2011 started on an up note for the NASCAR nation (or is that Napcar Nation?). Daytona was a weird race with two car drafts and all sorts of off stuff, and a surprise, nay, shocking win for the part time Wood Brothers team and their rookie drive Trevor Bayne, who isn’t even running for points. That was a nice pickup, the TV ratings were good, and important for NASCAR, Dale Jr did pretty good too. Plus with the NFL Superbowl and all being out of the way and the Pro-bowl nowhere to be seen, NASCAR was running without any competition. Full throttle!

On to Pheonix. Good move for NASCAR to take California out of the 2nd race of the season spot. The TV ratings were good, attendance was good, and overall, a reasonably interesting race. Vegas was pretty much the same thing, pretty darn good crowds, uptick in ratings, and things were actually looking pretty good.

However, it looks like someone forgot to tighten a few lugnuts on the last pit stop, because when the circus came to Bristol this past weekend, few people seemed to care.

Yes, it’s March madness. Yes, the economy is hurting. Yes, it’s spring in an area that sometimes still gets snow this time of the year. But Bristol was the home of 55 consecutive sellouts, filling it’s 160,000 seats with a 20,000 name waiting list for tickets. It was the big deal. It was possibly the poster child for NASCAR success, a modern gladiator arena, with rough and tumble action, hard driving, chrome horns, and more than a few frayed nerves. It was poetry with a sledge hammer, ballet with a baseball bat. It was about surviving the event, being aggressive and being contained, not blowing your top as you get sent for a spin. Not anymore, it seems.

In 2007, SMI decided it was time to redo the track (it needed it, the rebar in the old concrete was showing through). In an absolute bout of stupidity, they decided to add “variable banking”. The idea is to give the track a second groove. They succeed, but in doing so they removed much of what the fans came looking for. Since that time, attendance has been on a steady decline, and a race that so many people looked forward to has sort of slipped away.

The results? Well, backed with a weekend off (never a good thing so early in the season), Bristol has probably it’s lowest attendance since SMI bought the facility in 1996 (they had 86,000 seats for the summer race). While some suggested 120,000 or even 130,000 this weekend, it was painfully obvious even the casual observer that the place wasn’t much more than half full. That would put the number in that 80,000-90,000 range. While it is still a large crowd, it is a disappointing result at a facility that had a waiting list just 4 short years ago.

More importantly, TV ratings also dropped, another 9% off of last year’s disappointing results, and somewhere near 40% off the viewership in 2008.

Plenty of people make the standard economy, costs, and what have you excuses, but that would only hold water if people were not attending but still watching. NASCAR started the season well and pulled some viewers back from their down season last year. But Bristol shows that the fans just aren’t liking the changes. The drivers say the racing is better, but in a world where it is about putting on a good show, it is clear that the fans no longer think Bristol is a good show.

The real challenge for NASCAR comes this week: California’s Auto Club Speedway. This is the only NASCAR event there this year, they lost one race, and have moved this remaining event later into the season (from race 2 to race 5), and chopped 100 miles off a race that is often considered a snoozer. Things aren’t looking that good, a quick check on their website shows plenty of prime “top rows of grandstands near pit entrance” and “pit exit” are available without issue. They have had horrible attendance problems, and TV ratings that mostly seemed to live in the runoff from Daytona, as the fall race (during the chase even) last year pulled a stunning 2.5 rating, which is nearing test pattern range.

With staggeringly bad attendance and TV ratings from Bristol, California may be another case of “do or die” for NASCAR, as we find out if things are on and upswing, or if the start of the 2011 season was just a dead cat bounce.

As a long time racing fan, you sort of get use to the ebb and flow of racing series. They have good years, and they have bad years. The people running various racing series either make really great decisions, and advance their sport, or they make incredibly stupid decisions that leave their sport in tatters. Just ask the brains that split CART into the IRL and Champ Car, or the brains that ran Trans Am into the ground.

NASCAR faces a significant cross roads. They find themselves on the back side of their meteoric rise from little southern sport to national (and even worldwide) events. They went from running on local TV channels, TBS, and as short clips on ABC’s Wide World of Sports into a property that has 3 major networks tripping over each other to toss money at the door. But the last few years have been painful for NASCAR, with attendance down, sponsorships drying up, field quality suffering, and all that against hugely increased costs to actually run in the series.

2010 was a year where the squeezing turned into pinching, and the pinching turned into pain. Tracks that have historically sold out every race (places like Bristol) now have huge sections of grandstands covered over. California didn’t attract enough unique fans over their two events in 2010, to the point that they will have only one event in 2011, and it will be a shorter race. The 2010 Rookie of the Year didn’t even run all the races, and when he did, and he did only because of a nonsensical top 35 rule that allowed his car owner to cash the checks and let him run around sometimes 10 MPH slower per lap than the rest of the field. Not surprisingly, Raybestos, one of the real long term players in NASCAR, cancelled their commitment to the ROTY program. In 2011, there are apparently no rookies lined up to drive the full season.

