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.

NASCAR's Overtime

For the 6th time out of 14 races so far this year the Pocono race went into NASCAR’s version of overtime. It resulted in a horrific crash, as had most of the other overtime races. Teams that had earned a decent finish for a hard day’s work ended up loading a destroyed car.

Miraculously, no drivers were injured. NASCAR dodged that bullet again. How long will NASCAR play with fire before it gets burnt?

If fans are interested in seeing that kind of carnage, risking drivers’ lives, then I’m very disappointed. NASCAR has resorted to a Roman gladiator type approach to increasing fan interest. That is sad. What is sadder is that this, apparently, is what the fans want. It won’t be long before the charges of NASCAR being a blood sport are heard again.

There is nothing wrong with finishing a race under caution. The race can, and should, go for the advertised distance. Let strategy for fuel come into play.

I’m afraid it will take serious injury or death before NASCAR realizes that Green-White-Checkers is not the best way to increase fan interest.