It’s time to look at the first third of the Sprint Cup season, but we must mention surely something’s cooking with the NASCAR brass calling a summit meeting to owners and drivers only to discuss the state of the state of the sport. Certainly economic pressures, resent controversies involving Carl Long and Jeremy Mayfield and miserable television ratings are giving the NASCAR heavy-weights a bad case of the jitters. Hopefully, they will have a frank discussion and see what they can do to win back the casual fans that seem to have abandoned the sport in 2009.
The 2009 season is highly competitive at the one third mark with the top seven drivers within 184 points of first place and four drivers within 100 points from being in the all-important top 12 Chase qualifiers. Beyond Clint Bowyer in 17th, 109 points separated from the 12 place driver, the remainder of the field has much more ground to make up. A handful of familiar drivers have much to accomplish to get into chase consideration.
NASCAR responded to the economic squeeze on many levels but the most noteworthy ruling was to ban testing all NASCAR sanctioned tracks for Sprint Cup competitors. While that helps even things up between the rich and the poor where wealthy teams can deploy cars across the country to run tests but some of the lesser teams struggle to have enough cars just to cover the races on the schedule, the wealthy teams are also much more able to run sophisticated simulations and find other facilities where they can conduct tests. Consider the impact on rookie drivers. Joey Logano and Scott Speed will see some tracks for the first time as their cars unload for that week’s competition.
Perhaps the most radical responses to the failing economy were the ones in the offseason when Chip Ganassi and Theresa Earnhardt combined operations to from Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing. Petty Enterprises joined Gillette-Evernham racing, essentially selling out the Petty legacy to new hands with Richard as a lesser partner. However, in respect to the “King” and the better branding possibilities, the new operation would be named Richard Petty Racing. Hall of Fame Racing had maintained a loose association with Joe Gibbs Racing but entered into a relationship with Yates Racing that was all but a merger, hiring former champ Bobby Labonte as driver to work with former champion crew chief Todd Parrott taking owner points from the former #38 operation. Paul Menard joined the team from the former DEI operation. Travis Kvapil started the season without permanent sponsorship in the #28 Ford. Not locking into the top 35 in owner’s points after this year’s results took effect, the team was disbanded. Meanwhile, the Earnhardt-Ganassi garage, lack of sponsorship and struggles on the track led to disbanding the #8 team with driver Aric Almirola. The realities of 2009 Sprint Cup racing could mark the beginning of the end of one of NASCAR’s most historic teams, the “legendary” Wood Brothers. With tech support and engines from Roush-Yates and former champ, Bill Elliot, once again postponing retirement, the #21 Ford has only appeared in a select few events but Awesome Bill did manage a 10th starting spot for the Coca Cola 600.
Against that backdrop, since the green flag dropped to start the Daytona 500, most of the attention focuses where it should be, on racing. Two scandals of lesser teams have arisen in the last three weeks. First, veteran driver and team owner, Jeremy Mayfield was dealt an indefinite suspension for failing a drug test. The results of the test indicating what substance tested positive have not been released. Itinerate owner/driver, Carl Long suffered a long suspension and huge fine for running an oversized engine. Message to drivers and owners, don’t mess with NASCAR’s rules. They don’t politic around or engage in legalistic niceties enforcing their rules.
Competition in the first quarter generally brings together the usual cast of characters, drivers, owners, and teams. Despite winning the first two races with the #17 Ford driven by Matt Kenseth, 2009 so far proved tough for the Roush teams with Carl Edwards, last year’s muscle man, struggling to stay in the top 12. Kyle Busch leads with three wins. Matt Kenseth’s former co-owner and mentor, Mark Martin, returning to full time action for Hendricks is the only other repeat winners. This year’s most unexpected surprise must belong to part-time rookie, Brad Kesolowski winning for James Finch whose team races Hendricks prepared Chevy’s when Kesolowski drives but Dodges for other drivers. This young driver’s win was no accident but his move to beat Carl Edwards at Talladega caused the most dangerous accident in competition in a long time when Edwards’s car lifted off the track sailing into the retaining fence approaching the finish line injuring several fans one of whom sustained a broken jaw. This event will ignite more attention to making restrictor races safer. Today, showed another first time winner to victory lane with David Reutimann scoring Michael Waltrip Racing’s first victory, was also the first Toyota win for a team other than Joe Gibbs, in a significantly shortened Coca Cola 600.
