NASCAR screwed up again!

[Fishing Rhino]

A bit about brand loyalty.  Whenever possible, I avoid buying anything that is the official whatever of NASCAR.  That symbol has nothing to do with the quality or usefulness of a product.  It means the company paid a handsome fee to put the NASCAR name or icon on its product.  Ultimately, that money comes from the consumer.

Is it me or does anyone find it strange that the official soft drink of NASCAR has been Coca Cola, but until the past couple of years Pepsi was the official soft drink of the ISC (see France family, see NASCAR) tracks.  About eight or ten years ago, UPS became the official package delivery system of NASCAR, yet our Daytona ticket packages were delivered to us by FedEx.  I contacted UPS asking them how it felt to be played by the France family.  UPS assured me that FedEx would not be delivering the Daytona ticket packages the following year.

They were correct.  We got the tickets delivered by the United States Postal Service.  I took a perverse delight in contacting them, sending a copy of my first email, telling them they were absolutely correct.  FedEx did not deliver them.  Neither did they.  They did not reply.

NASCAR will take your money with one hand, and slap you in the face with the other.  Due to a combination of things the chickens hatched by their avarice have come home to roost.  And they ain't liking it.

[tipptruck1]

sorry about the link. It worked when I posted it. Tony, carl, and kevin each would have won one. tony in 05 carl in 08 and kevin this past year.

Jeff and Jimmie would have won it twice since o4. Jeff in 04 and 07. That would have given him a total of 6 championships. Jimmie would have won them in 06 and 09.

[Carrington]

im a huge gordan fan and that makes me mad to see that he could have won 2 times more than he has.  I hope he gets a win this season.

[tipptruck1]

I am not a Gorden fan at all. But it would have been sweet to see. I did see a while back what if they had the new points system from the start. I think Richard Petty still would have won 7. All i know is nascar history would have been a complete 180 then what we know.

[cart7t]

Again??

They sold out the original fanbase at the expense of growth. Those new fans grew bored and moved on. Meanwhile the old, core fanbase are now disenfrachised with all the changes the series went through in order to gain all those here today-gone tomorrow fans. They've tuned out.

Cost to the fans. A typical race ticket cost around $100 a seat. Local hotels jack their rates on race weekends. Nascar has found the spending limits of their fans.

For a racing series that originated in the south and has its majority of fans from that area, it has surprisingly few drivers on the track each week from that part of the country.

The season is w-a-y too long as are the races. 500 times around Bristol twice a year??? Gimme a break. Races lasting 3 to 4 + hours are way longer than the attention spans of the majority of casual fans that might want to watch a Nascar race. It's even taxing on race fans who are interested.

Too many cookie cutter race tracks that look alike. All added at the expense of dropped races at places like Rockingham and the 2nd race at Darlington among others.

National Association of Stock Car Racing. Stock cars my butt. Remember the Plymouth Daytona Superbirds or the Ford Talledega's? You could go to the showroom floor and buy a car that was very, very close to what was actually on the racetrack. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday used to mean something. Alas, only in sportscar racing does that have any relevance anymore.

Your season champion the past few years is about as exciting and colorful as a bucket of primer gray paint. With the big money involved in the sport anymore, the racers are more about being corporate pitch men than they are live on the edge race car drivers. Even Tony Stewart has managed to clean up his act.

Green-white-checkers, the Lucky dog, rule changes in the middle of races, etc. etc. They've long since become a sport that isn't a true sport at all and is in fact, nothing more than a show where the outcome can be arbitrarily decided by the powers to be.

NASCAR isn't the only racing series having problems. F1 has had it's own problems, Indy car racing is sliding into oblivion and sportscar racing has always had issues. In the case of Nascar though, most of the problems were created from within and driven by greed.

There's no why the highlighted statement is true. If it were, Jr. would win every other race. I agree with a lot of what you said, but the outcome of the races is obviously not determined by the powers to be.

I've watched at least a couple races where rules determinations were made on infractions by certain drivers (Jr. is one in particular) where he was punished lightly or not at all while the race was running. That is helping determine the outcome of a race by not applying the rules evenly. The lucky dog rule is one of the most ridiculous of them all and is another that can and has helped determine the outcome of the race differently than had NASCAR kept true to the rules of 99% of all the other racing series on this planet.

[Fishing Rhino]

No surprise when it comes to the France family.  They are self-promoted.  A few years ago I read an article that "Big Bill" France co-opted, or stole if you will, the idea that eventually grew into NASCAR.  And, if I'm not mistaken, it was in the Daytona Beach newspaper.

Several years ago, NASCAR sent a letter to ticket holders, asking them to donate to the Halifax Hospital's new pediatrics unit which is now known as Speediatrics.  My wife, a nurse, sent a check for fifty bucks to the cause.  I have to believe several race fans did likewise.

Rather than the unit being named as a tribute to race fans, who provided the money, it is the Betty France Speediatrics Unit.

Granted they promoted the charity, but it was others who supplied the dough, and they get the credit.