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OT. Daytona 500

I think they are building some new grandstands (most of the empty areas you saw) and tearing down others......the idea is to get everyone in the main grandstand and close the back straight stands.....and some others.

In terms of attendance.....not sure what it actually was but all NASCAR tracks - except Bristol and Talladega are having issues filling seats.
 
Been that way for years now. When those idiots decided to take a purely southern sport that was hatched in the south, and appealed to the south, and thrived in the south, and move it north and west, it was the beginning of the end. They got greedy and corporate and sterile, and shazzam, killed all interest. They removed some of their biggest races to put them in places where it was doomed to fail. Chicago? Phoenix? California? Upstate New York? Nascar is a gearhead's sport, hill billie beer drinking good old boys, and they sterilized the crap out of it. So they got what they deserved, and as such very few races are sold out anymore. Outside of Bristol (at night only) I really can't think of another race that draws that many fans, or at least as many as they used to. When Gordon hangs it up after this year it's only going to get worse.
 
Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

Been that way for years now. When those idiots decided to take a purely southern sport that was hatched in the south, and appealed to the south, and thrived in the south, and move it north and west, it was the beginning of the end. They got greedy and corporate and sterile, and shazzam, killed all interest. They removed some of their biggest races to put them in places where it was doomed to fail. Chicago? Phoenix? California? Upstate New York? Nascar is a gearhead's sport, hill billie beer drinking good old boys, and they sterilized the crap out of it. So they got what they deserved, and as such very few races are sold out anymore. Outside of Bristol (at night only) I really can't think of another race that draws that many fans, or at least as many as they used to. When Gordon hangs it up after this year it's only going to get worse.
Why wouldn't you go out and reach for the money. Those big races in the south still draw a huge crowd, and I have been to plenty of races on the west coast (Fontana & Phoenix and there is more than enough people that show up to these events. I'm not a Nascar guy whatsoever, but it is pretty cool to be at live. There is still plenty of interest in Nascar.
 
Originally posted by leodisflowers:

Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

Been that way for years now. When those idiots decided to take a purely southern sport that was hatched in the south, and appealed to the south, and thrived in the south, and move it north and west, it was the beginning of the end. They got greedy and corporate and sterile, and shazzam, killed all interest. They removed some of their biggest races to put them in places where it was doomed to fail. Chicago? Phoenix? California? Upstate New York? Nascar is a gearhead's sport, hill billie beer drinking good old boys, and they sterilized the crap out of it. So they got what they deserved, and as such very few races are sold out anymore. Outside of Bristol (at night only) I really can't think of another race that draws that many fans, or at least as many as they used to. When Gordon hangs it up after this year it's only going to get worse.
Why wouldn't you go out and reach for the money. Those big races in the south still draw a huge crowd, and I have been to plenty of races on the west coast (Fontana & Phoenix and there is more than enough people that show up to these events. I'm not a Nascar guy whatsoever, but it is pretty cool to be at live. There is still plenty of interest in Nascar.
Attendance and TV ratings are trending down, and have been for years. Has nothing to do with how much you or I enjoy it, or enjoy watching it live. As a whole, people aren't as interested as they used to be and the reasons I outlined are a major part of it.

Here are some sections of a couple different articles talking about it last summer.

"The largest operator of NASCAR race tracks might not be done removing grandstand seats at its 13 speedways due to the decline in NASCAR's popularity, the company's chief executive said. International Speedway Corp., whose tracks include Daytona International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, already has slashed the number of seats at its venues - in some cases by up to 46% - in the last 18 months"

"Dover International Speedway's CEO apologized in the pre-race drivers' meeting for the lack of spectators prior to the June 1 event. "

I started to link a few more but you get the point. It's mainly a southern thing, and they thought it would travel well, it didn't. Not only that, it turned off many of their die hard fans who were like "Eff You" when they took away races like the Southern 500. Somehow they manage to con Fox into a huge TV deal, but I think Fox will be sorry they did it to be honest.
 
And this is one of the ways they decided to tackle their attendance problems....They just flat out stopped reporting those figures. You think they would have done that if they were trending up? That sport is so screwed up now it's amazing. You'd think they are being run by Bo Pelini himself with some of their arrogant ways.
 
Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

Originally posted by leodisflowers:


Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

Been that way for years now. When those idiots decided to take a purely southern sport that was hatched in the south, and appealed to the south, and thrived in the south, and move it north and west, it was the beginning of the end. They got greedy and corporate and sterile, and shazzam, killed all interest. They removed some of their biggest races to put them in places where it was doomed to fail. Chicago? Phoenix? California? Upstate New York? Nascar is a gearhead's sport, hill billie beer drinking good old boys, and they sterilized the crap out of it. So they got what they deserved, and as such very few races are sold out anymore. Outside of Bristol (at night only) I really can't think of another race that draws that many fans, or at least as many as they used to. When Gordon hangs it up after this year it's only going to get worse.
Why wouldn't you go out and reach for the money. Those big races in the south still draw a huge crowd, and I have been to plenty of races on the west coast (Fontana & Phoenix and there is more than enough people that show up to these events. I'm not a Nascar guy whatsoever, but it is pretty cool to be at live. There is still plenty of interest in Nascar.
Attendance and TV ratings are trending down, and have been for years. Has nothing to do with how much you or I enjoy it, or enjoy watching it live. As a whole, people aren't as interested as they used to be and the reasons I outlined are a major part of it.

Here are some sections of a couple different articles talking about it last summer.

"The largest operator of NASCAR race tracks might not be done removing grandstand seats at its 13 speedways due to the decline in NASCAR's popularity, the company's chief executive said. International Speedway Corp., whose tracks include Daytona International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, already has slashed the number of seats at its venues - in some cases by up to 46% - in the last 18 months"

"Dover International Speedway's CEO apologized in the pre-race drivers' meeting for the lack of spectators prior to the June 1 event. "

I started to link a few more but you get the point. It's mainly a southern thing, and they thought it would travel well, it didn't. Not only that, it turned off many of their die hard fans who were like "Eff You" when they took away races like the Southern 500. Somehow they manage to con Fox into a huge TV deal, but I think Fox will be sorry they did it to be honest.
Not disputing it isn't trending downwards, but so are a lot of sports right now. When Nascar was white hot it upgraded facilities, and now it is having to scale back. It does matter how much I enjoy it though. I am the casual fan that isn't the crazy person from the south and is going to be a ticket in their venue. IMO, there isn't any reason why they shouldn't have branched out of the south and chased more of the casual fan. Their task will be how to market those fans back in the venue. They probably should be a little more selective in the cities and times, but I don't see too much change in the current locales.
 
Always going to be exceptions, I realize people like yourself are going to attend, but they have a problem. There aren't enough of you. When you're removing large chunks of seating and you stop reporting attendance figures because they are so embarrassing and every other article about your sport is about how it's dying, it's OK to admit they have a problem, ignoring it because you and me like it doesn't make it less true. I also hope they get it figured out, I'm certainly not rooting for it's demise, but compared to what it was 10 years ago, the sport completely sucks now and I got large chunks of data to prove more people feel this way, than not.

I think one of there biggest problems, and it isn't their fault, people don't work on their own cars anymore. My dad taught me to do everything to a car. We were buying and selling them before I was old enough to drive them. Painting them, tearing into the motor to fix something, etc. People don't feel connected to these cars anymore because they don't know a damn thing about them My own son, who is going to be 14 this summer, isn't a gear head and I'm not forcing it on him. Way to many dads that don't know jack about a car who therefore aren't teaching it to their kids who aren't interested. Heck, are there even any auto shop classes offered in high school anymore? Single mom households who again, don't know jack about a car so they aren't teaching them. There just aren't enough gear heads anymore for a variety of reasons and it hurts Nascar.

Plus, it's a southern thing and a lot of southerners feel screwed over by their changes. Nascar thought they'd always stick around, and they were wrong.

Lastly, Dale Earnhardt's death was a HUGE problem. Again, not Nascar's fault, but he was their biggest star and when he died, so did a lot of interest.
 
Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

Been that way for years now. When those idiots decided to take a purely southern sport that was hatched in the south, and appealed to the south, and thrived in the south, and move it north and west, it was the beginning of the end. They got greedy and corporate and sterile, and shazzam, killed all interest. They removed some of their biggest races to put them in places where it was doomed to fail. Chicago? Phoenix? California? Upstate New York? Nascar is a gearhead's sport, hill billie beer drinking good old boys, and they sterilized the crap out of it. So they got what they deserved, and as such very few races are sold out anymore. Outside of Bristol (at night only) I really can't think of another race that draws that many fans, or at least as many as they used to. When Gordon hangs it up after this year it's only going to get worse.
There are other reasons besides moving out of the south. When they started at Fontana you couldn't buy tickets for the NASCAR race only, you also had to buy tickets to the CART race. So $200 for 2 NASCAR ducats and $200 for CART, which I had no interest in. That is $400 for one day's entertainment. Then there is the racing itself. I don't care what nameplate is on the car, they are all the same car. Add restrictor plates to those cars and it makes for boring races. A good start to fix that would be to run "stock cars", as in the team goes down to the dealer, buys a car and is allowed to put safety stuff on it, some different pipes, and a fuel cell and modified injectors to handle racing fuel. Don't allow crews to "a take a turn off" of the suspension by sticking a wrench in the fender unless that is a feature that is available on stock cars at the dealership, etc. Running the same car shapes and sizes built from scratch to comply with a template makes for no brand identity and hugely boring races. I loved how Dodge came out with the Superbird and made just enough so the cars could be purchased by drivers as stock cars.
 
The reasons for attendance issues are fairly complex - but it has to do with ticket prices being too high, not allowing coolers of beer to be brought in, general changes in consumer behavior (HDTV is really good for watching races), quality of racing (too many NASCAR screw ups).....etc etc.
Also the tracks did alot of ticket packages and licencing where you had to buy tickets and seat licenses to other events to get the better seats....they quickly pissed off fans who voted with their wallets not to attend races after 2008. You can do that for the NFL and college football. Does not work in many other sports.

Kansas Speedway still sells well - I would not call that "the south" but there must be a good population of rednecks in the Omaha/Kansas City/Des Moines triangle.

Jim
 
What you were seeing was the new expansion sections. The race was sold out for the most part. I visited the track last summer and they have a ton of construction going on.
 
Needs more drivers like this.

ricky-bobby-295x320.jpg
 
Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

I think one of there biggest problems, and it isn't their fault, people don't work on their own cars anymore.
I'm a gearhead, big time. One day the Volvo SUV wouldn't start. It turned over, but wouldn't start. Now what? Had it towed to the local Volvo expert. He had me crank it and listened to the motor for 10 seconds. He said, "Oh, you need an oxygen enrichment sensor" (or something like that). How the hell was I supposed to know that? The problem is all the modules in cars nowadays and the tribal knowledge passed around "premium only" websites. Makes them really hard to work on yourself.
 
Originally posted by Husker.Wed.:


Originally posted by litespeedhuskerfan:

I think one of there biggest problems, and it isn't their fault, people don't work on their own cars anymore.
I'm a gearhead, big time. One day the Volvo SUV wouldn't start. It turned over, but wouldn't start. Now what? Had it towed to the local Volvo expert. He had me crank it and listened to the motor for 10 seconds. He said, "Oh, you need an oxygen enrichment sensor" (or something like that). How the hell was I supposed to know that? The problem is all the modules in cars nowadays and the tribal knowledge passed around "premium only" websites. Makes them really hard to work on yourself.
Sounds like you nailed it, well dun!!!! Your fault for driving a Volvo though. Over engineered Sweedish pile of crap. Kidding, not really.

See, that's the kind of stuff you don't get with Nascar anymore because the cars are dang near identical. Back in the day, you could actually make a case for Dodge, or Chevy, depending on the time period. You trying to tell me that "Chevy" Gordon is driving is really a freaking Chevy? Not one single part on that car except for a few zip ties could be bought at Autozone. That ain't a Chevy, it's a "Four hundred to five hundred thousand dollar hope it last for 500 miles" car. Now their fuel injected, barf.
This post was edited on 2/23 6:21 PM by litespeedhuskerfan
 
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