Surely the success story of the year has to be how quickly Stewart-Haas racing became a chase contending operation for both Tony Stewart’s #14 and Ryan Newman’s #39. Stewart won the Sprint All Star race while Newman nailed down the team’s first pole for the Coca Cola 600 as both drivers show steady progress with each race. Scarier to think is that Tony Stewart has always been known as a second half driver. If that’s the case, he could dominate the second half of this season. Stewart stands in 2nd place 44 points off the lead with his teammate in 7th place 184 points down. Fans should keep in mind, the Stewart operation runs Hendricks equipment and Tony Stewart is no rookie as a team owner running successful USAC and World of Outlaws operations as well as operating the Eldora Speedway and having co-owner stakes in two other tracks. Fans surely would find it difficult to bet against the dynamic Stewart/Newman duo.
Mark Martin’s return to full-time racing piloting the #5 Kellogg’s/Carquest Chevy for champion owner Rick Hendrick is another one of this season’s great success stories. Despite being tested with some of the worst luck imaginable finishing in 40th place in the 2nd and 3rd race and 31st in Atlanta, then Martin caught fire tallying four top ten finishes culminating with a win at Phoenix. Talladega appeared to derail Martin’s amazing senior tour finishing in dead last, but that setback would be short term finishing 5th at Richmond and winning the Southern 500. Today’s rain shortened event yielded a so-so 17th finish but Martin currently stands in the all important top 12.
Kurt Busch’s revival provides another real triumph for the first quarter. Not a single Dodge performed in last year’s chase, and only one Dodge competed for top honors in 2007 when Busch was also the lone Dodge driver in the chase. So far in 2009, the #2 Miller Lite Dodge stands in 3rd with one win in Atlanta, 3 top 5’s, 6 top 10’s, and only one finish outside the top 20, 23rd in Vegas.
Our last positive entry in the 2009 ledger goes to Jeff Gordon who despite dealing with on-going back trouble leads the points and secured his first win after going winless in 2009, his first winless season since his rookie year. The four time champ has six top fives and eight top tens to go with his victory in Texas.
The most talked about negative is the continued futility of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and team #88. Today’s Charlotte race pushed Earnhardt back another position to 19th with another miserable finish, 38th. One top five and only three top tens does not show a driver even remotely ready to push for a Chase slot. Driver errors, communications issues, and mistakes on pit stops are all regular setbacks for a team clearly going nowhere in 2009. Surely fans must question if the continued partnership of Dale Earnhardt Jr. with crew chief, Tony Eury Jr. is the right combination for championship racing. While the cousins experienced success together at DEI, they also had some infamous fallings out which resulted in Junior’s team swapping with Michael Waltrip’s team for part of a season. The Hendricks operation is a new world for Junior. Does the Earnhardt/Eury combo know how to take advantage of the endless resources they have available to them? Do they partner with garage mates from the #5 car? Surely, Mark Martin could set the perfect example for how to maintain the discipline and conditioning to ready for each week’s race. While Dale Earnhardt Junior is a much more outgoing fellow who would never antagonize others the way his father did, the sport’s most likeable driver is another iron head in stubbornness. Rick Hendrick is a great motivator but he’ll keep his efforts private and not publicize how he’s working with the #88 team to get on course. However, Dale Earnhardt Junior is the face of NASCAR in the media, Sprint Cup’s most popular driver, at what point does his promise become promise broken? We’ve already contrasted his career with Kyle Petty who remained popular despite becoming a quite ineffective driver for most of his career from the early 90’s forward. There are no better circumstances for a NASCAR driver to have all the right ingredients to compete for the championship. However, week after week, the race is barely a quarter completed before something comes up with the #88 ride giving fans that uneasy, “here we go again” sensation.
