ABC, whose ESPN division is showing most of the NASCAR Nextel Cup races for the next eight years, on August 15th, a Wednesday night, ran a new program called "NASCAR in Primetime". While it was not billed as a one-shot "special", after its poor performance on its initial showing, in spite of an incredible amount of promotion during ESPN's NASCAR coverage on previous weeks, we expect "NASCAR in Primetime" might be the last thing you'll see in those all-important evening hours, at least on a regular basis.
Preliminary numbers showed NBC Dateline's "Trail of Suspicion," reported by correspondent Keith Morrison, earning a 2.2 rating, 7 share in adults 18-49 with 6.6 million total viewers. CBS' repeat showing of "CSI:NY" came in second with 2.1/6 in adults 18-49 and ABC News' "NASCAR in Primetime" finished deep in last place among the three networks at 10 p.m with a 1.2/4 in adults 18-49.
This will definitely worry the powers-that-be in Daytona Beach. It is becoming more and more clear that NASCAR is not going to become the truly "national" sport which it set out to become more than decade or so ago, after 40 years of popularity in the Southeast. NASCAR is certainly close to as strong as it ever has been in that Southeast portion. But through the closing of some much-loved tracks (in order, at times, to move races to other parts of the country) and the incredibly strong focus NASCAR keeps on Charlotte, NC, where the organization recently announced they will build a multi-million dollar Hall of Fame, some fans living elsewhere were irked, feeling that no other city or state ever had a chance in the bidding war which erupted for the Hall.
In the USA's Southwest, NASCAR has seen more than an inkling of bad news. Fans showing up dressed as empty seats have become a major concern for promoters and track owners at tracks like Phoenix and the spectacular California Speedway (80 miles east of Los Angeles, in Fontana, surrounded by an area with a potential of 16 million paying fans). Even though the major races at Las Vegas, one of the nation's newest tracks, are usually sold-out or close to it, attendance and TV ratings for all NASCAR Nextel Cup events have been on a downward trend for the past year, at least.
In the Northeast, two tracks hold major NASCAR events, one in Dover, DE, the other New Hampshire International Raceway in Loudon, NH. The "stockers" have been running for many years at Dover and many fans consider it a "Southeast" track. NASCAR was recently given bad news in their drive to build a brand-new race track at Staten Island, NY. After more than a year of nasty politics, political contributions, charges of favoritism and scenes of something approaching violence at area council meetings, NASCAR was finally told "Thanks, but no", putting an end to their long attempt to move into the heavily-populated NYC and Tri-state area, with more population than even the area surrounding the track outside Los Angeles.
Even Donald Trump had once gotten into the act, expressing his desire to build a track for NASCAR racing in Riverhead, Long Island, about 100 miles east of NYC. But when all is said and done, the group has only two race tracks in America's vast and heavily-populated Northeast. (Photo -- Toyota Camry NASCAR engine).
The nation's Midwest features a new track outside Chicago. Called "Chicagloand Raceway", it's a former horse racing track covered with concrete and turned into an auto racing venue by Chip Ganassi, one of NASCAR's big budget team owners (Juan Pablo Montoya is one of his drivers, and NASCAR is using Montoya's fame as a former Formula 1 racer and former Indy 500 winner to reach-out to the world's Spanish-speaking audience with reportedly good results). Detroit, the "Motor City", is served by Michigan International Speedway, a 2.0-mile oval track in that state's "Irish Hills", at a place called Brooklyn, MI (about 100 miles west of Detroit). As one travels south from Chicago, there are tracks scattered about in places such as St. Louis, Kansas City, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, IN (where the annual Brickyard 400 is run) and, finally on one's way south, Texas Motor Speedway outside Ft. Worth, TX.
Incidentally, automotive magnate Roger Penske built and owned both the tracks at Brooklyn, MI and Fontana, CA, and eventually they were both sold to NASCAR's publicly-traded company, International Speedway Corporation (ISC). The tracks are nearly "twins" in their length and overall lay-out.
Penske's family owned a Chevrolet dealership outside Philadelphia in the 1950s, and, starting in 1958, he went on to become one of that marque's greatest road racing drivers (piloting one of the infamous five Corvette Grand Sport racers) and was named Sports Illustrated Magazine's "Sports Car Club of America's Driver of the Year" in 1960. That got the Chevy corporate bosses in Detroit interested in him, and in fact Penske has been asked more than once to become GM's leader, but he's always refused, content (and probably better-off financially) to work his apparent magic with his own people and companies. (Photo above -- NASCAR is building its Hall of Fame in Charlotte, NC).
These days, among his many other industry and industry-related holdings, Roger Penske (photo below) is the biggest car dealer in America, with about 100 dealerships held by his Penske Auto Group, PAG, (formerly United Auto). In fact, Penske recently won the right for his PAG stores to be the sole retailers of the new Smart ForTwo cars, the tiny Euro-centric cars which resulted from an unusual corporate and styling association between Daimler and Swatch Watch in the 1990s, which go on-sale in the USA in 2008. Penske also owns a top NASCAR team, a Porsche factory-sponsored endurance racing team and one of the top Indy Racing League teams (no one has won more Indy 500s).
