wowIs there 400 people there?
I typed out a snarky response mocking NASCAR and it's fans before realizing it wasn't helpful and only served to give me an inflated sense of superiority.wow
I thought NASCAR was popular, what happened?
Like Ryan, fans had been turned off by years of single-file racing, with one driver running away from the pack. After years of hundreds of thousands of fans filling out the Indianapolis Motor Speedway grandstands, only an estimated 35,000 were in attendance Sunday to witness a thrilling finish.
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“It’s gotten more and more difficult to watch,” said Ritz, who said he is excited about the added drama of the race moving to September and serving as the regular-season finale. “It’s just single file. The fastest guy just checks out. There’s no racing. The racing is for 15th. It’s hard to get excited. The Xfinity race, though, seemed to be a step in the right direction. Hopefully they make those changes for the Cup guys next year. TBD I guess.”
What's not TBD Ritz said is whether or not the Brickyard will ever return to its past glory with hundreds of thousands of fans filling out the rows of the speedway grandstands.
“They killed off too many fans,” Ritz said. “The polish has worn off. How do you get that back? I don’t think they can.”
I don't consider myself a "fan" but it came on after the Open yesterday and I could not believe the empty seats. I guess when Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaves who knows what will happen.My dad was into NASCAR for a few years so in the early 2000's we went to the Talladega 500 about five times. Enjoyed the day together, but I've never been a NASCAR fan, and his interest seems to have waned dramatically over the last few years. Seems like the CoT really killed the momentum.
Was driving back from Atlanta last week and saw the Talladega raceway from the interstate - they've DRASTICALLY reduced seating as demand has fallen. Apparently it peaked at seating for 175k people, but has dropped to 80k now. That's a HUGE reduction (95k fewer seats)!
Good grief. That's almost like talking all of Bryant-Denny out. I didn't know they had done that.My dad was into NASCAR for a few years so in the early 2000's we went to the Talladega 500 about five times. Enjoyed the day together, but I've never been a NASCAR fan, and his interest seems to have waned dramatically over the last few years. Seems like the CoT really killed the momentum.
Was driving back from Atlanta last week and saw the Talladega raceway from the interstate - they've DRASTICALLY reduced seating as demand has fallen. Apparently it peaked at seating for 175k people, but has dropped to 80k now. That's a HUGE reduction (95k fewer seats)!
FIFYI typed out a snarky response mocking NASCAR and it's fans before realizing it wasn't helpful and only served to give me an inflated sense of superiority.
So my reply is now boiled down to:
I've never understood the appeal of NASCAR.
IOW, Political Correctness is killing NASCAR. There's still time to save it, but it would mean retracing their tracks and changing policies back to where they were long before PC took over, and we all know that's not going to happen.I think two things have hurt NASCAR.
1. It is such a niche sport to begin with. It's not like baseball, football, basektball & soccer. Where involvement in the sport is more easily accessed and you can start playing it as a kid, and develop a love for it during your childhood.
2. The sport abandoned the aspect of continuing to cater to the fans they already had in order to tap into a market that never had interest in the sport and won't ever have interest in the sport. It has cost them dearly. Granted, this is just my opinion. An opinion from an outsider who is not a fan of the sport. But I've got family members who are long time fans so I hear them talking about it.
That's what I was trying to say (in a politically correct way LOL!) in reason #2.IOW, Political Correctness is killing NASCAR. There's still time to save it, but it would mean retracing their tracks and changing policies back to where they were long before PC took over, and we all know that's not going to happen.
Let me also say that the "beginning of the end" for NASCAR was the so-called "Car of Tomorrow". In essence, every car on every track has to be exactly the same, and not a micrometer off. You could take any one part off of any one car and bolt it right into place on any other car on the track. The only things different between the cars are the paint job and numbers, and the drivers. Otherwise, everything is the same, and that's not what the fans pay their hard earned dollars to see.