While Earnhardt’s failures standout so conspicuously, the driver who replaced his father at Childress also struggles. Kevin Harvick stands in a miserable 23rd position with only two top fives as his only top ten finishes this year. His struggles have run the gamut from being caught in the big wrecks to equipment failures, still it’s hard to believe a talented driver with one of the premier organizations behind him can be so snake-bitten.
Carl Edwards concludes Charlotte languishing in 11th place with two top fives and five top tens. After being part of last year’s three driver shoot out for the championship, in 2009, Carl Edwards finds wrecks on the track as if drawn in by a powerful magnet. His final lap flight into the fences will live on as a video of one of NASCAR’s most chilling crashes, but Afflac duck feathers have been set flying through out the season. Still, a little success could put Edwards right on track to where he needs to be.
Edwards’s difficulties reflect a generally mediocre season for the Roush/Fenway blue ovals. Matt Kenseth – two wins, three top fives, five top tens sits in ninth. Greg Biffle is next in line in tenth with no wins, three top fives, and six top tens, before reaching Edwards in 10th. Last year, David Ragan was knocking on the door to compete in the chase but is in a miserable 32nd right now with only one top ten. Jamie McMurray jumped up three spots to 21st after his Charlotte performance, but has no top fives and just three top tens. Something is amiss in Jack Roush’s shop, but his operation is capable of midseason corrections as shown the first year the “Car of Tomorrow” was introduced. They struggled horribly early on, but became much more combative as the year progressed. Dover, Pocono, and Michigan await them, all three tracks where Roush drivers have excelled.
Surely, 2009 finds RCR falling below expectations. Jeff Burton stands in 8th place, but between his 8th position and Kevin Harvick’s embarrassing spot, Clint Bowyer started off great but has fallen terribly recently losing four spots in the standings from Charlotte, now down to 17th. He’s earned four top tens three of which were in the top five. Newcomer Casey Mears stands one spot above, teammate Harvick, in 22nd with only one top ten. Richard Childress responded with some crew changes swapping the 07 and 29 crews to attempt to get the Mears and Harvick efforts moving. Moves of that scale in the heart of the season never spells a healthy garage, but Richard Childress has made such moves in the past with bigger players than these racers and succeeded. He’s one of the sports’ best strategic minds.
Though some might scoff at how it was accomplished, David Reutimann’s win today shows Michael Waltrip racing is coming of age and becoming a competitive operation. Reutimann has skirted the top 12 all season with another top five to go with three top ten finishes but is becoming more consistent when not getting caught in wrecks.
The one other major story has been watching the youngster, Joey Logano, emerge in Sprint Cup having just turned 19 years old this weekend. Clearly, he was escalated to the highest level a year ahead of time and looked way out matched in his Sprint Cup efforts in his few attempts last year. This year started out rough young Logano barely made the cut to be in the top 35. He showed his first flash of big time talent in Vegas with a 13th finish but starting with Talladega has finished 9th, 19th, 9th, and 9th, three top tens in four races while staying above 20th in all. He’s on his way.
The 2009 season shows NASCAR’s fan base reached a plateau and television ratings are slipping. Surely, a season that starts with a Daytona 500 interrupted by rain delays doesn’t make for a good introduction to the season or take the just concluded Coca Cola 600, hours of delays on Sunday before the race was called, then the race was postponed until the next day. Monday, more rain delays.
Fox’s coverage is okay but way too loaded with gimmicks. That had a cute, funny thing going with the gopher cam, where an animated gopher or ground hog pops his head out after shots from a track mounted camera, screams and pops back into his burrow. Well, that was just too good to be true. In 2009, Fox advertises its “Digger gear” and most races show a short cartoon segment about Digger and his pals. This is the same network that presents Jillian Reynolds and Frank Caliendo as of their pregame show’s slapstick.
