Are NASCAR’s new ideas likely to be better than some of those from the past?

It has been a busy few weeks for NASCAR. Seems not that long since we were complaining about NASCAR saying (presumably with a straight face) that Steve Phelps was its first commissioner when the portraits of Cannonball Baker, Harley Earl and their successors were hidden behind a sofa somewhere in the Daytona corporate office; now, Phelps is gone.

Then we were hit with the return of “the Chase,” I don’t recall anybody particularly liking it before, but I guess they liked what took its place even less, so, “Welcome Back!”

Oh, and there was this lawsuit, and after NASCAR basically lost it, there was this rumor that “the House that Big Bill France built might be up for sale.

. . . and we gained a Navy base but lost the Roval in the scheduling department . . . and the list goes on.

Yes, I am beating a dead horse (and that might be a member of PETA chasing me to punish me for my misdeeds), but I can’t help it. Here goes.

It’s hard to say how any of the above developments will be viewed in years to come, but it’s a safe bet that NASCAR’s spin machine will try to make it yet more evidence that all the good ideas come from the “in” crowd. After all, we can’t have it look like the Daytona brain trust is anything other than the most brilliant in sports.

Despite . . . NASCAR is now between 75 and 80 years old, depending on whether you consider the Streamline Hotel meeting, the first year of competition, or the beginning of what we now call Cup racing to be the actual start. During that time, just a few of the ideas have been less than brilliant.

Consider:

The NASCAR Speedway Division (NASCAR takes on AAA and Indy racing but crashes and burns after less than two seasons).

The Short Track Division (who knows why Big Bill thought it necessary to split Grand National/Cup racing into tracks over or under half-a-mile, but he did, and it didn’t work, growing for six years, shrinking for three, then disappearing).

The Convertible Division (purchased from a rival sanctioning body, it had a great first season before a four-year slide downhill).

The Midget Division (midget racing was already going downhill when NASCAR’s greed got it involved, and the wonder is that the series had some sort-of decent seasons before becoming a decal to put on some Daytona preliminaries over at the municipal stadium).

The Grand Touring/Grand American Division I loved the Camaros, Mustangs, Javelins, etc. showing they weren’t limited to Trans-Am, but there were only two really successful years before this bubble burst.

The Pacific Late Model/Winston West and Busch North Series (these were solid regional tours at times before becoming faint shadows in the forms of their ARCA successors).

The brief but disastrous efforts to wrap extra sheet metal around first Modifieds and then USAC Silver Crown Cars to make them more superspeedway-worthy.

The NASCAR Dash Series (another series NASCAR took over, it was never that big a deal but was interesting for a few years)

All the other efforts at regional late model-style tours, plus the weird critters like East Coast Late Models and the Sportsman Division (really a brainchild of the Charlotte folks, with NASCAR pretty much along for the ride – and a few bucks), and – lest we forget – a brief foray into drag racing.

Now let’s be clear here. Just because NASCAR’s back yard is littered with ideas that haven’t resulted in multi-million dollar charters doesn’t mean that we’d be better off today if Big Bill had stuck with running a gas station. Hardly. It’s just frustrating that NASCAR wants to sanitize its history and leave it looking like no words ever emanated from Daytona headquarters that didn’t deserve the unanimous response of “Brilliant!”

It’s that attitude, personified in Phelps’ remarks about Richard Childress – indicating he thought the man behind #3 had done nothing to get where he is today but bask in NASCAR’s genius. It’s not used much anymore, but the phrase back in the day was “too big for your britches,” and it applies to a lot of folks down in a certain Florida office building.

Let me throw out one more thought. I’ve said before that, if there are statues needed in front of NASCAR HQ or Daytona International Speedway, they should be of Ralph Seagraves and T. Wayne Robertson, whose visionary leadership of R.J. Reynolds’ Winston brand’s marketing role took NASCAR to its summit.

Ralph Seagraves and T. Wayne Robertson.
The Seagraves photo is from the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, and Robertson’s photo was all over the Internet, with this copy coming from YouTube.

