NASCAR wants answers for rating drop

#26
#26
The car of tomorrow has ruined the opportunity for rednecks like myself to throw it in a chevy man's face when a Ford wins.

You could look at that from the other side though.
Chevy fans can't throw it up to your face either.....:)
Chevy:4 wins Ford:2 wins:p
 
#28
#28
1)Cot is nothing more than a glorified go-cart. 2)Boring racing on flat banked tracks that resemble a indy car event. 3)The chase sucks. 4)The teams with the most money win most if not all the races.
5) Not enough personality from the drivers, you may not have liked dale earnhardt, but he was never shy about voicing his opinion. If you do that now you get a trip to the nascar trailer for a tongue lashing.
6) Trying to make every event into a disney special. The digger garbage gets on my nerves.

Nascar needs to look in the mirror if they want to see whats wrong.
 
#31
#31
i agree that the COT is crap. i miss the ford vs chevy battles as well.

Dont leave Dodge out of the mix. Do not underestimate the amount of loyal Mopar followers that became renewed NASCAR fans when Dodge re entered. I am one of them.
 
#32
#32
Nascar is in desperate need of the next Dale Jr, Gordon, Dale Sr, etc.. last years big 3 (Kyle, Carl, Jimmie) wont bring in any new fans.. Dale Jrs struggling, Gordons popularity has decreased, and Logano is not what everyone thought he would be (yet)..BTW it blows my mind that Jimmie has won 3 championships in a row and still doesnt have that many fans (i think i saw one fan in 48 apparel at Bristol).. everyone was on dale sr's bandwagon, then pretty boy came in and stole his thunder, then dale's boy came in and won some of it back.. someone has to come up and win, and win a lot, fast (and appeal to the fans) :)
 
#33
#33
I don't think having the same group of guys winning is the problem. If so, Nascar has always had that problem. Nascar was popular in the 90's and guys like Gordon and Dale Jarrett were winning a lot, in the 80's it was Sr. back to Petty and Pearson winning a lot in the 60's.

I also don't think having the mega teams is a problem and if it weren't for guys like Hendrick and Roush renting out motors to smaller teams than they couldn't afford to race. I don't think we would have seen Stewart win as a car owner if it weren't for Hendrick. Robert Yates Racing would be history without Roush. Maybe they are an extension of those teams but racing is expensive and if you limit owners to 1 or 2 cars that couldn't share anything than it would be much tougher to find 43 cars to start a race.

I think the problem is that the drivers are too much alike now, too corporate. The drivers have become so worried about sponsorships that they make sure and say all the right things. The cars all look the same other than a vinyl decal to let the fans know if it is supposed to be a Chevy or Ford. I know they still use different make engines but people want to see a visual difference in a Ford and Chevy on the track. They have too many tracks that appear the same to the viewer. They might drive totally different but if the driving looks the same to the fan than they might as well be the same track such as Kansas and California. The races are too long and they start too late. A lot of people have to work M-F and they don't want to wait half their Sunday for a race to start. They should drop the green flag no later than 1pm eastern time yet they want that prime time money for commercials so it's a network problem causing the late starts. Nascar should not encourage guys to fight or have any altercations but they shouldn't call them to the hauler after the race if no harm is done. The drivers shouldn't have to worry about being fined or losing points over a minor altercation.
 
#34
#34
I agree that the races are too long. I have been watching Indy racing over Nascar the last couple of years because the races are usually over in 2-2.5 hours. Plus,the cars can actually pass.
 
#36
#36
So let me get this straight. You guys want to make NASCAR smaller, bring it back to it's roots, get rid of all the big sponsors, go back to Aero war type specs, and race at less 1.5 mile ovals? That's what everybody but NASCAR and it's teams want.
 
#37
#37
So let me get this straight. You guys want to make NASCAR smaller, bring it back to it's roots, get rid of all the big sponsors, go back to Aero war type specs, and race at less 1.5 mile ovals? That's what everybody but NASCAR and it's teams want.
That was a huge part of nascar and what set it apart from series like indy car or champ car. Now its just like those series, the only way to tell them apart is the decal on the hood. Thats not the way the sport grew in popularity and they made a huge mistake by taking that out of the equation.
 