All-in-all, Fox’s TV coverage is good. Mike Joy is a highly professional, knowledgeable play-by-play announcer and few color analysts are as entertaining yet insightful as Darrell Waltrip. Larry McReynolds knows his stuff too but surely must have English teachers pounding their heads against the wall for his butchery of Standard English. The pit reporters do their jobs well. The Hollywood Hotel coverage is perhaps overkill when the regular broadcast booth is in very capable hands, though Jeff Hammond does have plenty of knowledge to impart. We sure don’t need the pseudo-American Idol style country theme song, “Let’s Go Racin’ Boys” by Toby Lightman, an adult pop singer, hardly a Nashville Sensation.
The racers themselves might be part of the television trouble. Dale Junior is an interesting fellow to the casual fan, but this year there are no good Junior stories. There don’t seem to be any red hot rivalries. Kyle Busch is too much an immature smartass to make a compelling villain. The Mark Martin age defying saga is probably a tale more interesting to the real hard core race fans.
Perhaps NASCAR needs to look the format for some of its races and gear the content to more appealing television programming. Clearly, 500 miles is too long for Pocono for instance. These races could be reduced to 300 miles as these races don’t televise well and take up way too much time. Reducing races to three hours especially for night races would make it easier for fans to sit through a whole race. Keep the Coke 600 as the yearly marathon, but when the Dover races were reduced to 400 lap affairs, no one was complaining.
This fan is not complaining. For a long time NASCAR fan, this year’s competition is quite satisfying. However, hard core fans will watch races casual fans will stiff. Television coverage has never been the same since EPSN lost its coverage to the big TV deal starting the 2001 series where Fox split the coverage with NBC and TNT. Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, and the late Benny Parsons with Dr. Jerry Punch as the lead pit announcer provided just the right tempo and the right balance between racing and story telling. Those simpler days seem so long gone.
The long summer stretch is at hand. It’s a long way to Richmond in September when the Chase field is set. We’ll be watching and sharing our thoughts.
The 2009 season is highly competitive at the one third mark with the top seven drivers within 184 points of first place and four drivers within 100 points from being in the all-important top 12 Chase qualifiers. Beyond Clint Bowyer in 17th, 109 points separated from the 12 place driver, the remainder of the field has much more ground to make up. A handful of familiar drivers have much to accomplish to get into chase consideration.
NASCAR responded to the economic squeeze on many levels but the most noteworthy ruling was to ban testing all NASCAR sanctioned tracks for Sprint Cup competitors. While that helps even things up between the rich and the poor where wealthy teams can deploy cars across the country to run tests but some of the lesser teams struggle to have enough cars just to cover the races on the schedule, the wealthy teams are also much more able to run sophisticated simulations and find other facilities where they can conduct tests. Consider the impact on rookie drivers. Joey Logano and Scott Speed will see some tracks for the first time as their cars unload for that week’s competition.
Perhaps the most radical responses to the failing economy were the ones in the offseason when Chip Ganassi and Theresa Earnhardt combined operations to from Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing. Petty Enterprises joined Gillette-Evernham racing, essentially selling out the Petty legacy to new hands with Richard as a lesser partner. However, in respect to the “King” and the better branding possibilities, the new operation would be named Richard Petty Racing. Hall of Fame Racing had maintained a loose association with Joe Gibbs Racing but entered into a relationship with Yates Racing that was all but a merger, hiring former champ Bobby Labonte as driver to work with former champion crew chief Todd Parrott taking owner points from the former #38 operation. Paul Menard joined the team from the former DEI operation. Travis Kvapil started the season without permanent sponsorship in the #28 Ford. Not locking into the top 35 in owner’s points after this year’s results took effect, the team was disbanded. Meanwhile, the Earnhardt-Ganassi garage, lack of sponsorship and struggles on the track led to disbanding the #8 team with driver Aric Almirola. The realities of 2009 Sprint Cup racing could mark the beginning of the end of one of NASCAR’s most historic teams, the “legendary” Wood Brothers. With tech support and engines from Roush-Yates and former champ, Bill Elliot, once again postponing retirement, the #21 Ford has only appeared in a select few events but Awesome Bill did manage a 10th starting spot for the Coca Cola 600.
