By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. That was quick, wasn't it? The "off" season for NASCAR went by in an instant, and even though the Sprint Cup teams were prohibited from testing in order to give the team members more of a break in those off weeks, here we are at the precipice of a brand-new season. And what a season it is, that infamous death march that will continue on throughout the year all the way to the week before next Thanksgiving, with three weekends off over the duration.
Much was made over the course of the NASCAR media tour in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago of the "visionary" leadership that Brian France has provided the stock car racing organization since he took over. In his annual state of the sport talk that kicked off the proceedings, France didn't hesitate to paint a most rosy picture for the series, its teams and its sponsors.
The new Chase for the Sprint Cup format was just fine and would not be tweaked, according to France, even though a non-race winner was thrust into contention for the championship at Homestead. The schedule was just fine, too, even though in comparison to the laughable "everybody gets in" season schedule and playoff format employed by the NBA and the NHL, NASCAR still has the most interminable schedule of any major sport in the U.S. The length of races was just fine, too, even though more and more of the NASCAR races are tedious bores that drone on for hours. And more road races added to the schedule? No plans to consider that either.
In fact, everything was just dandy, according to France.
As I said in my year-end commentary, I’m often asked this: If NASCAR race attendance has been on a downward spiral since 2007, and the TV viewing numbers have been in steady decline, why don’t they make any substantive changes to help improve things? And how do they keep landing those ridiculously overpriced TV contracts? And the answer is, in this 24/7 digital content-driven world we live in today there are still TV networks and their associated entities out there that are willing to pay the very definition of stupid money for the privilege of broadcasting NASCAR races. Unfortunately the NASCAR brain trust thinks this is because they’re doing something right and that they don’t need to change anything, but the reality is that it’s only because the TV network conglomerates have become omnivores on the prowl for anything they can get their hands on to satisfy their insatiable programming needs. Thus we live in a world of NASCAR oversaturation, while the idea of watching a live sports car race is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
Will NASCAR change anything? Not unless it’s by gunpoint.
As I've said repeatedly, if the powers that be in Daytona Beach were smart, they’d cut their schedule and embark on a more realistic racing cadence, with no more than 25 race weekends a year, with five of those races being on America’s premier road racing circuits. And they would investigate going to smaller engines on the "big" tracks while taking the restrictor plates off, while removing about the first 30 rows of seats at every superspeedway they run on. (And I will say this again and again too: That absurd nastiness called restrictor-plate racing has to stop before somebody gets killed.)
Of course all of this would be predicated on NASCAR getting serious about the realities of its declining fortunes, and that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I’m afraid. (One man's "visionary" leadership is another man's declining spiral, apparently.)
After all, everything is just fine.
Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD
(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Daytona Beach, Florida, February 25, 1968. Cale Yarborough (No. 21 Wood Brothers 60 Minute Cleaners Mercury Cyclone) battles LeeRoy Yarbrough (No. 26 Junior Johnson Winebarger Motor Co. Mercury Cyclone) for the lead in that year's Daytona 500. Cale would prevail in his Wood Brothers entry, with Yarbrough finishing second and Bobby Allison (No. 29 Bondy Long Long-Lewis Ford) coming in third. Watch videos here, here and here.
Publisher's Note: Like these Ford racing photos? Check out www.fordimages.com. Be forewarned, however, because you won't be able to go there and not order something. - PMD