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Two Sanctioning Bodies at a Crossroads

by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

June 28, 2010 11:04 pm CDT No Comments

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You’d think it impossible, but the IZOD IndyCar Series nearly upstaged NASCAR’s best and brightest this past weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway without even staging a race. And although they didn’t quite pull it off, they certainly did their damnedest.

For one, Danica Patrick made her much-discussed return to the Nationwide Series. That wasn’t too successful, as an early-race accident put her off of the lead lap for the final 190 out of 200 laps, rendering her goal of a top-15 impossible. But Patrick did begin to grasp some things by the end of the event, and did manage to score her best career stock car finish (let’s ignore the fact that it was 30th).

The next day, the sport’s top names – CEO Randy Bernard, top driver Dario Franchitti, and SMI CEO/track mogul Bruton Smith (the man whose purchase of NHMS has greatly upgraded the facility) joined track promoter Jerry Gappens and New Hampshire governor John Lynch to announce next year’s return of the series to Loudon.

The press conference lasted nearly 30 minutes, and touched on topics from NHMS’ potential loss of a Sprint Cup race date (especially if the IndyCar event is a great success) to other potential additions to next year’s IndyCar schedule, especially other SMI tracks like Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

Dario wheeled his No. 10 Target Dallara-Honda out on the track for a few hot laps in between the national anthem and starting command for the Cup race, and although TNT’s cameras didn’t catch it, thousands of longtime NHMS ticketholders sure did. IndyCar has come a long way from where it was in 1998, the final year that NHMS hosted an open-wheel event, which was won by Tony Stewart (before he was Tony Stewart).

Granted, NASCAR sure gave IndyCar some help in the interest department as the race soldiered on. The massive gap between cautions, over 200 laps, had some taking to their Twitter accounts and praying for debris cautions. But in perhaps the greatest proof ever of the theory of relativity, the race that seemed to drag on was actually on pace to tie or eclipse the record for fastest race ever at NHMS until Juan Pablo Montoya crashed out.

All the discussion over the past few weeks about drivers lacking respect for one another vanished. Listening to Stewart apologize for getting into Kurt Busch in the media center, in a last lap battle that Busch called “fun” no less, suggested that such arguments had lost some of their bite.

And all of the hype surrounding Joe Gibbs Racing over the past month or so vanished as Kyle Busch fell back at the end, Denny Hamlin spent time off the lead lap, and defending race winner Joey Logano was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, those who wondered if Jimmie Johnson had finally lost a step were treated to a nice helping of their own words as he fought back from a poor early pit stop for the victory.

This brings NASCAR back to Daytona for its Independence Day spectacular, and at a perfect time – as the series begins to limp from the loss of new and interesting storylines, and the re-emergence of the same old song and dance up front.

IndyCar, on the other hand, heads into the second half of its season at Watkins Glen with more momentum than it’s ever had since reunification in 2008. Promoters are fighting to put their events on its schedule, chassis manufacturers are fighting to put their cars on track for 2012, and best of all, the drivers are fighting for three distinct championships, with all still very up in the air.

Next weekend’s events will be very interesting to see where momentum takes both niches of motorsport. Will NASCAR produce a story for the ages coming out of Daytona, or will IndyCar continue to nibble away at the big picture and increase its market share? We can only watch and find out.

Filed under: Bruton Smith, Danica Patrick, Indy Cars, New Hampshire International Speedway

Tagged with: Bruton Smith, Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti, IZOD IndyCar Series, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Randy Bernard, Sprint Cup Series

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Like a broken record…

by Clance' McClannahan, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

Clance' McClannahan, famous author behind The Church of The Great Oval and also one of the much appreciated Contributing Authors at Thunder Lounge.

February 26, 2010 8:40 pm CST 1 Comment

Dear Bruton Smith,

You have more money than God. Please fix the traffic coming in and out of the track. In fact, could you just fix it in all of Las Vegas? The wait at the airport sucks too. Wayne Newton would do it for his fans, I bet.

Love,

All of us that make you have more money than God.

P.S. Good job with the track. It’s really fast! The traffic may be worth it, if the race is as good as qualifying was. Too bad we missed 10 driver’s attempts, including Kurt Busch beating Jeff Gordon who beat out Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the pole.

But that wasn’t your fault.

Filed under: Bruton Smith, Dale Earnhardt Jr., How to fix NASCAR, Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media

Tagged with: Bruton Smith, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, LVMS, NASCAR, NASCAR Records

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Old School Racing Thanks to Jimmy Watts

by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

March 12, 2009 1:07 pm CDT 6 Comments

Can you use Jocko Flocko, Bruton Smith and Jimmy Watts all in one sentence? I didn’t think so. But Mindy Monday tried, in the latest episode of the Monday Morning Crew Chief.

Mindy even has a NASCAR trivia question for you fans of such stuff.

There’s that, assorted brain farts and how not to win fans and influence holiday giving. Watch it all right here on Bench Racing TV.