Against that backdrop, since the green flag dropped to start the Daytona 500, most of the attention focuses where it should be, on racing. Two scandals of lesser teams have arisen in the last three weeks. First, veteran driver and team owner, Jeremy Mayfield was dealt an indefinite suspension for failing a drug test. The results of the test indicating what substance tested positive have not been released. Itinerate owner/driver, Carl Long suffered a long suspension and huge fine for running an oversized engine. Message to drivers and owners, don’t mess with NASCAR’s rules. They don’t politic around or engage in legalistic niceties enforcing their rules.
Competition in the first quarter generally brings together the usual cast of characters, drivers, owners, and teams. Despite winning the first two races with the #17 Ford driven by Matt Kenseth, 2009 so far proved tough for the Roush teams with Carl Edwards, last year’s muscle man, struggling to stay in the top 12. Kyle Busch leads with three wins. Matt Kenseth’s former co-owner and mentor, Mark Martin, returning to full time action for Hendricks is the only other repeat winners. This year’s most unexpected surprise must belong to part-time rookie, Brad Kesolowski winning for James Finch whose team races Hendricks prepared Chevy’s when Kesolowski drives but Dodges for other drivers. This young driver’s win was no accident but his move to beat Carl Edwards at Talladega caused the most dangerous accident in competition in a long time when Edwards’s car lifted off the track sailing into the retaining fence approaching the finish line injuring several fans one of whom sustained a broken jaw. This event will ignite more attention to making restrictor races safer. Today, showed another first time winner to victory lane with David Reutimann scoring Michael Waltrip Racing’s first victory, was also the first Toyota win for a team other than Joe Gibbs, in a significantly shortened Coca Cola 600.
Surely the success story of the year has to be how quickly Stewart-Haas racing became a chase contending operation for both Tony Stewart’s #14 and Ryan Newman’s #39. Stewart won the Sprint All Star race while Newman nailed down the team’s first pole for the Coca Cola 600 as both drivers show steady progress with each race. Scarier to think is that Tony Stewart has always been known as a second half driver. If that’s the case, he could dominate the second half of this season. Stewart stands in 2nd place 44 points off the lead with his teammate in 7th place 184 points down. Fans should keep in mind, the Stewart operation runs Hendricks equipment and Tony Stewart is no rookie as a team owner running successful USAC and World of Outlaws operations as well as operating the Eldora Speedway and having co-owner stakes in two other tracks. Fans surely would find it difficult to bet against the dynamic Stewart/Newman duo.
Mark Martin’s return to full-time racing piloting the #5 Kellogg’s/Carquest Chevy for champion owner Rick Hendrick is another one of this season’s great success stories. Despite being tested with some of the worst luck imaginable finishing in 40th place in the 2nd and 3rd race and 31st in Atlanta, then Martin caught fire tallying four top ten finishes culminating with a win at Phoenix. Talladega appeared to derail Martin’s amazing senior tour finishing in dead last, but that setback would be short term finishing 5th at Richmond and winning the Southern 500. Today’s rain shortened event yielded a so-so 17th finish but Martin currently stands in the all important top 12.
Kurt Busch’s revival provides another real triumph for the first quarter. Not a single Dodge performed in last year’s chase, and only one Dodge competed for top honors in 2007 when Busch was also the lone Dodge driver in the chase. So far in 2009, the #2 Miller Lite Dodge stands in 3rd with one win in Atlanta, 3 top 5’s, 6 top 10’s, and only one finish outside the top 20, 23rd in Vegas.
