“The white-zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and it’s time NASCAR fans load up their cars, find the nearest anti-Chase bridge and get over it.
For some reason, even after 11 years, there’s still a notable section of the NASCAR populace that can’t accept the fact that the Chase is never going away. I understood the distaste for it back in 2004 when it was a whole new idea of determining the champion, but now it’s just gotten to the point of being on par with those who hate dubbed anime with a passion…It makes no sense!
I’ve heard just about every excuse for being against it. “It’s not tradition.” “It’s artificial entertainment.” “It’s killing the sport.” “It cost the Red Sox Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.” Okay, I made up that last one, but you get my point.
For those who say it’s “not tradition,” traditions change. Once upon a time, it was a tradition in NASCAR to race back to the caution. What started as the leaders running at a slightly reduced speed to allow any lapped car to get their lap back turned into a fustercluck of leaders speeding back to keep certain cars from getting back.
On Sept. 14, 2003, Dale Jarrett got turned by Jimmy Spencer and hit the wall driver-side at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. His car came to a stop in the middle of the track. Meanwhile on the backstretch, race leader Bill Elliott, Ryan Newman and Michael Waltrip slowed down to a reduced rate while Bobby Labonte, Kurt Busch and Jimmy Spencer rocketed by trying to get back their lap. That gaggle of cars had taken up most of the track exiting Turn 4 with Jarrett’s No. 88 UPS Ford sitting lifeless in the middle of the track.
Wally Dallenbach put it best. “Here’s the bad deal. You got a car sitting in the race track right now and these guys are racing back to the yellow. That’s just…ugh I hate that!”
NASCAR had always maintained that the leader should be the first one back to the line and let him decide who should get his lap back. Now Labonte had made a deal with Elliott to let him back on the lead lap the next caution and Bill slowed down to let him pass. Then Jimmy Spencer, being Jimmy Spencer, decided to fly up to the leader and almost spun Waltrip out to get by.
This incident, and a string of close calls in the 2003 season, finally made NASCAR realize someone is going to get killed if this keeps going and they banned the practice of racing back to the yellow the next week at Dover.
With no social media at the time, I don’t know how well received it was with the NASCAR fans, but 12 years later, I don’t hear anyone clambering for the return of racing back to the caution.
With the “it’s artificial entertainment” argument, someone will have to explain that to me. I don’t understand it. If you’re saying it’s not natural, no sport on Earth is natural entertainment. All sports on Earth are artificial entertainment. Someone didn’t just one day plant a seed into the ground and suddenly, Bristol Motor Speedway popped out of the ground. Until someone shows me a field of Sprint Cup cars growing out of the ground, it’s not natural. Even the traditional method of determining a champion is not natural. A human created an arbitrary points system, thereby making it artificial.
For the “it’s killing the sport” argument, that holds no weight until you present an academic study proving that the sagging attendance and diminishing ratings correlates with the Chase.
In conclusion, traditions change, all sports are artificial and there’s no evidence to support the hypothesis that the Chase is killing the sport.
If you honestly think the old way of determining the champion is better than the Chase, that’s your right to think as such. But after 11 years, the Chase isn’t going away. It’s here to stay. The current incarnation of the Chase is the best and it’ll carry this sport for a number of years.
My plane is ready to board, so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. Heart attacks are more likely to happen on a Monday.
“Truth is nothing more than an artificial construct that depends on which point of view one takes” – Tucker White….. Ok there is this “artificial construct” that says if you don’t pressurize the cabin of the airplane you’re about to board (like this was needed in the article) you’re brain will become sluggish. I have to ask Tucker, did you try a different point of view on this?
This fairy tale brings up another problem with Nascar today and why it’s now perceived as “Sports entertainment” as opposed to a racing series…..
This crap is what is posted today as “Nascar news”,Nascar rules what is written about it and is nothing more than propaganda where NASCAR does no wrong and people with common sense like all of the posters here so far can see if for what it is…..drivel… Mindless drivel.
This is just someone wanting to keep their nascar hard card which goes away for anyone who tells the truth….
All sports to a degree are “sports entertainment.”
Truth is nothing more than an artificial construct that depends on which point of view one takes. What you consider “mindless drivel” is what I consider reality. The Chase is not going away. No matter how much people like you would rather go back to the days of drivers winning the title with two or three races to spare.
I’m going to explain this as simply as I can, so perhaps you’ll understand. If moving your lips helps, please go ahead.
The ratings & attendance have been dropping steadily & surely since the introduction of the Chase, just looking at the ratings info provided on Jayski each week bears this out. Of course there are other variables that skew the ratings, such as races being on NBCSN or FoxSports1, but even those variables are tied into the falling ratings. How? It’s simple; as the ratings plummet, the networks have also negotiated new TV packages & they shuffle NASCAR off to a lower tier network they own because it doesn’t bring in the ratings to justify it being on FOX or NBC proper. Lower ratings=less advertising dollars=less money coming in to the networks, thus the push to a lesser network. That’s Basic Economics 101.
No matter one’s views on how “natural” or ‘artificial” this is, (& you were really splitting hairs there trying to make your comments have a shred of logic), the idea of any playoff type of series working to crown a racing champion is ludicrous & has been since they first conceived of it in 2003. The reason is simple, & has been expressed for years, but I’ll explain it again, so you’ll hopefully grasp it this time: In the stick & ball sports, there are two, (count ’em, two!), two teams in any playoff game & no more. There may be more than one playoff game going on, but there are still only two, (again count ’em, two!), teams per game, In a NASCAR race there are forty-three cars & drivers on the track at the same time. That creates the chance for a driver to be taken out of the Chase by someone not even involved in the Chase itself, (see Kyle Larson & Kyle Busch last week at Charlotte). Imagine forty-three football teams, (ok, make it forty -two to keep it even), one the same playing field at the same time. Now you can hopefully see why this approach only adds unneeded chaos to the championship battle.
