Thursday

NASCAR’s “Back To Basics” Laundry List

For the first time in some time something substantive has come out of NASCAR’s annual media tour leading up to Speedweeks, and it says something about how far the sport has come down from its self-advertised highs that this came out as it did – public admission that the sport has lost audience, and that it needs to win its core audience back.

Granted it came more from Howard A. Wheeler of Charlotte as he noted the flatness of TV ratings and declines in attendence, but even Brian France gave a tacit acknowledgement. Given how far astray NASCAR has gotten, the problem was evident to anyone, but coming after Brian France spent numerous press conferences blaming gas prices, the Junior factor – everything but his own policies for the sport’s troublesome drop in popularity – it is a bit of a startling acknowledgement.

Not that acknowledging the problem will bring immediate solution, nor bring the right solutions the sport needs. Announcements about race start times and the inclusion of country acts like Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn in prerace shows – this after the sport has spent time trying to distance itself from the country music genre – are a start, but that’s all they are. They are by no means close to addressing the heart of the sport’s problems with its popularity. Wheeler’s statement to the effect that the sport needs “this car of today” to be successful also doesn’t help matters because it misses a substantial part of the present problem.

The reality is that NASCAR has a laundry list of things needed to get back its core audience and to keep that audience, things needed to get the sport where it’s supposed to be -

THE SPORT NEEDS THE ABORT THE COT AND GO TO BOLT-ON PIECES ON THE “OLD” CAR - The Car of Tomorrow never worked last year, not in any of the races it ran before its full-season debut for 2008. The debut race at Bristol was uncompetitive and the only race with the COT that had any good racing was Talladega, and that’s because it’s Talladega. All the promises associated with the COT never came to pass – the aeropush was worsened, the costs didn’t come down, and the “one size fits all” aero package that was supposed to nullify the need for 20-plus different cars for 20 different tracks is illusory – “We built three different cars (for Daytona) and one was ten horsepower better (aerodynamically),” Eddie Wood noted during Daytona testing – as teams will build and build looking for that ten extra aerodynamic horsepower and will inevitably wind up back at square one, because one size DOESN’T fit all.

The solution was there in front of everyone from the start – the old car style with long nose, flush airdam, chopped roofline; fitted with a 7.5-inch rear spoiler with lip and a roof spoiler, and the 2001-2 “hard” tire package that negated the need for as many pitstops as was common before and which saw 26 different winners among 14 teams during its time. The aeropush problem is solved by making the draft kick in better and it also slows the cars down somewhat, and the racing is improved as a result, and without dictating to teams how to build the cars or how to shape them, and done with some inexpensive bolt-on pieces instead of the preposterously expensive building and transition period of the COT.

IT NEEDS A BOOST IN NUMBER OF WINNING TEAMS - There remains talk about “the Junior factor,” but getting Bobby Labonte, Robby Gordon, Dave Blaney, Brian Vickers, whoever the driver-of-the-week for the Wood Brothers is, and others into victories is also important for the sport, because sports is about competitive depth, and NASCAR’s lack of such has been there for years as only nine existing teams – Hendrick, RCR, DEI, JGR, Roush, Yates, Evernham/Gillett, Ganassi, and Penske – have won races in the last five seasons, while two other teams that won in that span – Cal Wells and Morton-Bowers – no longer exist. Getting more teams into victory is needed for the sport’s competitive depth.

IT NEEDS TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT ATTACKING MULTICAR TEAMS - NASCAR has talked about its four-team limit, but there has been no substance to it so far – no requirement for teams like Hendrick or Roush to actually disband some of their teams, no neutralization of planned expansion by teams like Penske. There needs to be substance because without it the team limit is illusory. Hendrick, Roush, et al need to be made to disband teams down to three cars and no more.

Also needed is to attack the issue of engine leases. The blunt truth is that no team should not be able to build its own engines, a situation that has been strikingly overlooked in the last ten-plus years. Yates Racing no longer controls its engines (or much else since its quasi-merger into the Roush armada) and more than a few other teams likewise have no control over their engines. Why NASCAR has allowed this is puzzling.

IT NEEDS A HARD SPENDING CAP AND INTER-TEAM REVENUE SHARING - The economics of pro sports somehow still aren’t being followed in NASCAR, where the “independent contractor” charade remains. No pro sport worth its salt can afford not to have spending caps and revenue sharing; NASCAR is no different in sports economics. Why Hendrick, Roush, and company can’t share revenue with smaller teams is never explained.

IT NEEDS TO STOP SPEEDWAY FRATRICIDE - Bruton Smith hinted during the media tour that he and NASCAR’s speedway arm, ISC, might purchase a track and split its NASCAR dates so Vegas can get a second date while an unspecified new track would get a date, and Bruton cryptically added a line concerning where people would not want to go – presumably a shot at an existing track not owned by ISC or Bruton’s own racetrack empire.

It has to stop. Tracks with two dates should not have to worry about being ruined by the sport. The dates should stay where they are. The irony of Bruton Smith still talking smack about racetracks is huge given his inability to sell out Charlotte, Texas, or Atlanta (the sponsor signage hiding empty grandstands is too obvious to ignore), and one has to wonder about his Vegas crowds.

IT NEEDS TO STAY OUT OF DEMOGRAPHICS THAT DON’T WANT THE SPORT - If any tracks should lose dates, it should be in markets that don’t want the sport, like LA, San Francisco, and Chicago. Nor should there be any dream of speedways in Denver, New York City, or the Pacific Northwest. They are demographics that have long demonstrated they don’t want the sport.

IT NEEDS TO GET BACK THE SHORT TRACK GRADUATES FOR NASCAR RIDES - The F1 rejects who have taken some big-name rides are doing nothing to help the sport’s popularity. By themselves Dario Franchitti and company aren’t a problem; collectively they are. The fact remains that Indycar racing lost its audience in large part because American short trackers were crowded out of rides by F1 types. There is no reason to doubt that Indycars would be in a far better position if it had seen short trackers like Steve Butler, Stan Fox, Tyce Carlson, Randy Tolsma, and Bob Cicconi become winners in that form of racing.

IT NEEDS TOYOTA NOT TO DOMINATE – The cries of “xenophobia” periodically fly when it comes to fan hatred of Toyota’s presence. But the objective truth of the matter remains that Toyota helped bankrupt Indycar racing and has semi-bankrupted the Truck Series to where the other manufacturers have either quit or so cut back their efforts as to be little more than token campaigns. NASCAR can’t allow Toyota any kind of domination.

LEAD CHANGES, LEAD CHANGES, LEAD CHANGES - Never mind reading scoring loops to find “quality passes,” the lead needs to be under fire race after race. The norm used to be over 40 lead changes; it needs to be the norm again.

IT NEEDS SANER RULES AND OFFICIATING - Freezing the field and the Lucky Dog pass have got to go; revert to racing to the yellow. We have seen more than a few races where the wrong driver won because they don’t allow racing to the line and we’ve seen ridiculous controversy over races where NASCAR didn’t throw the yellow, notably the 2007 Daytona 500 where people still think throwing the yellow as soon as Kyle Busch lost it and started taking out the field would have done any good.

Racing to the yellow was not the danger zone sometimes portrayed by media types. Drivers who blame the rule need to take responsibility here.

Officiating has been an issue the last few years as the big names so often get away with things while smaller names get heavy fines or lap penalties. The big names need to pay through the nose by the officials for that part of the sport to regain credibility.

NASCAR has its work cut out for it to regain its core audience.