The grim news for NASCAR continued on the viewership side of things too, with races often down 10 – 20% in viewership, some even more. Changes to rules, restarts, going from wings back to spoilers, and pretty much every other trick NASCAR could think of didn’t change the trend. Having the same Champion 5 years in a row can be painful for any sport, and having one as incredibly dull and lifeless and Jimmie Johnson doesn’t help. Outside of the NASCAR races, there isn’t anyone in the media lining up to interview this guy, to include him in anything. He has the media profile of an also-ran, while at the same time dominating the series through a rich owner and a crew chief who isn’t scared to push the rules. JJ in the 48 has turned into the sleeping aid so many people need to get a good afternoon nap on a Sunday.

So 2011 comes around, and it’s starting to look like do or die for NASCAR. The last TV deal was signed in 2005, which covered 2007-2014. Basically, the deal was signed at the very top of NASCAR’s game. Now with attendance down, viewership down, and fan interest sinking, NASCAR needs a great 2011 in order to be able to renegotiate in 2012 to continue the TV deals. That deal is 600 or so million per year (4.8 billion for 8 years). If NASCAR isn’t improving in the ratings, continues to show a decline, and continues to show a loss of fan interest, it is likely they will end up on the downside of the marketplace during the next negotiations. That could lead NASCAR back to being a cable only series, as network may be less interested to carry programming.

The costs to the networks are significant. Fox / SPEED have pretty much had to turn their cable channel into a full time NASCAR channel to try to recoup their expenses, and now you see superbowl length pre-game shows for every race event, something I personally think leads to even more fan fatigue. Every practice, every qualifying, every everything is covered, almost all live. Every attempt is made to squeeze every penny out of this, because right now, the networks are probably hurting running NASCAR. If the Networks come back and say “Starting 2015, we will only give you 300 million per year”, NASCAR could find itself no longer to live in the Champagne style they have grown accustom to. It’s only a matter of time before someone has to pay the piper.

NASCAR is trying, at least a bit. Apparently drivers will have to commit to a single series for championship points for the season, hopefully killing the old “busch whacker” mentality that has lead almost all of the champions in the last decade for what is currently the Nationwide series being cup regulars. It doesn’t help that they have won more than half of the Nationwide races in that time frame, and an even higher percentage in the last couple of years (only 1 or 2 races in 2010). The noses of the cup cars have been “improved” again this year, getting rid of the support braces. There is even rumors that fuel injection might replace the ancient carbs that still run on these cars. Some race distances have been cut, and races moved to other tracks. Most fans on chat boards seem to be less than impressed. 2011 will tell the tale, by this time next year, NASCAR could have had it’s palace coup.

I was really surprised to see this article at That’s Racin that quotes ESPN officials as wondering where the ratings have gone for NASCAR. Based on the overnights from the last race in California and all of the other races in the chase, NASCAR has lost 20% or more of it’s audience, and it’s a pretty consistant 2.3/5 rating (with 3.x million households). This is down from over 5 million at the same time last year. The ESPN guys are wondering about start times and such, but I think they miss the boat on this one.

Quite simply, the NASCAR product right now isn’t all that good, a situation that is even more clear when people have many other choices on a Sunday afternoon, courtesy of the NFL. So yes, actually, starting time is a problem, but not the problem. It is just a side note in the whole process.

For me, NASCAR has lost the plot entirely, with look alike cookie cutter cars, look alike cookie cutter tracks, and worst of all, sound alike cookie cutter drivers. There are only a few characters in the series now, and they are being systematically beaten down by the NASCAR corporate shilling system to the point they are neutered. Worse yet, the fans are realizing that they are very likely to get a 5th championship in a row from Jimmie Johnson, possibly the least charismatic driver ever to don a firesuit.

NASCAR and ESPN are trying their damnedest to turn Johnson into a likable sort of a guy, with a major interview / segment on the pre-race show, showing him doing good public deeds and all that, but in the end, he isn’t a very exciting person to deal with, and isn’t much of a public face for NASCAR. His team’s strategies (and his driving style) are about as neutral as it comes, just trying to stay in the lead lap, stay near the front, using the systems in place to negate bad things (such as going a lap down, he almost always gets that lap back through a caution and lucky dog thing). He rarely wins with flash or style, mostly with just a dull, consistent pressure and a drudging march to the front that, while effective, isn’t exactly the makings of pure NASCAR excitement.

It doubles up because Johnson and his team are so good on the “aero” tracks. Hendrick Motorsports cars are at the front of the pack on these tracks consistently, to the point of humor. Eventual winner Tony Stewart drives cars built by Hendrick for his team. At one point, all of the lead cars were Hendrick cars. The aero tracks, usually the 1.5 mile cookie cutters and the 2 mile Michigan / California tracks generate fairly dull events, and with a dull champion dominating those dull tracks, well, it isn’t surprising to see people tuning out.

