The Case of the Mysterious Disappearing Fans Solved

With the new rumored changes to the points and Chase system in NASCAR, people once again want to talk about what happened to NASCAR’s numbers. How will the changes affect the television ratings and the ticket sales numbers? Will the new changes have the desired effect of bringing back the loyal and diehard fans to the track and in front of their television sets weekly? Just as important is the question where did they go and why?

[media-credit name=”Barry Albert” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]I believe that responsibility lies not only with the business model of NASCAR it’s self but with the changes in the type of fan and the type of drivers that compete in the sport. The old school, diehard, knowledgeable fan, who researched, asked questions and learned the sport. They were also being diehard in their loyalty to their driver got tired of being treated as though they were stupid. They got tired of being traded for marketing dollars and having the sport itself slide for the sake of money.

That financially profitable business model that was created by NASCAR, carried over to everything. To the price of the hotels and merchandise, to the price of the race tickets, to the number of commercials in a TV broadcast. It was a business model that the teams copied, after all everyone wanted their piece of the pie. It was a model in which the fans became a commodity much like the inventory of cars and parts in their shop.

There were warnings from within. Drivers cautioned that the true blood of the sport was a mixture between the loyalty of the fans and the fierceness of competition and to lose either would have disastrous results. Still the model moved forward making millions of dollars as it did, but at the same time alienating long time fans and enthusiasts.

The knowledgeable and long time fans shook their heads and faded away much like the real stories of their heroes. The commercialized and romanticized NASCAR fans took their place, the ME generation. The generation of what it’s in it for me. What do I get? It’s ok to hate a driver, it’s ok to wish him bad. Wrecks are great, if they die so what; they get paid the big bucks to take that chance. These appear on message boards throughout the internet. Their loyalty changed from week to week. Whoever was winning, as long as they weren’t winning too much. How much was too much? To that there was no consistent answer.

The next generation of drivers was different as well. Gone were the strong men with iron wills. The courage and daring of moon shiners and fighter pilots. Men, who could build the car, could and did work on the car, and knew it inside out. The magicians of speed faded into history and their stories became romantic tales of daring and magic.

In their place came pretty poster boys and marketing images that had no substance and no reality. What you saw was all there was. There was no personality. There was no style or substance. It was a facade of a man created by a marketing puppeteer to sell the sponsor products and the sport.

Like a movie façade the man behind the image was often unaccommodating and distant. He was a business owner with multiple corporations and the driver you saw was actually nothing more than a corporate image meant to entice you to support of products and merchandise.

The dedication of driver to fan began to disappear. The standards of the King and his devotion to his following became legend and few if any paid heed to the dominance that fan base provided him in times of difficulty.

The slick and shiny new NASCAR driver met with approval from the master puppeteers named NASCAR because the sport had changed. It was now about control about changing and rewriting history to avoid offending the sensitive. Sensitivity training and “diversity studies” became the order of the day. Not race cars, speed and technologies that would extend the sports survival into the next centuries.

The drivers were just the starting point. The next stop was erasing the brand identity of the manufacturers that for years had kept the sport afloat. And they did so with total arrogance stating, the sport would survive even if the manufactures represented did not.

To make their point, NASCAR engineers were given the task of creating a NASCAR car. The Car of Tomorrow it was called. All the cars would be the same, creating a “level playing field” and eliminating the advantage of factory support and dominance.

The arrival of NASCAR’s car spoke loudly to fall of the sport and its fans. But it also spoke loudly to the men behind the poster boy smiles. Suddenly they were at risk. Their well scripted and planned roles of villain and hero began to fall apart. The heroes couldn’t fill the shoes of the men of the past. They didn’t know how. They were created on paper and their reality was that the 43 most highly paid male super models frankly didn’t have the skills. And the few that did were unacceptable to the new fan. They were, “Neanderthal throw backs”, “spoiled brat”, “jerk with a steering wheel”.

