, there are pay channels and
endless free or paid options via streaming.
Doesn’t
it make sense that an audience that has hundreds – may thousands – of viewing
options won’t watch any one of them as much as when there were only three
choices?
Complicating
matters that much more are the number of sports to watch/attend. For geezers,
there was a day when baseball and football were on top of the pyramid, with
basketball and hockey just below, then golf, tennis, boxing and bowling, plus
track and other Olympic sports. Somewhere in there were auto and horse racing,
which drew lots of fans but were just . . . well, different.
When was the last time
you saw coverage of bowling? It’s still around, but Don Carter had much more
name recognition than any 2020 pro.
Today
there are changes within the old hierarchy, with football becoming fractured
among NFL, college, indoor, high school, XFL, Europe, etc., and basketball
growing at the college and professional levels (for women as well as men). Golf
seems to have grown, although maybe not tennis, and bowling has shrunk, but
soccer (American and around the world where it’s “football”) has established a
major beachhead. Boxing isn’t what it used to be, but mixed martial arts, kickboxing,
karate and all the variants on combat sports have established audiences of
varying sizes . . . most of them ending up on television in some form.
What do you think the
chances would be for this to have been a Sports Illustrated cover in the ‘60s?
Perhaps
most important, none of the above addresses video/computer gaming, which seems
to be far more popular with a lot of young people than traditional organized
sports.
It
could be that the answer to all this is simple: a fractured sports landscape
and a drastically fractured media landscape will result monetarily in countless
smaller pies taking the place of a limited numbered of much larger pies. And
hey, if we still get good racing to attend/watch, what’s the big deal with
that?
It’s
a big deal of you’re in Daytona wearing a suit, for one thing. I sometimes
wonder how far down the NASCAR/ISC organizational chart you’d have to go today
to find someone who’s making less than Big Bill France was in 1970. A
fragmented world could mean fewer top-dollar salaries.
I’m not wishing anybody out of a job, but I
don’t know if the number of VPs in NASCAR’s hierarchy is as good for Joanne/Joe
Fan as it is for the VPs.
Yet
another problem is competition from non-sports leisure activities. We eat out
more than we used to, and we spend more time and money on away-from-home
entertainment. (As I write this, my lovely wife and I are planning a date night
tomorrow including dinner, followed by live music at a winery.) I frequently
note upcoming races on our calendar, but nearly as frequently some non-sports
activity ends up competing for that time.
Look
farther into the future, and the uncertainty applies for other sports as well.
There’s no question that fewer kids play baseball these days, and my sense is
that all the head injury conversations are steering more from football, too.
(It’s tempting to say global warming will take care of hockey.) The competition
from other forms of gambling is killing horse racing. Auto racing is certainly
threatened by the declining car culture, but it’s not the only sport will
relevancy problems.
Is this the future?
So
what do we do?
We
can’t control a lot of what I’ve noted above, but we can control the schedule,
so let’s come back to that. How about taking that group of tracks I mentioned
earlier – Vegas, California, Phoenix, Atlanta, Homestead and Texas – and turn
one of them into another roval, although this time the infield road course can
be dirt. Mixed-surface races are becoming more popular throughout the world.
We
could also put a short track in the infield at one, then have the cars run 100
laps on the outside track, 100 on the inside, and continue that mix until we
figure we’ve raced long enough.
Maybe
we could just give one track 30-degree banking on one end and a 5-degree bank
at the other.
By
the way, each of these ideas would have the added bonus to reducing dependence
on aero, which reduces passing and competition.
Will
any of this save the racing world? Of course not – not that anything I say is
likely to be implemented in the first place – but unless we think outside the
current Daytona box (a situation that has seen improvement, just not enough),
my guess is that the 2040 schedule may be filled with parties watching vids of
the good ol’ days.
Frank’s
Loose Lug Nuts
(I guess when NASCAR
goes to the center lock (one lug nut) wheel next year, I’ll have to rename
this.)
Since
I complained last week about it costing so much more to attend races these days,
I thought it only fair to pass this along. During my recent research session at
the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing, I rummaged through records of the old
Central States Racing Association (which also was the Consolidated States
Racing Association), a contender for early sanctioning body dominance.
It
was apparent that these groups in those days were pretty fly-by-night
organizations, which might have been inevitable, given who they dealt with.
There were lots of letters from people complaining about things not working out
as planned, and lawyers’ letterheads cropped up frequently. One had to do with
the hospital bill for a driver who had been injured, apparently not seriously.
Somehow, there were two sanctioning bodies involved, and the issue was who
should pony up and pay the bill.
In
today’s world of astounding medical costs, it was hard to believe that they
were fighting over $8 ($5 for the hospital and $3 for the doctor, or maybe it
was the other way around).
Just
for a bit, that didn’t make racing tickets seem too bad.
The
story about NASCAR adopting the 18-inch aluminum wheel was funny example of
the corporate tendency these days to say something and have people swallow it,
no matter how ridiculous.
VP
of Racing Innovation John Probst said that the 18-inch forged aluminum wheel
helps to “better replicate what our OEM (original equipment manufacturer)
partners sell in the showroom.” Excuse me, but I went car shopping with my
daughter a few weeks ago, and while you might see center lock wheels on some
high-end sports cars (in all fairness, including the Camaro, which if you’ll
recall was the 91st best-selling model in the U.S. last year), I
wouldn’t look for them on your SUV anytime soon. They’re much more expensive
and require enough torque to install/remove that fixing a flat on your own
would become a dream. (I might weigh enough to do it if I could jump hard
enough on the wrench, but the hospital bills would be just one more expense.)
If
Cup racing’s tracks are too similar, I might be able to offer another alternative
after this weekend. I’m headed out to watch some go-kart races being run in a
horse arena. I’ll let you know how it turns out.