could address it a little stronger.”
He is right on about the media. The talking heads on TV need to quit going on and on about how great the racing is now. IT IS NOT GREAT! Just because the last 20 laps of a race are worth watching doesn’t mean it is great racing. Fans that never missed watching a NASACR program are falling by the wayside at an alarming pace. Just because Jimmy Spencer, Kenny Wallace and the rest of the “lame-stream media” as Mad Mikie so affectionately refers to them, tells fans the racing is great doesn’t mean we are so stupid as to think they are right. We have eyes and can see that the racing SUCKS. The only racing we see most Sundays is the race out of the pits because more often than not the guy who gets out of the pits first on the last pit stop wins the race and THAT IS NOT GREAT RACING!
Jr. also said “I think that the drivers could be a little more vocal about it”
Jr. is absolutely correct. Drivers do need to be more vocal. It is up to them to put the pressure on NASCAR. Back in 1969 drivers were not as important as they are now. They need to stand together. Jeff Gordon was one of the first to agree with his team mate. Gordon said “I feel like this car is not the best car for giving the drivers comfort and confidence to be able to really do what they need to do. I feel like the teams are in a box. They're not really able to adjust on the car to fix it if the car is tight in the middle (of a turn) or loose in (headed into a turn). ... You're kind of strapped there.”
Jeff brought up a subject that my buddy Brian in Florida and I talked about in the spring….THE BOX IS TOO SMALL. We talked about the lack of racing and he asked what I thought. I told him ‘this car sucks. Drivers can’t pass.’ He said he thought that the crew chiefs and engineers were put in too small of a box and had nothing to work onto make the car faster. I agree with him. It isn’t so much the new car as the tight restrictions NASCAR has put the teams.
There is no area for tweaking. No area to get any more speed. No area for a great mind to look at and say “hey, if I tweak this we can go faster.” And that isn’t good for the racing and in turn is not good for the sport. Since the beginning of our sport we have had great innovative geniuses like Smokey Yunick, Harry Hyde, Gary Nelson and Ray Evernham that would look at the rules then look at the car and a light bulb would go off. And the cars they worked on would get a little more speed. And they would win races and championships. And that is how it should be.
The box NASCAR has the teams in right now is just too small. There isn’t enough left for them to work their magic. Enough already. NASCAR has gotten like the government: Let’s make everything fair and equal for everyone. Well my friends that is just not life. Life is not fair and not equal for everyone. Instead of making everyone step up their game, NASCAR is making some teams back off their game. Like it or not, the world is made up of the haves and the have nots. That is just the way it is. And some of you may not like to hear it but as Smokey Yunick said “Money buys speed.” If teams want to go faster they need to spend the money to get the innovative guys and go faster.
NASCAR needs to just let the crew chiefs, mechanics, engine builders, engineers and drivers do their thing to the best of their ability and let the best team win. Racing is designed to see who can go the specific distance in the least amount of time. Why not let them just do it? Why put so many restrictions and regulations on the teams that the cream is unable to rise to the top?
With the economy in a slump and so many fans not going to the races the TV ratings should be sky high but they aren’t. And the reason is simply. It is too mind numbing to sit for hours on end watching cars go single file for hours on end. NASCAR needs to fix this problem and fix it quick.
Both Earnhardt and Gordon brought up the “double file restarts”. Gordon said “The double-file restarts have definitely created a lot of excitement, but if we don't have the cautions, it seems like we're back into the same box."
Earnhardt said "Before that (the double file restarts), I thought it (racing) was rather poor, I did," he said. "The races, to me, were very poor, and we almost depended on the late cautions to save the day, to make somebody race side-by-side for a couple of laps at least within 10 laps of the finish of the race, and somehow that saved the day. It was very frustrating because 95 percent of the race wasn't worth the price of the ticket."
Talk to most race fans and they will agree 100% with these remarks. If it wasn’t for the double file restarts this summer stretch would have been beyond the mind numbing crap it has been. Not that the summer stretch has ever been anything to write home about but that is another article for another day. When you have a guy who doesn’t pay for a ticket saying that 95% of the race wasn’t worth the price of a ticket…well that is a problem. And like Gordon said if there aren’t any cautions we are back in the same box…..of course we can always depend on those “mystery debris” cautions to perk things right up.
“I think NASCAR could probably be a little more urgent in improving our product. With the ultimate result is great, exciting racing that the fans will enjoy. That the drivers enjoy and so everyone is happy. That should be our quest always, even when things are good …. I'm not trying to start a crusade against nobody or cause anybody problems. We all, I think, the drivers, myself included, we all work together with NASCAR to do this. I am just trying to remind everyone of the optimal goal and prize for us is to have better racing. Even when things are good, we shouldn't rest on any success we may be having. We are not really where we want to be, I don't think, as a sport. We need to do things to excite corporate America. Excite the fans. We need to get proactive immediately to make that happen." Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Now I can hear the lame stream media and
non Jr. fans saying he is just trying to
justify his bad year. This has nothing to
do with whether or not I like Jr. It has to
do with the fact that FINALLY some one
who matters to NASCAR has said
something about the big old elephant in
pink pajamas sitting in the room.
As for NASCAR getting it that something
has to be done and soon? Don’t bet the
house on that one. As Kurt Busch said
"…. And NASCAR is very stubborn
sometimes." They are always right, they
have never made a mistake and everyone
needs to just shut up and drive or in the case of race fans shut up and buy tickets. Maybe NASCAR shouldn’t hold their breath either waiting on fans to start buying tickets again or even turning on the race.
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