Awkward. It’s Not Us, NASCAR – It’s You

I love racing. Almost any kind of racing. Stock cars, drag racing, drag BOAT racing, unlimited air racing (go to Reno, Nevada in September sometime if you wanna see and hear some real horsepower). But NASCAR's starting to tick me off. Will I watch the Daytona 500 in a couple of weeks? Yes, but I might yell at my TV - and NASCAR has only themselves to blame for my outbursts.

I know they're having problems with attendance and TV ratings and I don't profess to know how to turn those around - but I don't think chopping up races into three stages and awarding points to the top ten after each stage will do it. I could be wrong.

The good news is that racing is still popular and people have been heading back to their local tracks to watch it. According to Shane Walters at Racing News, there's measurable proof that short dirt track racing is gaining fans, while NASCAR's schedule is full of 1.5 mile tracks that all look the same.

And, according to Shane, THIS might be the real problem:

Las Vegas Motor Speedway (1.5 miles)

There’s 7,920 feet of racing surface on a 1.5 mile track. 40 NASCAR racecars total 640 feet. That’s 7280 feet of racetrack with nothing going on, what-so-ever.

Bristol Motor Speedway (.533 miles)
Bristol has 2,814 feet on it’s racing surface. Same thing, 40 cars totals 640 feet. Only 2,174 feet of race-track is left with nothing going on. Nearly a 400% difference.

The math is overly simplified on purpose. Cars also take up more than 640 feet, as they don’t all run exactly bumper to bumper. But that IS the problem with NASCAR.

NASCAR has to wonder why the Eldora truck race sells out months in advance. And quit changing the rules every year. Your move, NASCAR.

.Banana Don and Stephanie McCoy amuse and thrill you every weekday morning from 5:30 – 10AM on the radio at 100.7 WITL.

Banana Don can be reached via email at don.jefferson@townsquaremedia.com and on Twitter at @WITLBananaDon and @WITLFM. Also, Facebook friend Banana Don and Stephanie at Facebook.com/BananaStephanie and Facebook.com/WITLFM.