This week we had spotter Rocky Ryan on the show to talk racing with us. Rocky is an always entertaining person and we thoroughly enjoy each and every time he is available. Anyone that has listened to the show when Rocky is on knows that that the conversations are generally light hearted and we take good natured verbal jabs at one another from time to time.
This week started off as it has several times in the past, but then Rocky and I got into a lively debate on how to fix the product that NASCAR is putting on the tracks these days. No this wasn’t a knee jerk reaction to the rather boring race at Indianapolis; but rather a reaction to the overall low quality of racing we the fans have had to endure for several years now and the continued diminished turn outs at historic venues. As is mentioned in my bio I have been a fan of racing since I could holler a coherent sentence. Racing is in my blood, my father built Sprint and Winged World of Outlaw cars for our local track in Lubbock Texas when I was growing up, I know racing. I know good racing when I see, and I know bad racing when I almost fall asleep watching it.
While we had Rocky on this week, we discussed the possibility of removing the front splitter on the cars and reducing the size of the spoiler. This would take away the aero grip that we so often hear about during the race weekends. Rocky agreed that anything that can be done to put the balance of the race back into the driver’s hands would be a good thing. But he also cautioned that making such an adjustment would not be the magic bullet cure all that we all want to seek. So, again I proposed another solution that has been floating around on the interweb blogospheres, reducing the overall horsepower of the cars to bring in more pack styled racing.
His response was classic Rocky Ryan, and one of the great many reasons that I enjoy having him on the show with us. This isn’t a direct quote, but fairly close, “Great so then we’ll get to see the cars drive around single file……just slower.” Basically saying that this solution is one of the more ridiculous resolutions that has been thrown out there as of late, all it would do would hurt the overall ability to pass and give us even more boring races.
After the show, I got to thinking about what else could help NASCAR get back to the glory days of putting butts in the seats at the venues and get the ratings back to what they once were, if not better. As I often do, I hang out in the chat room on our website after the show and talk with the fans about their thoughts on what the content of the show was, what they thought of the guests we had on the show. What they thought about what my co-host and I had to say, just hanging out and having fun.
During this conversation several folks were complaining about the price of tickets for the event(s) themselves, then the cost of a hotel/motel stay. Add in the cost of transportation to and from the venue, the cost of concessions…. Then I realized that the people that caused this sport to surge to the forefront of media, the fans, blue collar working class people, can no longer afford to attend an event that is boring, and that is where my fix comes into place for NASCAR.
In the middle of this conversation, I had an epiphany. “What if attendance at the tracks and the number of viewers each week dwindled to the point that the entire system had to reduce their prices to get people back to the track? Will this be a painful process to the newer fans that have grown up with the ability to see racing each and every weekend? Without a doubt, fans since the late nineties have had the luxury of seeing racing each and every weekend, while when I was growing up we were lucky to catch highlights during the Wide World of Sports, hosted by Howard Cosell.
If fans continue to stay away from the coliseums that have been raised up with the expectation of race fans coming in droves, then NASCAR itself would have to eventually step in and do something, not just something about the over priced tickets and all the other issues that I listed above, but also about the overall product on the track. NASCAR would have to go back to its roots, its grassroots, the thing that made it so popular to begin with. Drivers actually caring about their fans, drivers staying around until every last single fan got their autograph or photograph; instead of being scheduled to sign for forty-five minutes, showing up late and leaving early. It would force the drivers to actually have a personality again, versus just being a corporate shill hawking their sponsor’s latest wares. The list goes on and on in regard to what this would do to the overall landscape of the world of big time stock car racing.
Please do not get me wrong, this isn’t some chain letter / call to arms for; “All NASCAR fans to boycott the races and show them who is boss.” There is nothing more that I would like to see than for each and every venue to be sold out each and every week for every event that is on the track. I know that there will be people and teams that will lose their ability to continue to do what it is that they love most. But let’s face facts, we could very well be seeing the sport that we all love and enjoy dying a VERY SLOW and painful death, akin to a loved one. Someone that we simply want to ease their pain and suffering and allow themselves to move on, as well as ourselves.
I know that this will not be a popular solution, and I get that. But before you start lighting me up, stop and think for a moment. The sooner that NASCAR can get back to its roots, the sooner you, I, and every other fan that has sat there and thought, “Do I want to sit in traffic for three hours to watch a boring race and shelling out money that could be used elsewhere, versus staying at home and watching the same boring race and save money….;” then the sooner we will be able to afford to return to the track and get excited about seeing our favorite drivers on the track. At the end of the day, isn’t that what all true race fans want?