Will nascar fine the #4

[CIRF]

Sure those guys would be in the hunt for the championship and Jeff Gordon, among others, would not. That is the way it should be and not the way it is and that is, in large part, why attendance and TV viewership is half of what it was prior to the gimmicks.

Living in the past? Hmmmm. One has to know from where the sport came to fully recognize and appreciate just how silly, gimmicky and irrelevant it has become in 2015.

Living in the past?! Given that this attempted put down comes from someone who spends time in the NASCAR fantasy world of gimmicks and silliness I wear "living in the past" as a badge of honor. So, by all means carry on! Hehehehe!

[mudslinger47]

Sure those guys would be in the hunt for the championship and Jeff Gordon, among others, would not. That is the way it should be and not the way it is and that is, in large part, why attendance and TV viewership is half of what it was prior to the gimmicks.

Living in the past? Hmmmm. One has to know from where the sport came to fully recognize and appreciate just how silly, gimmicky and irrelevant it has become in 2015.

Living in the past?! Given that this attempted put down comes from someone who spends time in the NASCAR fantasy world of gimmicks and silliness I wear "living in the past" as a badge of honor. So, by all means carry on! Hehehehe!

Point is, the Chase is now and your version is toast.... gonna enjoy the last four races...

[CIRF]

Huh? My version? What are ya', goofy or somethin'?

I've never had a version and never wanted one but one thing is for sure gimmick boy, 1/2 the fan base has gone POOF and the gimmicked up nonsense has had a lot to do with that being the case and the fan base is gettin' smaller every day.

Let's see, phony is good, real is bad. Is that the way it is gimmick boy? Hehehe!

[Raceready]

Hmmmm. All anyone with a little bit of common sense has to do is look at all of the empty seats to see that the gimmick named the chase is not working! CIRF,Clayton,and Kidrock are so right on with thier facts. We laugh how the same class of people go to every carnival that hits every jerkwater town and spend all of their money and then think they've seen something new. Those same people think that the chase is the hottest thing under the sun. lol.Some of them say "If you don't like it don't watch' or "Don't go to those races". Believe you me people are listening ! The attendance is proof enough !

[mudslinger47]

Actually all the attendance hurts is the promoter, NASCAR makes their load off TV and merchandising .....some of the attendance has been poor, however, if you go to the local tracks its the same deal.... my contention is the younger people today, the fans of tomorrow, just aren't car guys.... case in point, when you were 17, would have you gone out and purposely bought a four door car? never, always two door, ht or sedan...but a four door? Most kids out here want four doors ,more convenient... and heaven forbid to go out on Sat. or Fri. night with a dirty car!!!! No way.... well, I lived on a farm and it was 13 miles of gravel roads before I got to pavement, I washed my car the moment I got to town.... kids today couldn't care less...they're not car guys....

[buster83]

one year at Bristol the 3 car should have been black flagged for ruff driving, but they gave him the win.

[t.nie]

Half the fan base is gone from he tracks on the day of the race because they can't afford the extortionate ticket prices and all the other costs associated with going to the race. The Chase, and Nascar for that matter, are all "made for TV reality shows" and viewership is competitive with other similar offerings, if not better. I would look up the Nielsen's but I don't have time right now.

I think the sport generally is alive and well and living in the modern media/social media age just fine. Of course it isn't what it was 20 years ago, but that's life, we all move on. NFL, MLB, NBA, etc are all a lot different now too. For better or worse, times change and you either change or die.

[mudslinger47]

Half the fan base is gone from he tracks on the day of the race because they can't afford the extortionate ticket prices and all the other costs associated with going to the race. The Chase, and Nascar for that matter, are all "made for TV reality shows" and viewership is competitive with other similar offerings, if not better. I would look up the Nielsen's but I don't have time right now.

I think the sport generally is alive and well and living in the modern media/social media age just fine. Of course it isn't what it was 20 years ago, but that's life, we all move on. NFL, MLB, NBA, etc are all a lot different now too. For better or worse, times change and you either change or die.

You are most correct.... the average Joe can't afford to go to hardly any sporting even any more... Although my son went to California race down south and said it was pretty cheap, like 35 bucks for real good seats...

[CIRF]

Hmmmm. All anyone with a little bit of common sense has to do is look at all of the empty seats to see that the gimmick named the chase is not working! CIRF,Clayton,and Kidrock are so right on with thier facts. We laugh how the same class of people go to every carnival that hits every jerkwater town and spend all of their money and then think they've seen something new. Those same people think that the chase is the hottest thing under the sun. lol.Some of them say "If you don't like it don't watch' or "Don't go to those races". Believe you me people are listening ! The attendance is proof enough !

Raceready, well said and 100% factually correct.

Raceready's excellent point bears repeating. To those who would advise folks who don't buy into the gimmickery "don't go, you won't be missed" or "don't watch, NASCAR will be fine without ya'll watching". Well guess what boys, a lot of folks have taken your advise and they're tearing out seats by the 10's of thousands and the races are now on some podunk sports network. So it's clearly evident that we're being missed more and more every season. All in the name of changing demographics, it can't possibly be because most race fans aren't interested in the gimmicks. Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Half the fan base is gone from he tracks on the day of the race because they can't afford the extortionate ticket prices and all the other costs associated with going to the race. The Chase, and Nascar for that matter, are all "made for TV reality shows" and viewership is competitive with other similar offerings, if not better. I would look up the Nielsen's but I don't have time right now.

I think the sport generally is alive and well and living in the modern media/social media age just fine. Of course it isn't what it was 20 years ago, but that's life, we all move on. NFL, MLB, NBA, etc are all a lot different now too. For better or worse, times change and you either change or die.

