A Voice For The Fans ~ Have We Killed The Nationwide And Truck Series? 6/24/2014 |
I bid
you welcome gentle readers, and of course, we all welcome our assigned reader
of all things NASCAR. I do hope the weather is nice wherever you all are today.
It's one of those "could fry eggs on the sidewalks" days in Georgia,
and as I type, this is but the first day of summer... but it doesn't snow much,
so that trade-off is good for old ladies.
By the
time you read this, we'll be past the first of our two road course races; there
will be bruised egos and feelings, no doubt, but they're big kids and will get
over that after a bit. What that means is that with 16 races in the books,
there are 20 left to complete the season. The final ten, of course, have a
name, albeit it not a stellar one. It's called "The Chase." My alter
ego, The Lady in Black used to call it the Chase for no sponsorship, and in
that aspect, it's doing fine, as sponsors with enough gilt to keep the tires
turning on those rolling billboards are about as scarce as lips on a
woodpecker.
It's my
guess that some advertising guru just couldn't let these next ten weeks go by
and remain nameless, so we are informed by those that are paid to know these
things that we are now entering "The race to the Chase." Really? Didn't that start sometime back in February,
somewhere down in Florida? OK, as the kids say, with a shrug of indifference...
whatever! The whole idea of a playoff in a sport with only one league has
always been senseless and inane to this journalist, but that, as the saying
goes, is just one person's opinion. You are more than entitled to yours.
But it's
not the Cup series or its pros and cons that we'll be discussing today. It's
the seeming lack of any interest whatsoever in our secondary and tertiary series,
the Nationwide cars and the Camping World trucks. Have you looked at the
attendance at these two series lately? Even when running as a companion race to
the big boys and girl, they couldn't draw a crowd with a free admission strip
show... either one of them. The TV cameras long since gave up trying to hide
that from our lying eyes and freely scan the grandstands, which literally echo
with emptiness. Without a word of a lie, they are packing more spectators into
tiny little Bowman Gray Stadium on a Friday night for a late model race than the
trucks and Pony cars can muster together at most tracks they visit.
Beyond
that, even racers seem to have lost interest in those series. At the last truck
races I’ve watched they garnered 32 trucks at Gateway last week and a meager 27
participated at Texas Motor Speedway the week before. The regular starting
field for the trucks is 36. Anything less makes qualifying simply a way to
establish pit positions. Drawing straws or ping pong balls would be a whole lot
cheaper. On paper, the Nationwide series looks a tad better, making the field limit
of 40 on most weeks, but a generous handful of those that qualify retire within
the first few laps. Last week at Michigan, 7 cars were back on the hauler by
lap 16.
These
are not made up figures; they are easily found within NASCAR's own statistics
and both Brian and Lesa France, you really need to
pay attention to them. A slight increase in attendance at the elite level is
not enough to offset the other side of the ledger and what is being lost
through lack of attendance at the lesser series. These races used to be well
attended; they were fun to watch and drew enough racers to make qualifying a
sometimes breathtaking necessity, just to establish who would race and who
would come back to try again next week.
So...
what has changed? The trucks really haven't changed too much recently, at least
to the naked eye, and the Nationwide cars have, if
anything, gotten better with the advent of the Pony cars that this scribe would
have welcomed with open arms at the Cup level. (I've always harbored a secret
desire to own and drive a Mustang, and if they ever come to the Cup level while
I'm still inhaling and exhaling, I will use that to justify the cost of buying
one... just to say that I did) The drivers remain a mix of new kids hoping one
day to ascend to the Cup level and old kids sliding down the other side of that
hill.
Sponsorship
is less expensive in these series than in the elite Cup series, but the best of
them are taken by those same Cup teams as they use the trucks and Nationwide cars as a training ground for their own rookie
racers. Even so, it's not impossible to get an entry into either series and
there are sponsors out there; they just can't or won't pay as much as many
would like. Blaming a bad economy as though it will get better "some day" has become a futile exercise after so many
years. What you see right now is the economy gentle readers, and most of us have accepted that.
