Fix the Fans, Not NASCAR

In the fall of 1985, my dad took me to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution 500 at what was then called Atlanta International Raceway.  We camped in the infield for the entire weekend.  My dad’s favorite, Bill Elliott, won the race by just over four seconds, beating Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt, the only other cars on the lead lap.  My favorite, Ricky Rudd, finished 31^st due to a piston failure.  Davey Allison finished last in a #32 Hoss Ellington owned Chevy, having blown his engine on lap 52. 

Dad and I haven’t missed a race at Atlanta since, and we don’t plan on missing one as long as we’re still kicking.  I've done some stupid things to keep that streak alive, and it has taken a very loving and understanding wife to keep me from being a single guy over the past few years!  We’ve seen a lot of changes through the years at the track.  A new owner, management, configuration, new sponsors, ticket prices, very different racecars, rules and even fans.  What hasn’t changed since I was five years old?  That feeling I get when we drive to the track, see it off in the distance, go through the infield tunnel, park the truck in our spot, and see that first car coming down the backstretch into turn three.  It doesn’t matter who it is, what series it’s from, or if it’s during practice, qualifying or an actual race… That’s why we go every year.

If you read nothing else from this point, at least read the last paragraph for me, but please hear me out...

I wonder why other NASCAR fans started following the sport.  What is their story?  What did they love about the first race they watched on TV or went to see in person, that got them to come back the next weekend?  Were they excited by drivers banging fenders, giving the old “bump and run” to get by, big wrecks, or were they intrigued by a crew chief testing the gray area?  Or did they just enjoy the sound, the smell, and the sight of the world’s best drivers flying by them in the stands and the family of race fans around them?  Or was it feeling like they could relate to a driver after watching a pre-race interview on TV and then sitting on the edge of their seat at home as he reeled in the leader late in the race, unsure if they’d both have enough fuel to go the distance?

These days, the level of coverage of the sport is absolutely incredible.  Fans have multiple sources of high quality information from several different networks, web sites, and social media platforms right in front of them, all the time.  The sport's media members are some of the finest journalists you’ll find, and their stories are made even better by the accessibility of the drivers, teams, and the sanctioning body.  NASCAR fans are consumed with detailed analyses of just about every aspect of the sport, which quite literally has more moving parts than any other.  Even Cole Trickle said, 22 years ago I might add, “ESPN, their coverage is excellent, you’d be surprised at how much you can pick up.”  Just think how good Cole would be now!

Fans know much more about the sport now than they ever have.  Not because we’ve gotten smarter, but because the information is out there and pounded into our brains.  But, we’re still far from being experts.  The experts are the ones running the sport, and participating in it.  Folks, NASCAR didn’t get popular by accident.  These huge grandstands weren’t filled in the 80s and 90s because we fans knew the ins and outs of every penalty, track surface change, tire compound, and rules change that was made (those things all used to happen back in the “good old days”, you know- we just didn’t hear as much about it).  It’s great that we do get to hear about it, and the purpose of this blog isn’t to say that the media is over-hyping things… Fans, WE are over-hyping things.  WE are looking too deep into decisions made by NASCAR, changes made by teams, winless drivers and their crew chiefs, and conspiracy theories.  We’ve become so saturated with knowledge and information (that WE are seeking from the media and NASCAR!) that we think we know how to “fix” the sport and its struggling attendance, TV ratings, and supposed boring races.  We think WE know how to make the competition better.  After all, we the fans are what keep the sport going, right?

Yes, we are what keeps the sport going, but we can also slow it down.  Do we need to be able to see the rule book, so that we can ensure that NASCAR is doing the right thing?  Do we need to “fix” Bristol because it is the boring racing that is keeping fans out of the stands?  Do we need to have media members camped out in front of a building all day because we demand to know immediately about the status of a crew chief’s suspension and a team’s penalty, just so that we can then tear apart the decision with all of the intimate knowledge we’ve gained from watching the sport for years?  