In the Northwest, NASCAR officials were surprised by getting about the same "welcome" there which they found in the New York City area. Northern California holds NASCAR events on the nearly 2-mile long road racing course at Sonoma's "Infineon Raceway". But north of that, NASCAR has run out of luck.
There is a world-class road racing course outside Portland, OR, but NASCAR wants only two road course events on their schedule, the one at Sonoma, and the other across the country in Watkins Glen, NY, so far east in that state that it is much closer to Chicago than to NYC. After years of terrific effort and untold monies spent, NASCAR recently was turned-down on their request for a track in Washington State. This was a huge disappointment to the sanctioning body, which had tried for years to first, find a suitable property, which they thought they had, and then get the many official necessary permissions, which were ultimately not to come.
The smartest thing NASCAR has done in terms of their future growth, outside of staging points-paying Busch Series races in Montreal and Mexico City this year, has been to allow Toyota to enter NASCAR's midst in each one of their three professional series.
When it comes to "foreign" cars, there had been a Jaguar, of all things, entered in a NASCAR event some 40 years ago, and one amateur NASCAR series saw some Datsun cars entered many years ago (before anyone had heard of "Nissan"). NASCAR was taking a major chance with Toyota, and everyone, including Toyota, knew it.
NASCAR's all-American militaristic-style jingoism and Christian-style orientation (ever hear one of the 'benedictions' before any race? Ask yourself: How would you feel about it if you were Jewish or Buddhist or an Atheist?) are well-known and no doubt at least part of the reason NASCAR has lost out on tracks in certain parts of the country, and what keeps minorities away from NASCAR tracks and competition in droves (the "rebel" flag is still waved unapologetically by fans at almost every NASCAR race; if you were an African-American, how would that strike you?). NASCAR, in fact, looks a lot like the Republican Party itself, because there is not a single black Republican serving in either the House or Senate, and little representation of other minorities, either.
While NASCAR has what they call a "Drive for Diversity" as part of their modern image, there is but one African-American driver who is a regular part of the Craftsman Truck and Busch Series events (the same driver in both series), Bill Lester.
Warren Brown of the WASHINGTON POST newspaper writes: "It (NASCAR) is America's fastest-growing sport, second only to the National Football League in the number of television viewers. It is also America's most exclusionary athletic enterprise in terms of race and sex." Brown also points out that Lester is only the second African-American to ever drive on a regular basis in NASCAR, the first was Wendell Scott (who was portrayed by Richard Pryor in a feature film made about the racer). When Scott won an event, he was blocked by NASCAR officials from entering the Winer's Circle (this was in the years between 1961 and 1972, not at all ancient history).
No American minority driver in recent years has ever gotten close to the top level of competition in the sport, known as the "Nextel Cup" (which next year changes to the "Sprint Cup"). NASCAR had even tried to pass-off Juan Pablo Montoya as a "minority driver", but thankfully they stopped that attempt almost as fast as some slick PR guy had thought of it.
In the meantime, the man who could very well amount to be the greatest Formula 1 race driver of all time, headed to be the "World Champion of Driving" in his first year in the sport, is Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton is a British-born black man who also happens to be the first black ever in the F1 series. And F1 has no "diversity program"; Hamilton has made it to the top completely on his own accord, his father getting him into go-karts at the age of 8, then Hamilton himself signing a development deal when he was but 13 years old with Ron Dennis, the long-time head of the McLaren Formula 1 program. (Photo above -- Lewis Hamilton, F1 phenomenon).
Official NASCAR looked the other way when many fans, drivers and team owners started complaining and whining as soon as they heard Toyota was coming into "their" sport. While a lot of the angered fans talked about "Our American-style of racing" and saying things like, "If we start with Toyota, eventually we'll have to let them all in!", the drivers and team owners knew the real problem ... Money.
Toyota has nothing but money to throw at anything they please, and if NASCAR is their next target, then Toyota will not be denied. After all, the company spends an estimated $200 million a year on a two-car Formula 1 team which can barely get its cars to qualify for races, much less win them.
Toyota started in the Craftsman Truck series, and after a few years there, they are beginning to dominate. Of course, everyone knew their entry into the truck series was just a polite way of getting into the Nextel Cup series, which they have done this year, and they are starting to show some signs of brilliance both in Cup and in the slightly-lesser Busch Series (Busch cars have less powerful engines than the Cup cars). Toyota also came on-board, wisely, in Busch and Cup in the same year when the traditional Cup cars, which have been used for several years, are being cycled over into new body styles called the "Car of Tomorrow". In essence, all the Cup cars next year will have exactly the same measurements; only the "(Toyota) Camry", "(Ford) Fusion", "(Chevrolet) Impala" and "(Dodge) Avenger" decals on the cars make them look different from one another. That "Car of Tommorow" is also being used in select races this season in Cup events.
