Hendrick's NASCAR Penalty

It's hard to understand what happened yesterday, 3/20. All penalties except for the $100,000 fine that were levied on Hendrick's Motorsports for the C-post infraction on the 48 car at Daytona were rescinded by final arbitrator John Middlebrook.

Apparently Middlebrook is a long time friend of Rick Hendrick. Did that matter? Why did a three member panel uphold all the penalties the week before?

NASCAR has never explained to the public what the problem with the C-post was. Apparently the car was pulled out of the inspection line before reaching the point where templates are applied.

This goes to the credibility of NASCAR. It has the appearance of a vendetta. It's been known for sometime that NASCAR has a distinct dislike for Chad Knaus, crew chief of the 48 car.

NASCAR needs to come forward and explain their problem with the C-post and explain how they determined it warranted the fines they issued. To this old, long time fan, this looks very murky.

NASCAR Television Ratings

I imagine the champagne is flowing at NASCAR headquarters. I bet the genius trio of France, Helton and Darby have a spring in their step not seen in recent years. Their contented sighs must, by now, be annoying all those around them. The reason? Why, those television ratings from the first two races! They are right out of sight!

Let’s be clear on what helped those ratings. For the Daytona 500 three things were in play. First, the weather was terrible in most of the country – except Florida. People were forced inside to spend the weekend with the television remote in hand. Second, there wasn’t a heck of a lot on television. No Olympics, no Tiger Woods, no crucial NCAA basketball contests. Thirdly, viewers surfing through their channels probably caught a glimpse of the unique two by two racing and stopped to ponder what this new spectacle was. A perfect storm led many to find the FOX telecast the only interesting event.

Then, for the Phoenix race, some of the same things happened. A fierce line of storms was moving across mid America forcing outdoor activities to be cancelled. Again, there was no significant television competition from other sporting events. And then there was Trevor Bayne. Even people who did not watch the Daytona 500 heard about the 20 year old and had to get in on the next big thing.

I hate to throw a wet blanket on all the celebrating, but most of these things are going away real soon. Spring will arrive and we will all come out of hibernation from in front of the television set. Other events: March Madness, the Masters, baseball start-up, pro basketball and hockey play-offs will all divide our attention when we do pick up the remote. That unique two by two racing at Daytona and, probably, at Talladega, will get old to fans real quick. And Trevor Bayne will not win any more Nextel Cup races for a while (but will do very well in the Nationwide series).

I predicted last year that we had reached the bottom of the television ratings and would stay there. It had gotten down to us hard core fans. I still believe that. NASCAR, along with FOX, ESPN and TNT better not kick back and start gloating. We will see temporary ups and downs, but the ratings for the overall season will be pretty close to last year.

Points System

So NASCAR has finally bought into the idea that the points system needs an overhaul. Duh! How many of us hard core fans have been saying that for years. The current system was designed to keep the car fields full. Teams had to be encouraged to keep coming back every week even if they were not running well.

That was then, this is now. Every week at least 35 real good teams show up to compete. And, there has not been a field of less than 43 cars since NASCAR went to that car count for every race. So NASCAR has decided to change the point structure to award the winner 43 points, and then drop down a point for each position so the 43^rd place driver receives one point. Bonus points, apparently, have not been decided on.

I’m having trouble seeing the difference from the current system. Rumor has it that the winner will get a few extra points. But, the proposed system is the same as it is now, other than us mathematically challenged people will have a little easier time of it. Someone ran last year’s finishes thru the new formula and came out with the same results for the first seven positions, then minor changes in eight thru ten.

There are two things wrong with both the current and the proposed point structures:

1 – Finishing at the front is not rewarded enough. I like the idea I’ve heard of putting the top three finishers on a podium. That will be good for the drivers, teams and sponsors. And reward those top three finishers point-wise. Make it really worthwhile to finish third rather than fourth, second rather than third, and first rather than second. Give each one of those positions 20% more than the next position. The racing will become really exciting!!

2 – Field trailers and “start and parkers” get rewarded with points. Since the top 35 in points are currently guaranteed starters that might be a good number to cut the points off after. If you finish 36^th thru 43^rd you get no points. No more just hanging around. Finish in the top 35 or get nothing. An added benefit of this will be to eliminate some of the back markers from getting in the way late in the race.

I’m afraid nothing will be accomplished by the rumored point changes. That seems to be the way of NASCAR. There is not enough brainpower at the top to make real good changes.

Clint Bowyer Drama

There is an aspect of the Clint Bowyer illegal car drama and penalty that I cannot grasp. Cars are inspected at least three times – before practice, before qualifying, and then again before the race. So why wasn’t the 1/16 of an inch discrepancy discovered then? Why wasn’t it discovered until after the race?

This is very disturbing. It’s been stated that NASCAR can do a more comprehensive examination of the car when they get the car to their facility in Charlotte. It doesn’t seem right that the same examination cannot be done before the race. It’s bewildering.

I’m assuming that there was no concern about the car being modified to become illegal while the race was going on. No change during a pit stop resulted in the car going from OK to not OK.

And, I don’t understand why the issue with the car that Carl used at Richmond is relevant to this discussion. That was a different car. Laughably, NASCAR officials basically said the Richmond car was legal, but they better fix it before it is used again. Huh?!?! Sorry, we fans can only see these things in black and white terms. Legal and not useable, or not legal. One or the other. NASCAR has done this before, see my blog dated October 7, 2009.

