The downhill sprint of NASCAR
“I think we ought to make it a Figure Eight. I mean, if we could make it a Figure Eight, it would be perfect.” — Tony Stewart
The first and only Nascar race I’ve attended was the Goodies Headache Powder 500 at Martinsville VA. This was back in 1996. Rusty Wallace took the gold and black Miller Genuine Draft to Victory Lane. What always stood out to me that day was the white number 46 that qualified 9th. The car looked different than the other cars on the track. It didn’t have as many ads and designs on it. In my mind, not knowing much about NASCAR, it looked like the race cars I seen back home on the back of trailers hitched to F-150s and Silverados going to one of the many dirt tracks we have in Kentucky. The crowd sure did seem to love this guy. He received the largest applause of anyone. After all, they should. He lived a little bit over an hour away. A hometown boy. His name was Stacy Compton and he was driving for the team that only had two races in the Cup Series. This race being the first and both at Martinsville in 1996 with Compton behind the wheel. This was the Dean Monroe Chevrolet. Again, not knowing much about the sport at that time, I watched the white Chevy go around the track and tried to keep up with where the 46 was at. He ended up finishing in 33rd after brake failure. Some local guy hanging with the household names such as Earnhardt, Wallace, Elliot, and Gordon was intriguing to my teenage mind.
From that April day in Virginia, I was a dedicated NASCAR fan. The sport has come a long way since that sunny Spring day in the late 1990s. For me, it has took several steps backwards in the past couple of decades. As the truck series became more popular the sanctioning body abandoned tracks such as Louisville Motor Speedway, Mesa Marin, Pikes Peak, and the Milwaukee Mile. These tracks are what I cut my teeth when viewing NASCAR on television. The series also raced at short tracks on the Cup circuit, Bristol and Martinsville. It wasn’t until around February of 2000, the series took to the high banks of Daytona. Trying to emulate the two other popular series NASCAR turned away from the short tracks that made the series not only unique, but exciting to watch. The inaugural race at Dayton was marred by the fiery and career ending crash that sent Geoff Bodine’s truck into the catch fence and left the commentators speechless on the broadcast. Instead of heeding the warning that maybe the trucks didn’t belong on the superspeedway and intermediate tracks, NASCAR plunged straight on with the plan. Maybe it had something to do with the broadcasting partnerships and sponsor packages, and the need to standardize the top series. Maybe it had something to do with up and coming drivers that needed to get experience on the bigger tracks before moving up the next rung of the sport. Whatsoever, NASCAR created a series that most fans don’t even bother to glance at anymore other than when a cup star, such as Kyle Busch, dominates the race. In my opinion the truck series was way better on the short tracks and honestly, I probably would of went to more races if it stayed that way. One because they were more entraining that the other series, and two, the races were shorter.
Another downfall of the sport is that guys like Dean Monroe and Stacy Compton cannot come out to a track such as Martinsville today and qualify 9th, outdoing the major big money teams. Something like that today would be unheard of. The teams have went to multi-car teams, affiliated teams, and backed by the manufacture. Drivers now have to bring money and pay to drive for a small team now. It is like BOYM.
Tie this into the constant rule changes and the almost unbearable coverage on either Fox or NBC, and the sport has declined in ratings and interest in once a dedicated fan base. In recent years silly gimmicks such as the playoffs, rovals, and now dirt track race at Bristol seems to be a desperate cry from the NASCAR executives. Yes, the roval race at Charlotte is fun to watch. It should of been done 10 years ago instead of adding another cookie-cutter type tracks, Vegas, Kentucky, Kansas, Texas, and Fontana. The first jump into dirt track racing is where the truck series went to Eldora back in 2013. That was an exciting race, but should be left to the that series alone. It is a novelty race and an excellent concept, for that series. They should return to the short tracks and roots fo what made that series great. Same way the cup series should return to the roots of a standard championship, where the driver with the most points at the end of the series takes home the prize. This playoff series where the last race is like a Super Bowl for the last four drivers left in the playoffs can produce a scenario where the best team don’t win the championship. A driver could literally win every race, but get taken out in the last race by either another driver or equipment failure, and not be the celebrated champion. After all, in another inconsistency, I thought that the Daytona 500 was the Super Bowl of the sport. How can a sport have two Super Bowls?