So in spite of some very vocal objections (some of them virulently racist, which you'd find by checking the blogs and message boards for the sport at the time), NASCAR turned the other cheek, so to speak, and just waited for everyone to calm down, which they did, and predictably so.
Next, we expect Honda to enter NASCAR. Their Ridgeline pickup truck, which has not sold very well, and in fact is quite different from traditional American (and even Toyota's) pickups, would make for an easy entree for the company into NASCAR. And as we all now know, if a company enters the Craftsman Trucks series, as Dodge and Toyota both did in the last decade, it's only a matter of (a relatively short) time until they are charging around at 200 mph with the other big boys in the Cup and Busch series. And you can be certain that any company wanting into the truck series would not be allowed to do so unless they were committed to the "full" pantheon of NASCAR experience, meaning creating or buying-into Busch and Cup teams in the near-future.
After Honda comes in, why not the Koreans and even the Europeans? The Touring Car series in Europe, featuring BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and other major car-makers, has long been known as the "NASCAR of Europe". If and when all those cars are allowed into NASCAR (and American cars are allowed onto the Euro tracks), then we are not far away from a two-continent race series.
The new and well-funded SpeedCar Series currently running in Arabic countries in the Mideast, and which will race in Asia, too, uses cars and engines remarkably similar to NASCAR racers, and they are built in that well-known Arab/Islamist holdout, North Carolina. NASCAR officials have visited China recently to see some of their racing facilities and talk with some of their sports officials.
And does anyone remember TRAC? It stood for "Team Racing Auto Circuit" and was promoted by some former NASCAR drivers and smaller team owners as a league-type series based around drivers and teams representing different cities. Local, regional and ultimately a national championship series could be run by TRAC franchise-holders, a style of getting to a single champion being something which NASCAR has traditionally shunned. NASCAR used their power and weight to quickly kill the TRAC series, but the concept was there for all to see and think about for the future. And with the 12-race season-ending "Chase for the Championship" which NASCAR introduced a few years ago (originally it was 10 races), the concept of some sort-of "playoff" system now is accepted by NASCAR. In fact, professional golf's PGA, when introducing their "FedEx Cup Championship" this year, said they got the idea from NASCAR. In the fall, with basketball and football and even baseball dominating sports coverage, sports like NASCAR and professional golf need a way to get attention, and a play-off system seems to work. (Photo above -- Toyota's F1 race car on the track, testing in Bahrain).
NASCAR's growth in the USA has probably reached its zenith. With no new tracks planned for the Northeast or Northwest, and TV ratings and actual race attendance dropping, the sanctioning body must, as other sports have been forced to, constantly come up with new ideas which the fans will accept (as well as the drivers and the teams and sponsors), that will keep the racing safe, tight and as competitive as possible, with skill and consistency (along with extra points for race victories) leading to a champion every fan can enthusiastically accept; something which did not happen the first year of the final 10-race sprint for the Cup, which produced a "national champion" who had not won a single race during the season.
NASCAR's real future growth will come from outside the USA. Toyota's entry into the sport and possibly that of Honda in another year or so, means points-paying races in Japan become a distinct probability. NASCAR even ran a few "exhibition" races in Japan a few years ago and fan acceptance was pretty positive, considering the Japanese were for the most part totally unknowledgeable about the sport. But Japanese race fans are among the most rabid in the world (it can take as much as eight hours to get out of a race track and on to a major highway when a big event in over; I know this from personal experience) and when their own car-makers are involved, the Japanese fans would be excited about NASCAR being run on tracks in their home nation.
The same would hold true for the car-makers and race fans in Europe, Korea and Australia (Oz's fans are among the world's best, and the car-makers there, cousins of Ford and GM, seem to still be in the 1950's and '60s, manufacturing large numbers of coupes and sedans with booming V8 engines; in fact, the recent Pontiac GTO was actually an American-ized version of a car made by GM's Aussie division Holden, called the Monaro). (Photo -- Toyota Camry NASCAR race car).
The two professional open-wheel series in the USA, the Indy Racing League and Champ Car, are both in the depths of low sponsor dollars and bad TV packages. We say it is all the result of the IRL's founder, Tony George, whose family owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, splitting one major series into two and losing many of the biggest-dollar sponsors. So NASCAR is currently king of the hill in American racing almost by default, thanks to George.
If official NASCAR remains as smart and open to change as they appear to be, it is possible that NASCAR-style "stock" car racing, which is already popular in many local forms throughout much of the world, may well be able to offer the first true "World Championship" of motor racing.
Auto racing is really fun but it needs a lot of precautions before entering into it. This kind of sport is definitely DANGEROUS!
Posted by: american auto racing | October 01, 2007 at 01:30 AM