Our last positive entry in the 2009 ledger goes to Jeff Gordon who despite dealing with on-going back trouble leads the points and secured his first win after going winless in 2009, his first winless season since his rookie year. The four time champ has six top fives and eight top tens to go with his victory in Texas.
The most talked about negative is the continued futility of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and team #88. Today’s Charlotte race pushed Earnhardt back another position to 19th with another miserable finish, 38th. One top five and only three top tens does not show a driver even remotely ready to push for a Chase slot. Driver errors, communications issues, and mistakes on pit stops are all regular setbacks for a team clearly going nowhere in 2009. Surely fans must question if the continued partnership of Dale Earnhardt Jr. with crew chief, Tony Eury Jr. is the right combination for championship racing. While the cousins experienced success together at DEI, they also had some infamous fallings out which resulted in Junior’s team swapping with Michael Waltrip’s team for part of a season. The Hendricks operation is a new world for Junior. Does the Earnhardt/Eury combo know how to take advantage of the endless resources they have available to them? Do they partner with garage mates from the #5 car? Surely, Mark Martin could set the perfect example for how to maintain the discipline and conditioning to ready for each week’s race. While Dale Earnhardt Junior is a much more outgoing fellow who would never antagonize others the way his father did, the sport’s most likeable driver is another iron head in stubbornness. Rick Hendrick is a great motivator but he’ll keep his efforts private and not publicize how he’s working with the #88 team to get on course. However, Dale Earnhardt Junior is the face of NASCAR in the media, Sprint Cup’s most popular driver, at what point does his promise become promise broken? We’ve already contrasted his career with Kyle Petty who remained popular despite becoming a quite ineffective driver for most of his career from the early 90’s forward. There are no better circumstances for a NASCAR driver to have all the right ingredients to compete for the championship. However, week after week, the race is barely a quarter completed before something comes up with the #88 ride giving fans that uneasy, “here we go again” sensation.
While Earnhardt’s failures standout so conspicuously, the driver who replaced his father at Childress also struggles. Kevin Harvick stands in a miserable 23rd position with only two top fives as his only top ten finishes this year. His struggles have run the gamut from being caught in the big wrecks to equipment failures, still it’s hard to believe a talented driver with one of the premier organizations behind him can be so snake-bitten.
Carl Edwards concludes Charlotte languishing in 11th place with two top fives and five top tens. After being part of last year’s three driver shoot out for the championship, in 2009, Carl Edwards finds wrecks on the track as if drawn in by a powerful magnet. His final lap flight into the fences will live on as a video of one of NASCAR’s most chilling crashes, but Afflac duck feathers have been set flying through out the season. Still, a little success could put Edwards right on track to where he needs to be.
Edwards’s difficulties reflect a generally mediocre season for the Roush/Fenway blue ovals. Matt Kenseth – two wins, three top fives, five top tens sits in ninth. Greg Biffle is next in line in tenth with no wins, three top fives, and six top tens, before reaching Edwards in 10th. Last year, David Ragan was knocking on the door to compete in the chase but is in a miserable 32nd right now with only one top ten. Jamie McMurray jumped up three spots to 21st after his Charlotte performance, but has no top fives and just three top tens. Something is amiss in Jack Roush’s shop, but his operation is capable of midseason corrections as shown the first year the “Car of Tomorrow” was introduced. They struggled horribly early on, but became much more combative as the year progressed. Dover, Pocono, and Michigan await them, all three tracks where Roush drivers have excelled.