The “general fan” does not like Kyle Busch or Tony Stewart or even to a degree Juan Pablo Montoya. It really has little to do with their demeanor or their behavior. It has more to do with their raw ability. They are not the slick paper politically correct set. They are a throwback to a simpler time when people could do the math and know where their favorite stood in the points. Where the goal and path to reach it were easy. Do it better. Do it faster and accept no road block in your way. Bring back the trophy and ultimately the championship.

For all their cries of we need another Dale Earnhardt, they don’t really want one. Not that any of this generation of drivers could ever fill his shoes. But should one come along that could stand beside him, they would reject him as being too cocky and irresponsible.

Even though the man in black was the defining hero that changed not only our sport but our world he too fell victim to NASCAR’s polishing rag. His name used to promote and describe as though it were an adjective yet few of the new fans knew him as anything but Sr. Truth is he was not a senior. He was Dale Earnhardt. His son was Junior. But he was never senior. He was Dale. He was the Intimidator. He was the man in black. He was a lot of expletives if he was not your favorite driver. But he was never Senior.

As in the growth of all things NASCAR’s new business model hit its snag. Its new fans were not interested in why or how. The patient support that the sport had enjoyed for over 50 years was suddenly gone. The new generation of fans wanted what they had been promised.

When it was not forth coming immediately from NASCAR they created it themselves with irresponsible postings across the internet of unsubstantiated rumor and flat fiction. The fan bases now thoroughly ensconced in the new NASCAR model defended the action as “freedom of speech” and encouraged the activity to the point that across the board, old school fans began to whisper amongst themselves about the fall of the proud and the greedy.

They began looking for the “new hero”. Sadly it would not be the Legacy of the greatest hero our sport had known. But who would it be? Would he come from the west and a land of glitter and glamour or would he come from another series with the strength and the will to stand like Wyatt Earp? Or would it be a woman who would charm and comfort them back to their seats?

Truth is the story has no ending as of yet. There are changes coming and the sands of time are still shaping the challenges and the faces of the future. What difference will it make to change the way the points are awarded? Will that change the fact that barring some horrific and unanticipated disaster that Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus will once again be right there taking on all comers? NO. It means that we are rewarding those that are too lazy to learn how the points system works and are too uneducated to do the math.

Then we have the change to the chase. Rumor is 10 points spots and 2 winners spots. Now let’s say that we have 4 teams with 2 wins apiece. All 4 of them are separated by 1 point. They can’t award those positions by points because that is what they are trying to get away from in the first place. If they do award it on the basis of points then what was the point in changing the system. Brian France gets egg on his face and one more time NASCAR takes a hit in lacking foresight.

So what do we do put all four out there in an all star prelude type race and say the top two go on and the last two don’t? How many cars do you think will still be drivable after the 1st turn on the green flag? Let us not forget here that the Cup Champion’s purse money last year was over 7 million dollars and that didn’t include contingency money. It didn’t include Champion’s purse share. I have the greatest confidence in my favorites that they have the talent to make it happen. But I am realistic as well, that is a lot of money.

By changing the points system and the Chase, all NASCAR is doing is saying here we understand you aren’t smart enough to understand so we are going to make it easy for you. How many times will NASCAR play the fans as stupid and insult their ability before people say enough. Or maybe they already are saying enough and that is why the ratings are dropping and the seats are starting to be noticeably empty.

The question stands who will lead us from the ruins of greed based control model that trades loyalty for dollar signs and knowledge for rumored speculation and irresponsibility. Who will be the track wise Hercules who will rise above the wrongs? Dramatic yes, but Hollywood couldn’t have written a better script of disaster and drama. Probably because this is not and never has been a polished sport. It is and always has been a fast paced chess game where men’s lives and the lives of their families and fans hang in the balance.

NASCAR’s numbers are gone. But they and their teams erased them themselves. Can they be recovered? Only time will tell.