So I’m not the only one feeling as though NASCAR is trying to rule Jimmie Johnson out of future championships. I was reading an article earlier today by Jeff Owens of the Sporting News and he brings up the same point in “Could NASCAR’s Chase proposal keep Jimmie Johnson from winning again?”.
Junior Johnson has said he left the sport because NASCAR continually created rules against him. He would innovate and they would legislate. I wondered if his assertions were valid. I believe him to be an honest man, so I believed Junior believed that to be true, but I didn’t know if the facts would bear him out. Watching NASCAR’s behaviour toward the 48 Team over the past couple years had led me to believe Junior was simply being candid as is his nature. Maybe it’s something with drivers named Johnson. If you want something to grow, you need innovators. The 48 team innovates weekly.
I’m a 48 fan, no doubt. For the past couple of years I’ve been complaining to myself that NASCAR keeps making or enforcing rules that seem to punish Jimmie and the 48 team. How many restart have we seen Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski jump or manipulate without censure? In 2013 the restart rule cost the 48 team two races. It was dropped shortly after Carl Edwards won a race after jumping a restart and not getting penalized. There have been various incidents like this over the past couple years, and rules, like the rear-end rule that the #2 team ran afoul of early in 2013. During the 2012 season Keselowski complained about the rear-end of the 48 team. During the off-season NASCAR enacted a rule that seemed designed to punish the 48 for creating something within the rules that worked well. They stopped using it, though the 2 team continued until they were penalized.
Throughout the season we saw Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team penalized and punished for the same things other drivers and team do on a weekly basis. I appreciate the fact that champions are held to a higher standard, and I think the champions should recognize that and behave appropriately. (That’s why I had such issues with Brad Keselowski’s championship – his behaviour reflected poorly on NASCAR. He acted like the ignorant redneck people associate with NASCAR.) But I think NASCAR should behave appropriately also.
Figure skating has endured years of scandal and tumult due to their subjective judging and rules. NASCAR seems to be doing the same thing which creating new rules that seem targeted at the 48 team. I enjoy NASCAR and have fallen on both sides of the fence with many of the recent changes. The double-file restart was not my choice. I envisioned the restart issues that arose shortly after the rule was changed. When qualifying was changed from drawing numbers to practice times I envisioned the issues that arose from that. Neither of these changes made racing better for me. The COT? Never had an issue with the old car – didn’t like the racing with the COT. The Gen6 car? Anything had to be an improvement over the COT, but why not return to the COY? The racing was better. The new restart rule. Its madness. Returning to the previous restart format would resolve the issue (as would single file restarts). The end of the Top 35 rule. Has that changed anything or was it strictly for marketing and public relations purposes? As far as I’ve seen it has just changed the topic for the bored folks on Twitter and NASCAR radio. Leave the rules alone and keep your fans happy.
If you make an attractive, entertaining, thrilling sport, people will come. Every sport goes through pendulum swings of fan support. Yes, some sports retain large fan bases over years, but the numbers actually wax and wane over time. NASCAR’s number will follow the same pattern. Everything does. They need to stop the knee-jerk reactions and catering to the squeaky wheels on Twitter and NASCAR radio. I’m a devoted fan of NASCAR, but I do not call in to NASCAR radio, nor am I on Twitter. My opinions are only aired to my friends and associates, and on this blog, which is not advertised and most likely only read by my friends and associates. NASCAR is listening to some fans, but ignoring the rest of us and changing the sport away from us. I am thoroughly aggravated on a weekly basis by all the Twitter chatter during broadcasts. If I wanted to know what was being said on Twitter, I WOULD BE ON TWITTER!!!
NASCAR blames the fans for the changes. I’m a fan of NASCAR. I became a fan without the assistance of Twitter, without rules to help my driver perform better, without shorter races, without double-file restarts. I began listening to races on the radio and the action caught and held my attention. I listened to races for months before tuning in to televised races. As I continued watching I added Nationwide and Truck series races to my viewing, along with ARCA races, because I couldn’t get enough racing. Over time I added more series since SPEEDTV brought the world of motorsports to my television.
Well, here we are in 2014. NASCAR wants to change the rules again. SPEEDTV is history. Fox Sports isn’t to my taste. I don’t know if they carried Pre-Season Thunder coverage. In years past I would watch SPEEDTV throughout the off-season to get my NASCAR fix whenever possible, but at least watch some sort of racing in the interim. I always felt connected to the latest in NASCAR as a result of the programming. Race Hub has become unwatchable. NASCAR programming seems hit or miss. I don’t know when NASCAR programming airs and I have no desire to watch Fox Sports to find out. NASCAR claims to be making changes to make a better product for fans. Let NASCAR fans enjoy classic NASCAR racing. Keep NASCAR NASCAR and fans of NASCAR will be drawn to NASCAR. Keep trying to make it like the NFL or MLB and they will go to those sports, instead of cheap imitations of those sports. Dude, keep the originally and nature of NASCAR and embrace the people who love those qualities and want to be fans of the sport that is NASCAR.
I don’t need a Game 7 moment. The NASCAR season is long. Fans are exhausted by the end of the season. The Chase already renders the other 26 races lower in importance. Now it sounds like NASCAR is trying to also render most of The Chase lower in importance. I understand the idea behind The Chase was to avoid the championship being decided halfway through the season. I can and do accept that change, but the points tweaking – stop! I was fine with the old points system. I did not need it simplified. I always knew where my driver and others stood after each race when the points were official and I paid attention to how many points were awarded per race. I’d like to turn back the NASCAR clock a bit and undo the changes over the past few years in NASCAR and NASCAR television.
I have not bought tickets to my local NASCAR race for the first time since I began watching. The last race was okay, but the idea of getting gouged by the hoteliers and getting shorted a race (often the Truck Series race was the best of the weekend) and being asked to pay for qualifying is offensive – prohibitively offensive. I plan to attend races at other tracks, because I love my NASCAR, but I will be searching for a three race weekend with great weather. I am bummed that I am not breathlessly anticipating attending the Labor Day Weekend. It just seems I’m getting ripped off – paying more for less every year.
One of my main reasons for paying for “cable” tv is NASCAR coverage. Now that SPEEDTV is gone and NASCAR programming is in short supply I am reconsidering that decision. I miss NASCAR. I feel the coming changes will make me miss it more – even if I am watch the ‘current product’ and eventually drive me away.