NASCAR’s first 20 years as a sanctioning body saw growth – especially in the increasing number of superspeedways (back when that meant tracks a mile and longer, not just Daytona, Talladega, and maybe Atlanta or Michigan) – but the “big time” remained a distant dream: when your TV exposure is highlighted by sharing Wide World of Sports with the national wrist-wrestling championships and curling events, you’re not threatening the NFL’s dominance.

That’s where Seagraves and then Robertson stepped in, applying major league business practices. By any measure, the Winston Cup era – 1972-2003 – shows growth that almost doubtlessly wouldn’t have happened had things continued as they did from 1948-71.

Ah, you say, but didn’t NASCAR experience growth after 2003? Yes, but I would argue that was driven by a strong roster of drivers, most of whom had come into the “big time” with legitimate chops earned in serious competition elsewhere. Once those drivers began to retire, things started downhill, aided by a sour economy but also the Car of Tomorrow, driver development programs, and a failure to maintain the feeling of personal connections to drivers. All of a sudden, short tracks all over the country were able to buy nice new grandstands/bleachers that were being removed from NASCAR Cup tracks. Brian France’s obvious distance from the sport didn’t help.

So where are you headed with all this, Frank? Beating up on NASCAR is easy, but it would be nice to add something constructive.

Well, this doctor has a couple of prescriptions for you to take to the racing pharmacist. First and perhaps foremost, get out of the car-designing business and go back to allowing the manufacturers to adapt actual vehicles for the track, then develop a simpler, common-sense set of rules to keep them reasonably equal. I know the term “stock car racing” hasn’t meant anything for decades, but maybe, just maybe, we should take a few steps back in that direction.

I doubt we can do anything about the charter system, but we need more allowance for non-charter teams to keep things interesting.

Throw stage racing in the dumpster where it belongs. It’ll take months before anybody notices it’s gone.

Keep a playoff system if you want (I actually don’t think it’s a bad idea), but let the tracks find ways to make their races stand out enough that they’re not just #17 on the schedule. I’m not sure about the exact remedy here, but we need one. NASCAR races used to be something special, and that feeling needs to come back.

I could throw in more of my old suggestions – preliminary races at classic short tracks near each venue; a winter series in warm-weather climates (sorry, not Bowman Gray Stadium); races with a gimmick (how about Charlotte featuring the oval for 200 miles, the the Roval for 200, and then back to the oval?). Anything to combat the numbing sameness of the current NASCAR.

Instead, let’s close with this: get more personal. As our very existence becomes more and more impersonal, things that ARE personal stand out in a positive way. My teenaged friends and I loved walking the pits and talking to drivers (the “independents” who weren’t surrounded by fans the way Richard Petty was); something like that would be harder today, but maybe not impossible . . . and I mean allowing this for ALL, not just the people in the $500 VIP seats.

Listen, I know we live in an age where income generation has become the be-all and end-all of sports: Penn State’s athletic program brought in more than $250 million last year, and it’s said North Carolina’s basketball team members are getting $16 million for their talents. In any situation, that kind of money is obscene, but our society has opened the door, and I doubt the lock would work anymore to close it.

None of that matters if the fans don’t care, and offering the personal touch can help combat the increasing distance between the sport and the everyday fan. Spending big bucks on feel-good videos will only go so far. Get personal.

Frank’s Loose Lug Nuts

– Let’s say something nice about the RAM truck brand and Kaulig Racing for its new reality show competition for a seat in one of the factory RAM trucks on the Craftsman Truck Series this year. Congratulations to Mini Terrell for winning the seat.

My main caveat is the hope that – going forward – participants don’t have to bring money to the table to be part of the show. To me, the idea of drivers having to provide their own sponsorships sits up there with the charter system as primary reasons NASCAR’s upper echelon series have fallen so badly. Simply put, nobody gives a crap about most of the current competitors (although, in all fairness, that situation isn’t as bad as it was a few years ago). This group will have a brief window to build their fan bases, which should help the series’ popularity when one of them is a regular racer.

I hope so. I like the truck series, but it takes a really dedicated fan to name half of last year’s top ten in points, and this at least has the potential to improve that situation.

(PHOTO CREDIT – The “cover photo” of the NASCAR Convertible Division came from NASCAR.com.)