I want to know how many of the fans (who say Bristol, other tracks or just the racing in general needs to be changed back to the way they used to be) have been following NASCAR for more than 5-10 years.  Have they been around long enough to see or attend races in the supposed "good old days" of the '70s and '80s where the leader lapped the field, or even like my first race at Atlanta, when only four cars finished on the lead lap.  How many know that in the seven races at Bristol between March 1981 and March 1984, they averaged 4.86 cautions (compared to five last Sunday, and an average of 7.86 in the last seven races) and that Darrell Waltrip won every one of them?  Did we stop watching?  Did we stop going to races back then?  Has NASCAR steered us in the wrong direction over the years?  If the racing has gotten worse, are we still watching and following the sport?  If we don’t like it, but we’re still watching, why are we trying to bring it down every chance we can get, belaboring every negative aspect of the racing or the calls made by NASCAR?

Having access to the rule book will only create more confusion, and lead to fans reading into the rules incorrectly and thinking they are as good as the officials. Lets leave the rules enforcement to NASCAR.  That's what they are there for.  They do not fix races, and they do not show favoritism... period.  Even if they could somehow fix a sport with millions of moving parts, don't you think they'd have found a way to get Jr. back in victory lane by now?

I remember a time when I would turn on the race broadcast and hear of a fine or penalty for the first time, perhaps be up in arms about it for a few minutes, then promptly forget about it when the racing started.  I can even remember being a fan when you didn't know what the points standings were until the next day when you opened up a newspaper.  And the points didn't really seem to matter much until the end of the season.  For sure, you'd forgotten about a penalty incurred during the Daytona 500 by then.  Though I understand we as fans have to know about these things to keep up with the sport because they have impacts on the standings, those days sure were nice.  Maybe we should just take NASCAR's word for it, and move on.

And as for "fixing" tracks to suit "the fans" interest, I say be careful what you wish for.  I applaud Bruton Smith for being proactive after Sunday's race, and taking action to make his customers happy.  But, I question whether he really believes changing Bristol back to the "way it used to be" will really make the fans happy in August when (or perhaps if) they return, or if part of him is only doing it to show the fans that he didn't break the track in 2007 when they resurfaced it.  He's got enough money to do it, as evidenced by his desire to build a testing facility in Nevada and just hand it over to the state, just because he likes to build things.  We've had boring races before, at every track. I've been to them, and watched them on TV.  There have also been boring Super Bowls and boring World Series.  Sometimes it just happens that way.  But if there wasn't much scoring in this year's Super Bowl, would they consider shortening the field to make touchdowns easier and more frequent?  Folks, we're not always going to see a replay of the 1999 Bristol night race where Earnhardt took out Labonte for the win.  Not every race is going to be the best you've ever seen, or even as good as the last one.  And if we go back to single-groove racing at Bristol, that's not going to guarantee a last lap bump and run for the win, or even a lap 212 bump and run for 13th place.  That part is up to the drivers.

We as fans need to support the sport, keep it in a positive light, and not dwell on the negatives.  If prospective fans see that we are complaining about it more than we are enjoying it, why would they watch?  Why would they spend money to go to a race?  We are the people among the people who don’t yet know how great this sport is.  WE are the ones who need to be fixed.  Let our voices be heard, but let’s make sure we are sending the right message and that we’re not being arm-chair crew chiefs, Brian Frances or Bruton Smiths.  They got us this far, and I trust them to take us in the right direction.  Fans, lets get back to the basics.  Remember that first time you saw a car fly past you as you sat in the stands?  Remember the pride you felt when you heard an amazing National Anthem and had a flyover from a B-1 bomber?  Remember the smile on your child's face when he or she got their favorite driver's autograph, or how thankful you were when your dad took you to your first race?  Remember when we held three fingers in the air in memory of a legend, and beating and banging wasn't quite as important to you?  Remember that moment, that first moment when you knew you would be a fan forever?  That's my NASCAR.  What's yours?