“The current incarnation of the Chase is the best and it’ll carry this sport for a number of years.” pardon me for the next fifteen minutes or so while I collapse with laughter & try to catch my breath…………………………………….
Ok, I think I can go on now. Whatever it is you’re on, either see your doctor to get your dosage changed, or stop doing illegal drugs, they’re bad for you. You surely didn’t type that comment with a straight face did you? You couldn’t have. There’s no way that this “elimination round” way of crowning a champion is a good idea to anyone but those with severe mental issues. It throws everything leading up to the championship battle out the window. Consistency isn’t rewarded with this system, as you can have one bad race & be eliminated. That’s a joke, (forty-three cars instead of two on the track at the same time, remember?), not a way to crown a champion.
Finally, if you really don’t think that the fans have deserted NASCAR in droves, look at the number of comments your article has garnered so far. I used to write about the sport for this very site back in 2001-2003, (before NASCAR lost me as a fan with the Chase), & if I had written an article like this I’d have gotten dozens of comments, (both pro & con). So far you have a single one. That should be pretty telling as to how few people follow the sport now. I’ve watched a total of two or three races this year I think, maybe four, a far cry from the days when I scheduled my life around the sport, & I’ve followed it since 1968. These days I check the rundown on Jayski for most of the races & that’s pretty much it. I haven’t been to a Cup race in over ten years, & I’ve been to one XFINITY race in the past eight years, & that one only because my wife got free tickets to it. Pretty sad when I used to attend as many as ten races a year, & always at least four.
There is no correlation. It’s far more likely that the global recession of 2007 to 2009 had a far bigger impact on NASCAR and all sports in general.
Good grief, are you really that obtuse, or is is just an act to get attention?
We are six years past that recession & the ratings are still dropping. Blaming the falling TV rating on a recession six years past & like blaming the weatherman for the weather.
Intellectually, you are the weakest link. Keep making excuses for the fact that the powers-that-be at NASCAR are much like Nero, fiddling as the sport self-destructs. You’re the type of person that would be spending his time rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sank while saying; “Iceberg, What iceberg? I don’t see an iceberg.”
I don’t think a sport that just just inked a four-billion dollar, 10 year television contract with Fox and NBC is “self-destructing.”
And how many of those races will be shuffled off to FoxSports1 & NBCSN, to a radically smaller percentage of viewers? Look, the reason that they got that deal, (IIRC, the last time NBC was with NASCAR, NBC got out of their contract early, so that deal could be meaningless), is to provide fodder for their second tier networks. Right now there are so many channels that they’re all desperate for programming, no matter what it is, & this deal got both FOX & NBCs sports networks a package to compete with ESPN.
The problem there is any cable/satellite network is going to have less viewers than a broadcast network, & both FOXSports1 & NBC have less viewers than ESPN does, so ratings will keep dropping as less & less people have access to it. Add in those that are tired of cable satellite fees & are dropping those services faster & faster, & the audience for the sport keeps shrinking. With digital TV & emerging things like Netflix & Amazon digital channels, (just the tip of the iceberg there), the entire television landscape is going to look much different before these deals expire, & most of the people embracing this new wave aren’t interested in sitting down for four hours or so watching cars go around & around. If the sport loses old times fans like me that’s actually ok, as long as there are new fans to take our places & that’s just not happening. The sport’s fan base is shrinking, & no amount of ponies & rainbows is going to change that fact. The ratings & attendance started sliding with the advent of the Chase, & the recession certainly didn’t help matters any, but we’re past that now & things aren’t getting any better, they’re just getting worse. Heck, I have all those channels on satellite, & I can barely be bothered to watch a race on TV now. I was off from work yesterday & didn’t even give a moment’s thought to watching the Kansas race. That doesn’t bode well for the sport, simply because I’m not the only one that feels this way, & again hard corre fans like myself aren’t being replaced.
If you go to a restaurant and they insist on serving you lamb-fries and you don’t like lamb-fries do you keep going back or find another place to eat?
Well, if you haven’t noticed, a lot of people have went somewhere else to eat. You don’t “get over it”, only an idiot would do that. You move on and take your business elsewhere. Perhaps it will help if you start thinking of fans as customers.
So you get over yourself. I may or may not continue to watch NASCAR but I won’t consume anything I don’t like unless I absolutely have to. The chase might be here to stay but the customers aren’t. They don’t get over it, they go somewhere else.
And finally, regarding “The current incarnation of the Chase is the best and it’ll carry this sport for a number of years.” on what do you base that assertion.?Attendance is way down, ratings are way down, everything NASCAR related has been trending down for the last decade which, coincidentally coincides with the change to the chase format.
This is the most idiotic load of crap I’ve ever read. What are you trying to get a job with NASCAR by kissing their ass.
“Attendance is way down, ratings are way down, everything NASCAR related has been trending down for the last decade which, coincidentally coincides with the change to the chase format.” Correlation does not equal causation.
Sorry goading writer..I didn’t read all of your drivel. Do tell, what do you think the staggering amount of empty seats are the cause of? Oh I know, I know…you silly boy will say the “economy”. Lol. I think you need to back up your fiction, that the empty seats are NOT related to “The Chase” or the shitty package on the track. Don’t ya think?
Shut up Tucker…you NASCAR shill. While you are entitled to your opinion as we all are, your piece is certainly no indication of fact or logic. SMH. And frankly is an insult to hard working teams, fans and the sponsors who support them. The Chase, this Chase is a cancer and is killing a classic, unique American sport. And no I am by no means a old bitter person, just one of the majority who see the writing on the wall and don’t look thru rose colored glasses and bow to King Brian.