Filed under: Bench Racing TV, Brian France, Bruton Smith, It's Only Cheating if You Get Caught, JTG Racing, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Marcos Ambrose, Monday Morning Crew Chief, NASCAR Trivia, NASCAR video, Sprint Cup Series, The Busch Bros

Tagged with: Fonty Flock, Jimmy Watts, Jocko Flocko, Tim Flock

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Will Bobby Labonte Replace Ticketmaster

by Steve Wronkowicz

I am co-host of the syndicated radio show: ON PIT ROW. Charlie likes to call me an "idiot". I'm not an "idiot"; I just prefer not to let the facts get in the way of my opinions.

February 3, 2009 8:17 am CST No Comments

During the NASCAR Media Tour, Speedway Motorsports, Inc. president Bruton Smith and most of his companies promoters have called on drivers to help sell tickets.

Whether Smith is looking for Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon or Junior to spend some time in the ticket booth or just to present a more “fan-friendly” face to the fans; NASCAR is scrambling to fill seats. It has been a long time since many tracks have had to hustle to get its tickets sold. For over a decade the line from Field of Dreams held true; “Build it and they will come.”

Well this isn’t a corn field in Iowa and tracks are struggling to have their races look full to the television cameras. But if you were a former ticket owner at a particular track who had not purchased tickets this year; would you change your mind if you recieved a phone call from Kasey Kahne asking you to re-up? Would you venture off to Darlington if you thought Bobby Labonte might be at the ticket window?

Do fans feel slighted by NASCAR’s elite drivers? The truth is that most fans believe that the majority of NASCAR personalities are quite accessable and give their time as much as possible. Fans line the walkways to and from the garage area at all tracks hoping to get a look at and maybe an autograph from, their favorite driver. Those drivers more times than not will take time to sign something or otherwise interact with the fans.

Rarely are those fans critical of the driver for not doing more. And that leads us to this weeks BUZZ ON PIT ROW:

Should NASCAR drivers be expected to do more to help track owners and promoters sell tickets?

Let us know what you think and we may use your response on this weeks radio show. Tune in to ON PIT ROW, Tuesdays from 5-7pm ET at www.onpitrow.com Give us a call and let us know what you think about THE BUZZ or anything NASCAR at 1-877-502-8255 during the show.

photo credit: Icon Sports Media

Filed under: Bobby Labonte, Brian France, Bruton Smith, Dale Earnhardt Jr., How to fix NASCAR, Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, NASCAR Bidness, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio

Tagged with: Bobby Labonte, Bruton Smith, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, NASCAR, SMI, Tony Stewart

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How To Fix NASCAR: 1. Trim the Schedule

by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

December 2, 2008 7:51 pm CST 8 Comments

Hey, everybody. I’ve been somewhat out of commission the past few weeks, what with being sick and college applications and all. But now I’m back, and as promised, am starting my mini-thesis paper on how to fix our beloved NASCAR.

The plan is for me to do these entries bi-weekly, so they’ll (hopefully) be a little more substantial than, say, Quick Hits usually is (or isn’t). This is a series of articles on how one fan thinks that the sanctioning body can return the sport to its glory days of the mid-1990s.

Without further ado:

—

Since NASCAR became a sport with regular national television coverage - start the timeline at the 1979 Daytona 500 on CBS - the sport has jumped from 28 to 36 races on the Sprint Cup schedule. (Granted, 1979 featured 31 races, but the low was 28 events in 1985.) With so many more opportunities to watch races on TV, it should be no surprise that 18 races (half of the schedule!) experienced either losses or no gain in TV ratings compared to last season.

It’s also no surprise that tracks like Texas Motor Speedway and Auto Club Speedway (formerly California Speedway) have seen “declining” attendance since the addition of second race dates at both tracks. Eddie Gossage, president of TMS, even admitted earlier this year that ticket sales at his track were flat.

(A quick note on the quotes on “declining” - this doesn’t necessarily mean that the tracks have seen less people going through the turnstiles. It just means that they have failed to sell out any of their races since being awarded second dates. In other words, while the demand for second races may have been substantial, and those second race weekends may have made sense at the time, it’s not as if either track could have filled every seat based on waiting lists and season ticket holders alone.)

The simple and obvious solution here is to get rid of a handful of races - enough to, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. suggests, “keep (the fans) wanting more.”

“We have saturated the market with race after race after race,” he told Yahoo! Sports in November. “When we were a 28-race schedule, the sport was giving you just enough to get really get excited about the next season.”

At the same time, it’s going to be pretty expensive for teams to schlep out their big and fancy 18-wheelers across the country next year as it is, so some of the events that are way across the country also put a big hurt on owners’ wallets.

So let’s have a look at the 2009 Sprint Cup schedule, shall we? Currently, it has only four off weekends: March 15, April 12 (Easter), July 18, and August 30. Compare that to 1992, when there were off weekends in almost every month: February 23, March 22, April 19, May 10, June 28, July 12, August 23, October 18, and November 8.