So then,
if logic tells us it's none of those things, what is the reason that the racers
no longer come to race and the fans no longer come to watch? The answer my
friends, is blowing in the wind, as Bob Dylan would confirm. Look at the
schedule changes in these series over the past two decades. These were each
intended to be "feeder" series, where young kids and new teams could
learn the ropes of racing from some of racing's best teachers, the older Cup
racers, working their way toward inevitable retirement but not yet ready to let
go entirely. That pairing is as natural as children learning from grandparents,
who are often softer and kinder teachers than are parents busy with living life
and earning livings, with limited time to teach.
What's
almost entirely gone now are the proper teaching grounds... the short tracks of
yesteryear, where kids could learn without getting killed while doing it... for
the most part. Think about it gentle readers. Think about it, Brian and Lesa. That answer serves both questions. It's the reason
the racers aren't as excited to race these days, and for sure and certain, it's
the reason why the fans stay away in droves. Racing on the cookie-cutter
1.5-mile tracks isn't racing as we used to know it. It's a parade that makes
passing almost non-existent.
Face it;
no one wants to watch a race won in the pits or by gas mileage strategy. Fans
want to see that good ol' bumping and running, with three or four cars coming
off turn four and the outcome too close to call until they get to that
start/finish line, still bumping and rubbing as they cross it side by side. By
dropping almost all of the great short track races from the schedules of the
feeder series, those series have all but died, and that is a crying shame.
Look at
the truck race at Eldora last year. That race took us back for one moment in
time to what racing used to be and should and could be again. Even qualifying
could have been a stand-alone event, and the race got even better. The race was
a sellout the day the tickets went on sale. The teams and drivers loved it...
even those that missed the race by not qualifying well enough admitted to
having a ball, just being a part of it. Here's a look at one small group's day
at Eldora. Just LOOK at the people there!
Is
anyone listening? Does anyone care? Another perfect example of what I'm telling
you is Indy. Remember Indianapolis Raceway Park, where both the trucks and
Nationwide ran each year in conjunction with the Cup cars running on the big
track? That little bull ring was a sellout for each series, but
"someone" had a better idea. Attendance was sagging for the Cup cars
at IMS... because that big flat 2.5-mile track was never made with 3400-pound
stock cars in mind... so the less than brilliant idea was to move the
Nationwide cars to IMS to "support" the Cup cars. Why the trucks were
pulled from that venue, I've never understood. They just stopped going there at
the same time the Nationwide cars moved across town.
The
following short video from last year's Nationwide race
shows the amount of "support" garnered by moving the Pony cars from
IRP to IMS. Gentle readers, I could feed that crowd in my back yard with food
cooked in my kitchen and on my grill. Even more pathetic is that small
gathering of drivers' friends and family is even more dwarfed by the size of
the venue that is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway... by far the largest venue
NASCAR visits if we're talking seating capacity. Check out this video and the
stark contrast if provides between the crowd seen at Eldora and the scattering
of humanity drawn to this race at Indy. Perhaps the most telling thing in
comparing the two videos is that these races were held only three days apart...
Eldora ran on Wednesday night, July 24, 2013 and the Nationwide cars ran at
Indy on Saturday, July
27, 2013. NASCAR, I don't think you're listening, because I refuse to believe
you just don't care and are settling for a tax write-off on our lesser two
series.
No, this
isn't the whole answer. If anyone had that, I'm sure it would be in use
today... but it's a place to start. Move the Nationwide cars back to IRP, or
whatever they're calling it these days, and bring the trucks back too. The more
those series run on short tracks and get off the ones that provide such bad
quality racing, the more car and trucks you'll see running in them and the more
folks you'll see paying to plant their fannies in a seat to watch. Just look at
Eldora...
And now
gentle readers, it's time for another Classic Country
Closeout. It's often joked that Country music is all about beer, Mama, pretty
girls and trucks, with a jail or two tossed in for good measure. Today's topic
seems to cry out for something about those trucks, so here's a wonderful
old-time truck "song" called "The Trucker's Prayer" as offered by an equally wonderful old
favorite of mine, Red Sovine. Please enjoy:
And
then, because we always strive to be fair and balanced here, we have another
old one, this time by another redhead, Red Simpson, as told from the truck's
point of view. Here is "Hello; I'm a Truck."
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~ PattyKay