#38
#38
I grew up rooting for blue ovals on the bumper, and, out of habit i guess i still do. But King Brian doesnt want that i guess
 
#39
#39
They need to finally embrace technology. Pushrods and carbs are not going to get the younger and potentially future fans excited. Series like F1, which have the most advanced cars on the planet, attract the younger generations.

Oh, and having identical looking cars is killing the series and hurting the manufacturers. You can't say win on Sunday sell on Monday now because the cars all have spec'd engines and body panels.
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#40
#40
Why does NASCAR suck now? As we can see, everybody has an opinion on this. The COT sucks and does not get everybody charged up as seeing an '84 Chevy Monte Carlo racing against an '84 Ford T-Bird. These cars need some personality, and I don't mean crappy headlight and taillight stickers.
The pre and post race drone on forever, just give me the basics and let it go at that. I don't need to know what Greg Biffle feeds his Boxer dogs at home, I shouldn't even know that he OWNS Boxers to begin with. Tell D.W. to hit the road while we're at it, and take Digger with him too. Fox can't go more than 30 seconds without showing that stupid rat or to offer us a ringtone or wallpaper, enough already! Boogity, boogity, boogity it on down the road, Digger!
Take the west coast races and put them on at a more east coast friendly time. They can't seem to sell out their races anyway, so who would notice.
Let's not have commercials every eight laps either. I have seen them so many times that I can recite most of them by heart.
Let's find a leader in the garage like Sr. used to be! Tony or Jeff could have stepped up, but did not. Let these guys have some personality, it's okay to see Carl Edwards want to throttle Matt Kenseth, our kids won't turn into raving lunatics having seen this. Admit it, don't you get a little tired of these boys swigging their sponsors' beverage of the day and making sure they get every last sponsor in? I do!
Finally, remove the dang restrictor plate from the cars at the big tracks. If these guys are okay with going 220 mph, then build stronger catch fences and move the grandstand back a few feet and let 'em have at it!
Look, I still love NASCAR and always will. But I have seen this sport go from something that was fun and exciting to cookie cutter cars with cookie cutter drivers. If I have something better to do when a race is on, I do it. The same 5-10 cars that run up front every week will still be there whether I watch it or not. Just my two cents, but I want real racing back!
 
#41
#41
Why does NASCAR suck now? As we can see, everybody has an opinion on this. The COT sucks and does not get everybody charged up as seeing an '84 Chevy Monte Carlo racing against an '84 Ford T-Bird. These cars need some personality, and I don't mean crappy headlight and taillight stickers.
The pre and post race drone on forever, just give me the basics and let it go at that. I don't need to know what Greg Biffle feeds his Boxer dogs at home, I shouldn't even know that he OWNS Boxers to begin with. Tell D.W. to hit the road while we're at it, and take Digger with him too. Fox can't go more than 30 seconds without showing that stupid rat or to offer us a ringtone or wallpaper, enough already! Boogity, boogity, boogity it on down the road, Digger!
Take the west coast races and put them on at a more east coast friendly time. They can't seem to sell out their races anyway, so who would notice.
Let's not have commercials every eight laps either. I have seen them so many times that I can recite most of them by heart.
Let's find a leader in the garage like Sr. used to be! Tony or Jeff could have stepped up, but did not. Let these guys have some personality, it's okay to see Carl Edwards want to throttle Matt Kenseth, our kids won't turn into raving lunatics having seen this. Admit it, don't you get a little tired of these boys swigging their sponsors' beverage of the day and making sure they get every last sponsor in? I do!
Finally, remove the dang restrictor plate from the cars at the big tracks. If these guys are okay with going 220 mph, then build stronger catch fences and move the grandstand back a few feet and let 'em have at it!
Look, I still love NASCAR and always will. But I have seen this sport go from something that was fun and exciting to cookie cutter cars with cookie cutter drivers. If I have something better to do when a race is on, I do it. The same 5-10 cars that run up front every week will still be there whether I watch it or not. Just my two cents, but I want real racing back!
Amen brother, amen. They'll never let them take those plates off though. After talledega they'll probably slow them even more. The direction they're heading is disaster for that sport. DW is a nice guy, but like you i've had enough boggity, boggity, boggity to last a lifetime. The disney wannabe crap can go fly a kite for all i care.
 
#42
#42
i heard some drunks talking on talladega blvd that Kentucky Superspeedway may get a race in 2 years.
 
