Three Laws ~ Plus a New One
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One
of my early articles was entitled Three Laws. It was written on Election Night 2016. It was a racing piece not a political
piece. With Impeachment proceedings just
wrapping up against the man who was elected the 45th President that night, plus
his attendance and being named Grand Marshal for the kickoff of a new Cup
season at Daytona, the time just felt right to revisit those Three Laws and see
if they still hold true. While in this
time of reflection, are there any more laws whose time have come, whose time is
right to be added?
Let’s
review.
Law
#1- The buyer not the seller determines the worth of any product.
As
stated in the original article this is applicable for any transaction from
purchasing a racing organization down to the price of lug nuts at the shop to
concession drinks in the stands and everything else in between. It still doesn’t matter what the seller
thinks their product is worth; it’s the buyer who ultimately decides what gets
paid, and the resultant transaction determines the worth of the product or
service.
This
one got a lot of play last season with NASCAR purchasing International Speedway
Corporation, Sonic Financials and Speedway Motorsports, Incorporated, Roger
Penske purchasing Indianapolis Motor Speedway and much, much more.
We
saw the Cup series move from a single series sponsor like Winston, NEXTEL,
Sprint and Monster Energy to an “innovative” tiered sponsorship model where
“multiple marquee cornerstone partners already engaged with the sport” read
Busch Beer, Coca-Cola, GEICO and Xfinity-would come on board to sponsor the
Premier Series. Different-yes. innovative?-No as it’s little different from
the sponsorship model race teams have been forced to resort to for years-their
product is too expensive for any one company to sponsor for the entire year, so
let’s go out and find a bunch of folks who will say, “what you say your worth
is, is more than I’ll pay but I’ll give you this much for a piece.” Have enough pieces and find enough willing to
do that and you have a season funded.
Drivers
fit in there. Kevin Harvick just signed
a new contract. Did what he ask for set
the worth of his services? Only if
that’s what Stewart-Haas Racing paid.
The
last week or so has seen a flurry of activity over points/charter
swapping. You can be sure there is some
monetary exchanges going on there.
Last
Sunday-18 cars valued at $250,000 before the Busch Clash per Fox Reporter Mike
Waltrip took the starting grid. How many
would fetch that now? Doubt many. So what happened to their worth? I’m sure the owners would like to get that,
but when they come back to the garage on a haul-back there are few buyers
willing to pay that price.
Then
we have ticket prices. On SiriusXM a
week or so ago we heard track President after track President sing about the
reduced ticket prices, affordable packages and “if you want to see a race, we
have a seat for you”. Be interesting to
see how fans respond. Will they think
the product, the experience is worth the price?
Time will tell.
I’m
not sure what it says though, as tracks are dropping ticket prices while at the
same time still removing grandstands.
Maybe its upcoming renovation, but on the surface the optics appear
conflicted.
2020
will be an interesting season as the current generation of Cup car will be
retired and replaced with the “NextGen.”
NASCAR, essentially starting from scratch and going in a new direction
on everything from the inventory of existing cars, to wheels, transmissions,
suspensions, heck possibly even lug nuts obsolete for that Series. So what is that worth at the end of the
season? With a market flooded, how much
will owner’s get for any of their inventory?
But
it doesn’t stop there. With entirely new
suspensions and powertrain, how much is a crew chief’s notebook now worth? He’s starting from scratch now. Same with computer simulations and all
that. Crew members with tons of
experience with the current car... will all that translate to the new car? If not... what’s their value? Do they hold their value? Hope so.
But in the highly competitive Cup world racing to get out front, can any
organization afford to wait, can they deal with the learning curve or do they
bring in crew members from other Series who already have experience with the
technology to gain the advantage?
With
“non-competitive” Pit Stops at six stand-alone races, what happened to Pit Crew
Members worth? They can demand what they
want for those races, but do teams have to pay that price now that seconds
saved no longer matter?
2020
will be an interesting year on so many fronts.
As all the transactions come down, don’t forget Law #1.
Law
#2 - A body either remains at rest or continues to move, unless acted upon
by an outside force.
Newton’s First Law of Motion is as applicable
to NASCAR fans as it was in Mrs. Johnson’s Fourth period Eighth Grade Class. The sport has lots of fans in motion and
NASCAR is doing everything they know how to, to keep them in motion. Unfortunately, the sport has a lot of fans at
rest-they no longer attend races, they no longer watch races. They are fans at rest. NASCAR is exerting all kinds of outside
forces to try to get them back in some kind of motion. Just look at all the new stuff and changes
coming down-
-
New
Series Sponsors
-
New
Drivers entering the Series as the Big Three from the Xfinity to Cup
-
Something
like 18 Schedule Changes
-
Daytona
Moves, Indy Moves, Homestead moves
-
Pocono
Double Header Weekend
-
Martinsville
under lights
-
Daytona
ends regular season
-
Xfinity
Road Race at Indy
-
New
Short Track and Road Course Aero Packages to improve competition
-
Stage
Length Changes
-
New
Camaro
-
Lower
Ticket prices
-
Kids
get in free at some tracks for Xfinity and Trucks
-
Rainout
Refunds at certain races
-
Free
Pit Pass to All-Star Race
-
Expanded
Playoff Field in Trucks
-
New
Championship Venue-Phoenix replaces Homestead
-
New
Hall of Fame selection format
-
New
Pit Stop Procedures
-
Sports
Betting enters the scene
-
New
NASCAR App with more info
-
New
FOX Broadcast Booth - two announcers instead of three
-
More
Pre-Race Concerts
-
More
Fan Experiences
-
A
chance for Kyle Busch to defend his Championship or be unseated
-
Jimmie
Johnson’s final full season
-
NASCAR
leadership changes
-
Drivers
and Crew Chiefs shuffling
-
And
much, much more…
And
if that doesn’t get your motor running you have a season worth of talk about
2021 that includes-
-
All
New Cars!