Surely, 2009 finds RCR falling below expectations. Jeff Burton stands in 8th place, but between his 8th position and Kevin Harvick’s embarrassing spot, Clint Bowyer started off great but has fallen terribly recently losing four spots in the standings from Charlotte, now down to 17th. He’s earned four top tens three of which were in the top five. Newcomer Casey Mears stands one spot above, teammate Harvick, in 22nd with only one top ten. Richard Childress responded with some crew changes swapping the 07 and 29 crews to attempt to get the Mears and Harvick efforts moving. Moves of that scale in the heart of the season never spells a healthy garage, but Richard Childress has made such moves in the past with bigger players than these racers and succeeded. He’s one of the sports’ best strategic minds.
Though some might scoff at how it was accomplished, David Reutimann’s win today shows Michael Waltrip racing is coming of age and becoming a competitive operation. Reutimann has skirted the top 12 all season with another top five to go with three top ten finishes but is becoming more consistent when not getting caught in wrecks.
The one other major story has been watching the youngster, Joey Logano, emerge in Sprint Cup having just turned 19 years old this weekend. Clearly, he was escalated to the highest level a year ahead of time and looked way out matched in his Sprint Cup efforts in his few attempts last year. This year started out rough young Logano barely made the cut to be in the top 35. He showed his first flash of big time talent in Vegas with a 13th finish but starting with Talladega has finished 9th, 19th, 9th, and 9th, three top tens in four races while staying above 20th in all. He’s on his way.
The 2009 season shows NASCAR’s fan base reached a plateau and television ratings are slipping. Surely, a season that starts with a Daytona 500 interrupted by rain delays doesn’t make for a good introduction to the season or take the just concluded Coca Cola 600, hours of delays on Sunday before the race was called, then the race was postponed until the next day. Monday, more rain delays.
Fox’s coverage is okay but way too loaded with gimmicks. That had a cute, funny thing going with the gopher cam, where an animated gopher or ground hog pops his head out after shots from a track mounted camera, screams and pops back into his burrow. Well, that was just too good to be true. In 2009, Fox advertises its “Digger gear” and most races show a short cartoon segment about Digger and his pals. This is the same network that presents Jillian Reynolds and Frank Caliendo as of their pregame show’s slapstick.
All-in-all, Fox’s TV coverage is good. Mike Joy is a highly professional, knowledgeable play-by-play announcer and few color analysts are as entertaining yet insightful as Darrell Waltrip. Larry McReynolds knows his stuff too but surely must have English teachers pounding their heads against the wall for his butchery of Standard English. The pit reporters do their jobs well. The Hollywood Hotel coverage is perhaps overkill when the regular broadcast booth is in very capable hands, though Jeff Hammond does have plenty of knowledge to impart. We sure don’t need the pseudo-American Idol style country theme song, “Let’s Go Racin’ Boys” by Toby Lightman, an adult pop singer, hardly a Nashville Sensation.
The racers themselves might be part of the television trouble. Dale Junior is an interesting fellow to the casual fan, but this year there are no good Junior stories. There don’t seem to be any red hot rivalries. Kyle Busch is too much an immature smartass to make a compelling villain. The Mark Martin age defying saga is probably a tale more interesting to the real hard core race fans.
Perhaps NASCAR needs to look the format for some of its races and gear the content to more appealing television programming. Clearly, 500 miles is too long for Pocono for instance. These races could be reduced to 300 miles as these races don’t televise well and take up way too much time. Reducing races to three hours especially for night races would make it easier for fans to sit through a whole race. Keep the Coke 600 as the yearly marathon, but when the Dover races were reduced to 400 lap affairs, no one was complaining.
This fan is not complaining. For a long time NASCAR fan, this year’s competition is quite satisfying. However, hard core fans will watch races casual fans will stiff. Television coverage has never been the same since EPSN lost its coverage to the big TV deal starting the 2001 series where Fox split the coverage with NBC and TNT. Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, and the late Benny Parsons with Dr. Jerry Punch as the lead pit announcer provided just the right tempo and the right balance between racing and story telling. Those simpler days seem so long gone.
The long summer stretch is at hand. It’s a long way to Richmond in September when the Chase field is set. We’ll be watching and sharing our thoughts.
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