Just a couple of thoughts from last weekend's events at Lowe's Motor Speedway and the NASCAR Hall of Fame announcement...
- Following the recent Fontana weekend, some in the Charlotte media called for the Auto Club Speedway to lose one of its two Sprint Cup races because of all of the empty seats during the Pepsi 500. What's fair is fair. There were many more empties at LMS over the weekend than there at Fontana. So where is the call from that same media outlet that LMS should lose a date? Charlotte has three Sprint Cup weekends and it only approaches capacity on one of them. I would argue that Charlotte doesn't support NASCAR and it should lose one of its dates. One of the best lines I've heard about attendance at Charlotte: "There are blue seats there in turn four that have been there for over ten years now and have never had a butt in them."
- The recent announcement of the first class of inductees into the NASCAR Hall of Fame brought no real surprises. However, there is no shortage of debate on who should and shouldn't have been in. One thing is obvious: five inductees per year is not enough. The sport has sixty-plus years of history. There is no way you can do justice to the founding fathers of our sport with just five inductees per year. The voting criteria should allow for the following: the top five in the voting plus any other nominee that receives at least 80 percent of the vote. Surely names like Pearson, Allison, and Yarbourough should be included in that first class, yet they were left out because of the five inductee limit. I'd also like to see the people voting for the Hall of Fame actually have some sort of historical reference for their vote. There are undoubtedly people with votes that never saw Richard Petty race (even on television), and that's a shame.
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As if I am able to remember correctly, we TOOK a race date from Rockingham and Darlington because of minimal attendance....rightfully so. Why is it not politically correct to call for lifting a race date from that dreaded (lack of racing) race facility in Fontana. Less than 50% attendance at any facility, particularly Fontana is not worthy of a Chase date, when two races of mostly freebie spectators are in attendance. Charlotte, like it or not, is the hometown of NASCAR and now home to OUR Hall of Fame
ReplyDeleteYou can't compare Charlotte to Fontana. Charlotte has 156,000 seats to fill and Fontana has 92,000. When I was in Charlotte for the race I was suprised it was a full as it was. The biggest problem is the fact is it is a night race late in October and night racing should end in September at the latest. They were able to get away with this when it was the first weekend and if it don't change i'm possibly not going to renew my seats for the first time in 25 years and trust me i'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteDavid Pearson not in he first class of the hall. What a frigging joke. The guy won 105 races running a partial schedule and won three championships.
ReplyDeleteHow DARE you even THINK about mentioning that abortion of a track in Cal. in the same breath as Charlotte. Fontana is the biggest waste of real estate on the planet. Charlotte has a HISTORY of great racing for FAR LONGER than your a$$ can concieve. Maybe you need to stick to the little ohio tracks and leave the big series to someone who knows the sport for more than a few years. HOW INSULTING! The problem w/ attendance can mainly be summed up in a few things. The stupid chase points scam and mostly Brian France. Get rid of those, put Rockingham & THE Southern 500 back to thier rightful places on the schedule, and make winning a race actually mean something and attendance will rise. The current state of the "sport" is nothing but a contrived version of the WWE. i.e. WHO CARES???
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