-
Possible
Street Racing
-
More
Schedule Changes
-
More
Sports Betting
Is
that enough force to get a fan at rest in motion? Only time will tell. My guess is an improved product would do more
to get fans in motion, get them back in the stands, back in front of the tube
than any of this other stuff. I’d sure
like to see them give it a try.
Law
#3 - Good Coverage can't make a bad race good, but Bad Coverage can make a
good race bad.
Let’s
face it, there may be many methods now available for fans or potential fans to
enjoy the race and get race information but the primary delivery method for
NASCAR racing is still television. And
good or bad, it’s up to television to accurately cover the race. That’s their job-to cover the product. For too long I believe that instead of doing
their jobs and covering the product, they thought their job was to cover for
the product.
It
shows in their broadcasts. It’s reflected in their numbers.
Racing
is exciting, fluid, dynamic. No matter
how hard any of us think we know how a race is going to play out there are
forty competitors on the track trying their best to make this day their
story. No one can script that. You can’t write the story line before the
race is run. Too many races went “off
script”, didn’t follow the pre-conceived story lines identified in the
production meetings. Broadcast must be
fluid enough, dynamic enough to follow and bring it to us. Racing is different than any sport out there
today and the challenges to bring it to the viewers are enormous, but follow my
Dad’s advice and “just show the damned race” (which should be racing
broadcasting Rule #1) and see where it gets you.
If
the race is great or if it is an absolute stinker it doesn’t matter. That product is NASCAR’s- Improving that is
their job. As broadcasters your job is
to bring exceptional coverage so that we the fans know exactly what we’re
watching. Are we watching good coverage
of a bad race, bad coverage of a good race or heaven forbid bad coverage of a
bad race?
A
race is what it is. Show it. To grow the sport, two things must be
present-a good product and good coverage of the product. Broadcasters, do your part. Let NASCAR figure out the rest.
NASCAR
is a microcosm of life. I think that is
part of the appeal. In life, do we have
more laws now than three years ago when the first article was written? Over the last three years, has your town
taken down any STOP signs or have they added a few? In consideration of recent developments I
feel it’s time to add a fourth Law.
Rule
#4- “The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.” Distinguished historian Niall Ferguson spoke
these words of wisdom after the U.S. drone strike that killed Iran’s most
important military commander, Qassem Soleimani.
Unintended
consequences are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or
foreseen. They can be positive or
negative. It’s the negatives we tend to
remember. A couple come to mind-
The
Car of Tomorrow was touted as a single purpose platform that could successfully
race at a variety of tracks due to its adjustability. A major adjustability component was the rear
wing that replaced the spoiler. The wing
worked well for what it was intended. Plus, the sporty “drifting look” appealed
to some elements of the target demographic.
The COT wing had one serious unintended consequence as we see here.
The
wing held the car down going forward but turn the car around at speed and you
were in for a ride... and where you stopped, nobody knew.
Another
unintended COT consequence that has moved into the current generation of cars
can be found on the other end of the car-the splitter. The intended purpose for this piece was to
provide downforce to the front of the car.
Works great while on the track.
Get it off the track though it’s “Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, Let’s go
sod-busting, boys.”
Stage
racing was intended to make racing more exciting, with racing incentivized as
points were paid for the top ten positions at the end of each Stage. That’s the intended purpose. In doing so it’s now a common occurrence that
the race winner leaves Victory Lane second, third or worse in points if they
didn’t accumulate Stage points and those other positions did. Sorry, but that’s just wrong. The Race Winner should leave with the trophy,
the biggest payday AND the most points.
Yeah, they get playoff points but it’s still wrong.
NextGen
car is supposed to be a single purpose platform that can race at multiple types
track (wait, I think I’ve heard this before).
Use many components that are purchased rather than produced by the
teams. Supposed to save the teams money
or that’s the intended purpose. The
unintended (or maybe intended) purpose is it looks like teams won’t need as
many personnel as reported by ESPN’s Ryan McGee’s story “NASCAR readies for
season-opening Daytona 500 with big changes just around the corner”
The
sport is racing toward major change, which includes industry “downsizing” or a
more palatable term that is supposed to make everyone feel better about it,
“right-sizing.“.
Cup
will be directly affected. Lower series
could be as well as dismissed experienced Cup personnel could displace lower
series personnel. Speaking from
experience, industry “adjustments” have a “chilling” effect. Hopefully, all the momentum we been told the
industry is gaining won’t get planted in the pavement with the downforce that
layoffs exert like Cup car using the current aero package. Only time will tell. But hang on if you see press releases from
the teams that read something like this
“We’re
looking to take our remaining resources and focusing them on initiatives we
already have in place that require dollars and that will help us grow.”
NASCAR
used these words when they did their layoffs.
These
are just a few things that just haven’t worked out the way things were
intended. I’m sure you have your
favorites (can you say knockout qualifying?)
With
all the changes this year, with all the interacting, interdependent moving
parts, the Sanctioning Body must pay particular attention to this one as the
beast known as unintended consequences will eat them alive.
Here
we are-2020, a lame duck year, a year of massive change. The sport is entering maybe it’s most
important crossroad.
The
sport may change but these four Laws don’t.
Please
don’t forget that racing forward.