Let’s not forget the fiendishly stupid “chase to the championship”, a system where 75% of the cars on the track are racing for pride only, and with the ways many of their budgets are going, they are actually racing just to avoid falling out of the top 35 and actually having to qualify in the future. it has created a situation where most of the drivers have nothing wagered, and nothing to gain. Unless they have a truly spectacular car and have a chance at a great finish, they just ride along and pass the time. ESPN doesn’t even cover these drivers anymore unless they are causing a caution period. It is almost like they have to be on fire to get their names mentioned. If your favorite driver is in the 75% that didn’t make the chase, well, enjoy the football game.

So a word of advice for ESPN: Start times aren’t going to make a huge different. California started 2 hours later, and the ratings are about the same. The problem is in the product. NASCAR could do itself some favors by running the races on Saturday night, but at this time of the year, it might not be warm enough in some places to get away with it. Don’t look for miracles in the start times, the answer is in the product, and the leaders of NASCAR don’t seem to understand what it takes to stop being NAPCAR.

Well, two races into the 2010 season, and NASCAR, aka NAPCAR, is already showing some serious signs of crumbling at it’s foundations. The sheer volume of empty seats in California this past weekend, even noted on the NASCAR.COM site, shows that things are not all good and going to plan.

Over the winter, all sorts of changes have come to NASCAR, seemingly somewhere between rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and wild desperation. Viewership in 2009 was way off, attendance was way off, and even the official collectables / t-shirt company has been in financial trouble. A number of tracks “revamped” their seating, which is to say that they got rid of many seats and changed around others. Daytona got rid of a back stretch grandstand and replaced it with a fan fun area, and they announced that none of the back stretch seating will be open for the July 4th weekend races. Richmond lost almost 20,000 seats, and overall NASCAR tracks apparently lost more than 100,000 seats for events from 2009 to 2010.

NASCAR made some major rule changes, put the driving “back in the drivers hands”, and have announced that the rear wing on the CoT (Crap on Track, I think) will be ditched in favor of the more familiar blade spoiler, which has been a part of stock car racing for as long as I can remember. It was little surprise to most fans that when the CoT took over, the best racing was actually in the Nationwide series, as the cars were the older style blade cars and just ran better. NASCAR also added more green white checker attempts to try to get a green flag finish to races, and so on.

Yet, two races into the season, attendance is down, and just as importantly, viewership is down. If a product is in demand but people can’t afford it, they will watch it on TV. NASCAR faces the hard reality that fewer people are turning up to the events and fewer people are watching on TV. Only the presence of one Danica Patrick has given them a ratings boost for their undercard series, which have done better than last year.

In the end, the big problem for NASCAR is their ill conceived attempt to become a national sport. Not every market wants or will support a race by buying tickets, and the California situation is a perfect example. All the population in the world, a rabid car culture, and half filled stands. NASCAR also has too many look-a-like tracks, D shaped 1.5 mile ovals that often produce dull follow the leader racing. These are tracks designed to make the track owners happy, not to produce good racing. All this is against a background of classic shorter tracks without NASCAR dates, yet that would likely pull better crowds and produce a better racing event. Rockingham has new owners and is apparently doing well with series like Pro-cup and others, and even North Wilkesboro is back in action with racing back at this classic facility.

NASCAR would do well to forget their overdone plans and slide back to the things that made them popular to begin with. Without that, the deck chairs will look nice but the ship will continue to sink.

I have been a lifelong racing fan, I can remember watching the highlights of NASCAR races on Wide World of Sports long before it became an every week, 12 hours per day extravaganza that is it today. In the last few years I have been less and less enamored with the product, and thought it was only me. But recently, I have noticed more and more people publically calling out NASCAR’s top series with names like NAPCAR and such.

Well, the capper I guess was this past weekend’s race in Talladega, typically one of the wildest and highest speed races, where a combination of engine restrictor plates and aerodynamic tricks get together to make the cars run pretty much in a pack. The only way to get ahead most of the time is bump drafting, where the back car pushes the car in front, making them both move faster. After a terrible wreck at the end of the last race here, NASCAR outlawed this practice this time out. The results? Well, let’s just say that the drivers showed than about 450 out of the 500 miles of the race was meaningless, and paraded around single file in a freight train so dull that driver Tony Stewart was heard asking his crew to tell him something interesting so he didn’t fall asleep. The ABC commentators for the race could obviously see this race has turned into a snoozer, and rather than deny the truth, they repeated over and over the fact that NASCAR had diddled with the rules to make this happen.

Well, it seems that NASCAR doesn’t like when someone points out the obvious: NASCAR got all huffy and spokesman Ramsey Poston said that “ABC missed a lot of very good racing”.

News flash Mr Poston: There was no good racing. For the first 400-450 miles, it was follow the leader, let’s not use up our equipment, throttle off cruising so painful to watch, it was beyond understanding. The only thing that saved the race for most of the “fans” was that in the last 5 laps, the aero package and rules came together to destroy pretty much half the field in two seperate wrecks that both involved violent rollovers.

Don’t get made an ABC, they told the truth. NASCAR (or is that NAPCAR) needs to wake up and smell the coffee, look at all the empty seats and closed seating sections at the tracks, and remember that “it’s the racing stupid”, before they are shrunk back to being a regional series without national coverage. Ratings are down for a reason, and it isn’t because ABC says you are boring.