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Gentlemen, restart your engines, revive your sport
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Published: February 14, 2009
NASCAR drivers and race teams need more spunk, not necessarily more sponsors, to save their great sport from a severe economic tailspin.
Only hours away from Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500, tickets were being sold at cut-rate prices for the Great American Race, a premise foreign to many drivers in the 43-car field.
The recession has forced fans to cut back on travel and unnecessary expenses, and that's the excuse NASCAR and race teams are using for the decline in interest this season.
I believe fans have stopped buying tickets and watching on television because they no longer feel as intimate with drivers and their sponsors. The downturn has cost hundreds their jobs in Cabarrus County, the epicenter for NASCAR teams.
The sport rose to outrageous heights because Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, and old-time drivers brought quirkiness, charm and determination to the track. They were followed by thousands who rubbed elbows with them and shared in their successes and failures.
Their successors are driving on fumes. These so-called young guns have wasted the rich reserve of fuel and need to rebuild a mountain of goodwill.
This obvious disconnect has been an overlooked aspect in the off-season debate over why race teams have resorted to mergers and layoffs to mitigate declines in revenue and popularity. I think analysts who cover the sport have missed the obvious because they spend too much time in the garage, worrying about engine sizes and chassis designs, instead of asking fans where the sport went off track.
After years of being pampered and hidden from their fans, drivers seem to be in denial about their role in the unprecedented free fall. As they fly in corporate jets and helicopters to the tracks minutes before races, they feel like they're above the fray when, in fact, they could be attracting legions back to the sport like bees to honey.
Lowe's Motor Speedway CEO Bruton Smith was right when he challenged drivers to work harder.
"This idea of running and hiding and not signing autographs, I don't like that," Smith said in chiding competitors to roll up their sleeves and take responsibility for their inaction.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose move to Hendrick Motorsports in 2008 attracted more tourists to Cabarrus County than any other single event, represented this misguided mindset when he blasted track owners in a Sports Illustrated interview.
"The race track owners want drivers to do more? Yeah, right. They need to go back to work," he said. "They forgot what it's like to sell tickets. That's their problem. They ain't had to sell tickets for a long time, and none of them remember how or knew how or ever learned how.
"They need to get back to working hard and doing their promotions and putting packages together for race fans. They don't want to cut the ticket price, but they probably should and get these hotels to quit gouging these people. They can dump that responsibility on drivers all they want, but the responsibility really lies in their hands to sell race tickets, and they have to get creative in doing it. We already do a lot. We do [bleeping] plenty and they are full of [bleep]."
Actually, Dale Jr. is full of bleep on this one, and here's what team owners should tell reluctant, temperamental drivers: Swallow your pride. Suck in your ample midsections and get out there. Sign autographs until your overly soft hands develop callouses. Slap backs in parking lots, local honky tonks and fan festivals. Go back to work for sponsors. Kiss dozens of babies and babes, just like the good old days of NASCAR, when every day was a fight for survival.
Mergers, layoffs and downsizing have crushed the hopes of hundreds who work for auto-racing teams and auxiliary enterprises in Concord, Kannapolis and Harrisburg. They can blame fewer sponsors and harsh economic times for their pink slips. They also can blame the loss, at least partially, on their own drivers.
Racing has turned stale at NASCAR's highest level. The same drivers win every year, and their personalities would not light up a single blub, let alone an entire country. The same teams dominate the sport, bringing up questions of a level playing field.
Drivers do the same thing after every race on television. They pretend to slip a soft drink or sports drink on camera, as though the audience is clueless to their ruse, then answer a couple softball questions from TV personalities who act thrilled by the results. It seems more like the World Wrestling Federation than the NASCAR heyday I remember.
Safety improvements have turned nearly every race into crash-infested examples of inept driving. The increase in caution laps forced NASCAR to mandate a green-white-checkered flag policy to force races to end with action on the track, not because of flying debris.
More caution flags bring more pit stops. Teams and drivers are not forced to rely on skills and guts when they are putting on fresh tires and filling up with gas every 10 laps.
The lack of competitiveness forced NASCAR to contrive the Chase for the Championship. The trumped-up playoff system was supposed to bring suspense back, but it's been marginally successful at best. The best solution would be to start the season at Daytona and end the season at Daytona. Move the July 4 race to Homestead and the finale to the beach.
NASCAR has reached a crossroads similar to the National Basketball Association after the retirement of Michal Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. The TV ratings went in the tank. Players were more interested in talking on their cell phone than talking to fans.
Drivers need to work harder off the track. But NASCAR also needs to get off their backs in the garage and let them be individuals. Take off restrictor plates and put the emphasis back on breaking speed records.
If the Big Three and Toyota pull out of NASCAR, maybe drivers and teams will be able to design their own cars and usher in a streak of unique independence to the sport.
NASCAR has the best racing and drivers in the world. Compare its excitement to the arrogance on the Formula One circuit, for example. But the economic downturn has given it a much-needed reality check.
Gentlemen, start your engines...and start working harder to resuscitate your sport.
• Contact Independent Tribune Managing Editor James Bennett
at jbennett@independenttribune.com or 704-789-9150.
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