#43
#43
i heard some drunks talking on talladega blvd that Kentucky Superspeedway may get a race in 2 years.

It sounds like the previous owners need to drop their law suit against NASCAR before Kentucky will be considered. It is still possible in 2009 but highly unlikely.
 
#44
#44
Kentucky's a great track. That said, I love the standalone events hosted by the Nationwide Series each June.
 
#45
#45
From Jayski this morning and VERY interesting. It sounds like some major shaking up of the NASCAR world could be coming soon. Could they be thinking about DROPPING the COT design? Probably not that radical but maybe they will open up the rulebooks to let the teams try new things out with that beast of a car. And with the Edwards/Newman deal being brought up again what are they thinking about doing at the plate tracks? Could they really pull the trigger and cut off the banking at Dega and make Daytona's races use the road course? I doubt that too but its a possibility.................


The shape of Tuesday's big meeting between NASCAR officials and Sprint Cup teams is slowly becoming clearer: And it is now sizing up as a day-long series of small meetings, rather than any full townhall scene. Each of NASCAR's top Cup operations will have its own individual face-to-face with NASCAR executives, to discuss ideas and raise suggestions about what NASCAR could do to make Cup racing more compelling – for better TV ratings and for better ticket sales. All Cup team owners and their drivers are expected to attend the sessions at NASCAR's nearby R&D center. No specific agenda items have been listed, but one hot topic is expected to be the car-of-tomorrow, which has become an expensive engineering problem for crews, particularly small teams without the hefty engineering and computer. The Carl Edwards-Brad Keselowski-Ryan Newman crash at Talladega could be another issue. NASCAR has said little about what it might want to do to deal with that issue of flying race cars, though Newman himself has said several times it is a major issue that needs to be attacked.
 
#46
#46
They need to finally embrace technology. Pushrods and carbs are not going to get the younger and potentially future fans excited. Series like F1, which have the most advanced cars on the planet, attract the younger generations.

Oh, and having identical looking cars is killing the series and hurting the manufacturers. You can't say win on Sunday sell on Monday now because the cars all have spec'd engines and body panels.
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While I'm not going to disagree with you, I don't think that's necessarily the whole truth. Most youngsters in Tennessee, and the south, are NASCAR people. I know. I'm one of those young 'uns.

Don't get me wrong, F1 is actually pretty entertaining. But most people my age that watch racing are NASCAR fans.

The problem is, there are fewer and fewer fans coming from the internet generation.
 
#47
#47
After listening to them during the rain delay last night the Fox announcers were pretty candid about the problems. You can say they are goofy, they suck, etc. but they don't care to tell it like they see it "within reason" from time to time.

I really think one of two things will happen with the COT.......

1. NASCAR will do like Larry or DW said and take the teams to a track and let them do whatever they want with the COT during a test session and make rule changes according to the feedback and data gained.

2. NASCAR will just open up the rule book quite a bit as it pertains to the COT period. The won't have the strictest templates and allow the engineers freedom to do some exotic things to the cars like they used to be able to do.

This would shake things up for sure. Remember back in the mid 80s when you had guys like Earnhardt, DW, and Elliott dominating there would be races where guys would hit on something and be strong and get the occasional win.

I do think something will come out of these meetings as NASCAR finally is beginning to realize they need to make some changes ASAP. Getting some better cars to race by letting them have more leeway with the COT is a good start. If they could come up with a way to make the lead car not have such a huge advantage that would help tremendously too. I think maybe using wicker bills like the Nationwide cars still do at Daytona and Dega would possibly help with that.
 
#48
#48
I think the ratings are falling due to only having a few races worth watching in a 36 race schedule. I also think the playoff system has degraded it.

Races worth watching, IMO:
Bristol
Talladega
Daytona

You can throw in a few more:
Charlotte
maybe Atlanta

outside of that, the schedule and races are pretty bland.

I think the 10 race playoff is a joke. I would like to see the first 26 really mean something, like it used to.
 
#49
#49
Get rid of the playoff system,put a cubic inch displacement limit.....which they do, but then whoever can produce the horses,let them. I remember Ernie Elliott used to be able to make alot of HP, and you could make up laps under green flag racing if you had them. Get rid of the restrictor plates,and keep it Ford,Chevy,Dodge. Let the drivers race,bump etc, and maybe not have 2-3 teams own half the field.
 

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