Change is good, unless the change is detrimental to the product being offered, as is the case with NASCAR. It's been said a thousand times, NASCAR bowed to the pressure of short attention span, low information ADD bandwagon fans and fundamentally changed a tried, tested and true process in order to please people that weren't going to be lifelong fans anyway. As bandwagoner's always tend to do, they've moved on to other fads and interests and NASCAR was/is left holding the bag and removing 10's of thousands of seats and still, at many venue's, have half empty grandstands on raceday. And the TV ratings speak for themselves. They can't carry the NFL's collective jock straps and even the men's NCAA basketball tournament and the more attractive regional college football rivalries draw more viewers. The NBA, MLB and NHL cannot be fairly compared to NASCAR since their season's consist of many, many more games but football is a once a week sport like NASCAR.

The NFL has had great TV ratings for 40 years now and shows no signs of any decline and they are on TV 3 day/nights a week. Times don't seem to be a changin' in regards to the NFL.

One point that is valid, however, is that the tracks have vastly overpriced the tickets, camping fees and the lodging industry has been prone to gouging. We have family in Daytona Beach, Florida and sometimes still go down there to visit during Speed Weeks to take in some of the dirt track action and it is a bit satisfying to see most of the vacancy signs lit at the oceanfront strip hotels and motels. They made their bed and it's good to see them sleepin' in it. There was a day when even the most flee infested dump on A1A had the "no vacancy" lit during winter Speedweeks, but not anymore.

[kidrock]

Nascar's bubble was going to burst at some point. I'm with others on this if you don't like it don't watch it. If you don't like it don't go it's that simple. Yes Nascar's popularity is not what it once was. And yes they have tried this playoff format to try and gain fans but, at least they are trying something instead of just sitting around hoping it will get better. It has put some excitement into it at times but, I don't think it's the right way to go but, I will still watch just not like I used to back in the day. Just like today I missed the race because I was busy doing something else but, I'm still interested in what happened today. So don't like don't watch then you won't have to come on here and bitch about it and your life will be better for it lol.

[mudslinger47]

Well now, what Matt did makes Harsucks look like childs play...LOL

[CIRF]

We can't be sure of intent, can we? Was what Kenseth did intentional or was it mechanical failure of some sort? No way to know for positively sure.

We watched the highlights and the post race interview of Kenseth and he said he hated that it happened the way it did and that the car wouldn't turn. If we take Harvick at his word that he didn't mean to wreck anyone last week then if we're going to be objective we have to take Kenseth at his word, too.

[t.nie]

I think the biggest problem with modern day NASCAR is its way too tech reliant, engineering reliant, tire reliant, setup reliant and not enough driver reliant.

I say come up with a car that is stuck back in the 1970's technology wise, put it on a crap tire that lasts 45 laps but degrades like crazy from start to finish on that run so that the driver has to have lightning reflexes to even drive it the last 10 laps, and do everything possible to eliminate aerodynamic downforce on the car so that it handles and behaves more like the behemoths of the 70's on big fat slicks than this modern day land rocket with so much downforce you could race it upside down and it would stay stuck to the ceiling.

[CIRF]

I think the biggest problem with modern day NASCAR is its way too tech reliant, engineering reliant, tire reliant, setup reliant and not enough driver reliant.

I say come up with a car that is stuck back in the 1970's technology wise, put it on a crap tire that lasts 45 laps but degrades like crazy from start to finish on that run so that the driver has to have lightning reflexes to even drive it the last 10 laps, and do everything possible to eliminate aerodynamic downforce on the car so that it handles and behaves more like the behemoths of the 70's on big fat slicks than this modern day land rocket with so much downforce you could race it upside down and it would stay stuck to the ceiling.

The points you make are valid, not necessarily new, but undeniably valid. A person need know very little of the physics of aerodynamics (I am solidly in that category) to see what these cars have become technologically. It's been said and written a fair amount over the years almost exactly the point you're trying to make but NASCAR obviously wants what the cars have become, for whatever reason. Possibly safety is a prime motivation.

The beginning of the aero stuff that you speak of was 1988. I remember seeing the #43 Grand Prix of The King being featured in different publications prior to the start of the 1988 NASCAR season and was surprised by the huge air dam that was on the front of the racecar. That would have been the first year that the stock appearing front bumpers and valances were replaced by a purpose built, aerodynamically sensitive air dam. The beginning of the evolution towards what is being raced today. Not necessarily for the good of the sport, I might add.

[t.nie]

The biggest change was tires. Bias ply to radial. There is a clear line in Nascar when they changed tire construction and how the driver was less of a factor after that. Kenny Schrader pointed this out to me a long time ago. His comment was the cars used to get looser over a run and dirt guys were good with loose cars, so the old guard that came up racing dirt were the top guys. After Radial tires came in, the tires were much more stable over longer runs and suspension geometry, springs, shocks, dampening, rebound, camber, caster etc all became much more critical. And the dirt guys didn't really know that stuff, they just knew how to handle tight and loose with tire pressure, spacers, track bars.

So the younger racers adapted better, or guys came up who had never run anything but radials with an emphasis on suspension knowledge along with what the dirt guys knew about pressure, stagger, spacers, etc. And the old guard gradually drifted further and further back in the field.

His take was that change in tires changed the racing more than anything else, and all the rest that has developed since is just an offshoot of what that tire change brought about. Less driver, more techno, because the old tires meant a driver had to be able to handle the car, and the radials meant the car had to be more precisely engineered and adjusted to get an advantage.