Woke Up This Morning...

Maybe we need to call in the Soprano's to have a talk with Brian France and NASCAR to get some of the following issues resolved:

1. Is it that the fans have had enough with NASCAR? Perhaps this is true. One problem is that the season is just too long. We start racing around Valentine's Day and don't finish up until close to Thanksgiving. The only other sport that comes close to that length in time is baseball but it is like comparing apples to oranges. These teams are on the road so much that it is no big surprise that most of them have personnel issues on the homefront and then you have the changing of the crew during the season.. NASCAR says it is about family but lets be real, these guys don’t see their families and when the season does end, they are back working in the shops getting ready for testing which starts in about 2 months. Lets face reality though, if they did shorten the season, the tracks along with the teams would lose money.

2. NASCAR has become a big business within the past several years and yes I did say business. It is all about the dollar sign and not about the fans. Did you know that half of the races this season were not sellouts? California, who wanted so desperately a second race and took it from Darlington, failed to sell out both of their races. Heck, even the Brickyard 400 failed to sell out this year and was the smallest crowd in its 13 year history. I am not saying the fans will not show up at the races, I know I will pay the high price of tickets to go see a race or two but it does cost money to go to the races and the prices keep going up. It is even getting expensive to go to the Busch races and you can thank the Busch whackers for that one.

3. Fans watching the races on TV have fallen lower then those of 2005. This years Daytona 500 did have a record viewing audience of over 12.5 million but we do have to remember that this race is like the NFL's Superbowl and is one of the most watched events in any sport. This is in part due to the races starting later in the afternoon and going into the evening hours. People just lose interest in watching it. Also helping the falling of the ratings in the poor job of broadcasting in NBC. I have mentioned it time and time before that Bill Weber is an awful guy to have in the booth and it shows with the ratings. Perhaps with ESPN/ABC coming onboard next year, it will improve, it can only get better.

4. What about having the races shortened from the 400 and 500 miles to 300 miles? We have found ourselves watching a long race of 500 miles and wondering if it will ever end and then we end up starting to channel surf or doing something around the house that is on the "honey-to-do list." Another thing to take into consideration with this is that the engines are taking a beating over 500 miles revving rpm’s of over 9300, you try driving your car like that and see what happens to the family Chrysler Town and Country.

5. Could it be that the fans are just tired of seeing the major teams dominate? We are all not fans of Hendrick, Roush, Childress, and Evernham which have the resources that some of the smaller teams don't. NASCAR did come up with a possible answer with the Car of Tomorrow. There are people out there that doubt it will make a difference but we just have to wait and see. This car is promising to make the racing closer, more exciting, and fun to watch but time will only tell.

All in all, with the COT and its side by side and bumper to bumper action coupled with a shorter schedule and the meaningless laps during the middle of a race could keep the fan base from dwindling down even further. NASCAR needs to make its move quickly. Just a thought, how would the owners of the teams react to issues if they had totalk to Tony Soprano? Silence is golden.