Eliminating the second Texas race (November and the second Auto Club race (October 11) are easy enough, but where to from there? It’d be bad to have two off weekends right next to each other. The trick, then, is to find redundant races that clutter up large stretches on the schedule.

Pocono doesn’t need two races, much less two 500-mile events, but one of those races is two weeks after an existing off weekend, so the June 7 date should face the axe.

Both of Atlanta’s race dates are around off weekends, but there’s a track that doesn’t need more than one. The spring Nationwide race is gone, so why keep the Cup race (March 8)? But instead of having two off weekends in a row, it’d be easy to set in the Richmond race scheduled for May 2. Richmond has had an early season race before (namely… March 8, 1992), so it’s not as if there’s a huge adjustment.

Now, for the most difficult cut of all for me personally… the June 28 race at New Hampshire. I hate to do it, but the track does nothing for anyone. NASCAR lost two budding superstars (Kenny Irwin Jr. and Adam Petty) up here, and it’s the furthest north track on the schedule. It’s just not necessary to have two Cup races there.

Cut number six goes to the August 16 race at Michigan, because the only cars that ever seem to win there either belong to Jack Roush, Ray Evernham, or Roger Penske. Until Earnhardt Jr.’s win in June, a Chevrolet hadn’t seen victory lane at Michigan since Jeff Gordon won in June 2001.

So there you have it: six cuts to the Sprint Cup schedule to bring the schedule to ten off weekends and 32 total races (including the Budweiser Shootout and Sprint All-Star Challenge). The racing would be better, the TV ratings would rise, the fans would fight for tickets again, and the owners would save six more weeks’ worth of gas money. (Of course, we’d cut races in Nationwide and Camping World Trucks too, but I’ll fix those series later.)

As for the track owners? The IndyCar Series is going to hit its stride come the new chassis and engine package in 2010. I know Bruton Smith’s looking to bring them to a couple of his tracks anyway. Everybody wins!

Filed under: Atlanta Motor Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, Bruton Smith, Dale Earnhardt Jr., How to fix NASCAR, Michigan International Speedway, NASCAR, New Hampshire International Speedway, Sprint Cup Series

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Say Good-bye to the Single-Track Teams

by Steve Wronkowicz

I am co-host of the syndicated radio show: ON PIT ROW. Charlie likes to call me an "idiot". I'm not an "idiot"; I just prefer not to let the facts get in the way of my opinions.

May 23, 2008 6:33 am CDT 5 Comments

Reports out of Charlotte have Speedway Motorsports Inc. buying Kentucky Speedway.

Amy Henderson at The Frontstretch reports that Bruton Smith, has said he will have a Cup date at the track in northern Kentucky in the 2009 season. Next year? A Cup race? Where will that Cup race come from? Smith’s company has recently purchased New Hampshire Speedway from the Bahre family and taking a race from there is a possibility.

There is still the nagging lawsuit that is hanging over NASCAR and Kentucky Speedway. Could that lawsuit result in SMI wrestling a date away from NASCAR owned International Speedway Corp.? The ISC track that should lose a date would be California, but don’t look for NASCAR to pull out of that TV market no matter how pathetic the attendance is. NASCAR wants big TV markets and their aren’t many bigger than the LA area.

Its time for NASCAR to take a hard look at their schedule and determine where the best 36 places are to hold their premier events. Take races from venues that cannot support them and move them to locales that have and will drive butts into seats and in front of TV sets. Henderson speculates that the purchase of Pocono by SMI could pave the way for a date to be moved from that track to Kentucky. Pocono has more of a problem holding exciting races than filling the grandstands. Drivers and teams could get behind going to Pocono only once during the year.

As much of a burr under NASCAR’s saddle as the previous ownership at Kentucky has been can you imagine what adding the SMI /ISC dynamic will bring to the table? Look for a quick solution to the problem though. NASCAR doesn’t like doing battle with Smith because they know it is a lose-lose situation. Smith has a way of getting what he wants at NASCAR’s expense. For the fans of northern Kentucky this could be the best thing ever to bring them a long sought after Cup event.

At the same time it would eliminate the racetrack from much of the testing that Cup teams do at the track. Without having a Cup date currently, it is open for testing whenever teams want to use it. So would one Cup race a year bring a larger financial impact than many open testing sessions? By most accounts one date on the schedule could make the year financially. While hosting Nationwide Series and Craftsman Truck Series races are currently the highlight of Kentucky’s season, they pale in comparison to what a Cup event could bring.

Let the wrangling begin. This should be fun to watch.

photo credit: Icon Sports Media

Filed under: Brian France, Bruton Smith, Craftsman Truck Series, Lowes Motor Speedway, NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR Rumors, NASCAR officials, Nationwide Series

Tagged with: ISC, Kentucky Speedway, New Hampshire Speedway, Pocono, SMI

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