I suspect that there are many fans as confused as I am about this process of declaring a car illegal after it had passed inspection three times. This is another area that NASCAR continues to build on their lack of credibility.

Brian France - Step Aside!!!!

Brian France needs to step aside before he does any more damage. Although he continues to make money for NASCAR and the race tracks, he is in danger of losing too many fans.

I attended the Nationwide Series race at Richmond last Friday night. I have been to that race 10 of the last 11 years. There were less than half as many fans there as there were 5 years ago. Attendance, even compared to last year, was down at least 25%. The track did not open nearly as many sections as they used to.

I watched Saturday’s Cup race on television and could easily see at least 25% of the seats were not sold. That race was a sellout just a few years ago. And, there are fewer seats than there were then because they widened each seat! Television ratings for the race were down more than 10% from last year. Justifiably, ESPN doesn’t mention the attendance and ratings numbers. I don’t think enough is being said about it.

Brian France and his cohorts need to rethink some things. His bodacious attempt to steal football fans in the fall with the Chase has fallen flat on its face. The scary thing is he is about to tweak that format again, still thinking that it is a winner.

And now they are talking about messing with the Nationwide Series to somehow limit how Cup regulars participate in it. There was a time when that seemed like a good idea to me. Now it seems like it might kill the series.

I know Brian France and company will not change their thinking until money is being lost. That is probably a ways off. But, if things continue downward as they have been, it’s hard to say how far off that is.

The two things that need most to be done to the Cup series to begin righting the ship:
1 – Eliminate about 6 races. There are just too many to keep fan interest. A correlation can be seen between when they increased the number of races and when fan interest starting dropping.
2 – Eliminate the Chase and replace the points system with one that favors the top 5 finishers very heavily. The fans will love it. The drivers will no longer settle for top fifteen finishes.

It’s not surprising that NASCAR fan interest peaked like it did about 8 years ago. It’s not surprising that it went downhill from its peak. What is surprising is how far and how fast fan interest has fallen. The blame for that falls squarely on Brian France and the rest of NASCAR management.

Edwards and Keselowski NASCAR Penalties

NASCAR cannot have it both ways. Either they are going to let them race or they aren’t. Which is it?

The nonsense they came out with this year - “boys, have at it” apparently was nothing but public relations to try to raise fan interest. NASCAR has chickened out on that stated policy. The incident at the end of the July 17th Nationwide race at Madison has resulted in a $25,000 fine, loss of 60 points and probation for Carl Edwards, and probation for Brad Keselowski.

I do not like to see incidents like the one at Madison where a driver’s well being is put in such jeopardy. When Carl turned Brad at Atlanta it was even more frightening. But, NASCAR has a habit of not being consistent. They just cannot seem to determine whether they are willing to take risks or not.

NASCAR has said many times over the years that they will let the drivers settle it on the last lap. Well, they have to be consistent on that or, once again, lose credibility with fans. Do you remember the Bristol night race in August, 1999 when Dale Earnhardt Sr. turned Terry Labonte on the last lap and went on to win? Dale “just wanted to rattle his cage”. No penalties resulted. Sure, some fans booed, but NASCAR knew that it was good for the sport.

What is the difference between that incident and the one between Edwards and Keselowski? Has NASCAR become so mainstream, so plain vanilla, that they will not tolerate a villain? Earnhardt Sr. was viewed by many fans as a villain. NASCAR knew that, and they knew it was good for the sport.

The incident at Madison is being interpreted as a continuation of the Edwards – Keselowski feud. It was, instead, a move by Edwards coming off the final turn of the race to win the race. It has to be treated the same way as the Earnhardt Sr. incident at Bristol in 1999.

Above all things NASCAR must be consistent. Fans see right thru it when they aren’t. And, if they want a bunch of namby-pamby drivers going around in circles, that is fine. That is not what the fans want.

NASCAR Track Attendance

While watching Cup races on television I always keep my eye out for crowd shots that reveal the attendance for that race. It appears that the televising networks rarely show crowd shots like they used to. I’m sure it is because so many races are now poorly attended.

I believe that the New Hampshire track used to sell out when they had one event per year. At best, it appeared the event of June 27th only had about 60% of the seats occupied. Since turnstile counts are rarely announced by a track or NASCAR, we will probably never know for sure what the attendance was.

It certainly is not unique to the New Hampshire track that attendance is way down from, say, 15 years ago. Every track they race at, even Bristol and Richmond, are having attendance problems. I used to attend the September Richmond event by signing up to be eligible to request tickets on a certain date. I’d go in to work late just so I got my ticket order in. They even sent me a decal that I could display that I, proudly, had my Richmond tickets.

NASCAR’s pointing of the finger at the recession has grown old. It’s not the problem and they know it. There are too many races for the fans. Much like the television ratings continual decline, fans are so over-exposed that they have curtailed their attending races too.

I guess NASCAR only looks at the bottom line. It must be more profitable to have two not so well attended races than it is to have one sell out. It must be more profitable to have lower television ratings for 36 races than to have excellent television ratings for, say, 30 races.

That approach seems short sighted. As fans lose interest, are there more fans coming in to make up the difference? It seems like just a matter of time before we see the number of races scaled back.