2023 NASCAR Discussion ThreadNASCAR

[Earth]

TV Ratings are down alot this year

My take

The car is not iconic, it's quite ugly. Get rid of the stupid forward number and put it back in the middle to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Doing this was just as stupid as Indycar giving the cars those huge ugly sidepods to make sponsors more visible. Your going to have more people looking at these cars if they are actually pleasing to look at.

The current car, it has been like this since the COT, looks like a lifeless box. It does not look sporty like every Cup car throughout the 90s and 2000s. It looks like some kind of lifeless boxy touring car. Awful.

Get rid of the chase, make the season 30 races, reduce the road courses to 4 a year (their novelty is already old), get back on the Indy oval or do not go there at all, reduce race length to fit in a 2.5 hour window that includes post race. And no bristol dirt.

Do this and start rebuilding the fanbase

 

[Veinz]

For me it’s not the cars, they look pretty good in my eyes. It’s the stages, playoffs and dirty driving that always turn me off from this series.

 

[NotThePrez]

Epic 360 and save from McDowell just now.

Edit: Just had 3 cars lose it in a ~40 second time span, and NASCAR decided not to throw a caution for any of them. Genuinely surprised.

 

[yellosnake]

Pretty sad to see all of those empty seats.

 

[EngieDiesel]

TV Ratings are down alot this year

My take

The car is not iconic, it's quite ugly. Get rid of the stupid forward number and put it back in the middle to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Doing this was just as stupid as Indycar giving the cars those huge ugly sidepods to make sponsors more visible. Your going to have more people looking at these cars if they are actually pleasing to look at.

The current car, it has been like this since the COT, looks like a lifeless box. It does not look sporty like every Cup car throughout the 90s and 2000s. It looks like some kind of lifeless boxy touring car. Awful.

Get rid of the chase, make the season 30 races, reduce the road courses to 4 a year (their novelty is already old), get back on the Indy oval or do not go there at all, reduce race length to fit in a 2.5 hour window that includes post race. And no bristol dirt.

Do this and start rebuilding the fanbase

It's more that casual interest in motorsports just isn't there anymore like it was in the '90s and early-mid 2000's. There's no "old veterans vs young guns" dynamic like we had then to draw people in, drivers aren't allowed to have personalities due to sponsors wanting clean-cut salesman representing them now, and the few that do express any amount of frustration just come off looking more like old men throwing childish tantrums rather than the bad boy image that was popular at the time period, and most of the tracks that had the character that made NASCAR interesting have been either replaced or extensively altered to try and cram more grandstands around the place.

There's also the lack of the massive marketing budgets too. You don't have everything labeled "The Official _______ of NASCAR", there's no drivers smiling back at you from the fronts of soda machines, there aren't entire TV ads devoted to companies telling you that they're sponsoring a NASCAR team. A lot of this is due to the current crop of sponsors being mostly groups that don't advertise in traditional areas, but without that constant reinforcement that NASCAR is A Thing That Exists, anyone who's not a devoted motorsports fan isn't going to pay any attention.

 

[NotThePrez]

Looks like a little beef between Preece and Larson put Larson into the wall.

Edit: Christopher Bell takes this years Bristol Dirt Race!

 

[Dylan]

Super fun race! But good Lord that was the most inconsistent I’ve seen Race Control be at throwing yellows.

 

[Dolph Drago]

Super fun race! But good Lord that was the most inconsistent I’ve seen Race Control be at throwing yellows.

Seriously. The caution for Busch spinning onto pit road was mind boggling considering how many drivers did 360's in the middle of the track without them throwing one. I WOULD say they did that to spice up the ending (since they LOVE having late race chaotic restarts), but then Blaney went around in the middle of the pack on the ensuing restart and no caution.

As for the race itself, I'm generally not that interested in dirt racing, but this was a pretty good one. Guys were running all over the track with grooves from top to bottom.


On a side note, it was sad to hear about the driver killed at Lawrenceburg Speedway. Up until I moved a year and a half ago, I lived only about 15 miles from the track and saw a couple of races there as a kid.

 

[opelgt1969]

TV Ratings are down alot this year

My take

The car is not iconic, it's quite ugly. Get rid of the stupid forward number and put it back in the middle to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Doing this was just as stupid as Indycar giving the cars those huge ugly sidepods to make sponsors more visible. Your going to have more people looking at these cars if they are actually pleasing to look at.

The current car, it has been like this since the COT, looks like a lifeless box. It does not look sporty like every Cup car throughout the 90s and 2000s. It looks like some kind of lifeless boxy touring car. Awful.

Get rid of the chase, make the season 30 races, reduce the road courses to 4 a year (their novelty is already old), get back on the Indy oval or do not go there at all, reduce race length to fit in a 2.5 hour window that includes post race. And no bristol dirt.

Do this and start rebuilding the fanbase

The biggest problem with ratings is trying to find races on multiple TV channels. NASCAR needs to get someone with balls enough to force network to cover races on main stations no more FSS2 MSNBC, with Stremming being the thing now why couldn't NASCAR have their own channel, of course NASCAR would screw it up real bad. I would be willing to pay $50.00 per season for it!

 

[Blitz24]

The biggest problem with ratings is trying to find races on multiple TV channels. NASCAR needs to get someone with balls enough to force network to cover races on main stations no more FSS2 MSNBC, with Stremming being the thing now why couldn't NASCAR have their own channel, of course NASCAR would screw it up real bad. I would be willing to pay $50.00 per season for it!

NASCAR HAD their own channel in Speed. Then they went reality TV chasing and it essentially died.

 

[Dennisch]

Nascar needs to follow F1 and launch a Nascar streaming app like F1tv. I'd subscribe without thinking.

 

[Blood Eagle]

Nascar needs to follow F1 and launch a Nascar streaming app like F1tv. I'd subscribe without thinking.

After this TV deal is over you might see a streaming app for NASCAR. I would also subscribe no problem but also would like a feature where I can mute Clint Bowyer's microphone.

 

[Dennisch]

After this TV deal is over you might see a streaming app for NASCAR. I would also subscribe no problem but also would like a feature where I can mute Clint Bowyer's microphone.

After what I had to go through after our regular Dutch commentator fell ill l, Clint is a gem.

We Dutchies are quite known for having an accent while speaking English, and the replacement was just terrible. Kourt Boosh, Clint Bawjer, Kyle Lerrrrrson.

I feel my soup coming back up already.

 

[Blitz24]

Cody Ware may not be in a race car again for a very long time.

 

[Populuxe]

 

[Eggstor]

That would definitely be a "personal" matter.

Odds Rick Ware Racing leaves NASCAR after this season just jumped to 8-5.

 

[Dylan]

Tonight at 9PM ET, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series races at Autodromo Nazionale Monza (no chicanes) for round 5 of the 2023 season. First road course of the season, and first ever race for the series on a track outside of the United States.

 

[Dylan]

He back

Heck of a track to come back at after breaking a leg.

 

[Northstar]

Cody has been arrested again.

NASCAR's Cody Ware facing 2 additional charges

Ware is due in court Monday for the charges issued against him Friday. His court date for the original charges is May 1.

theathletic.com

Was holding off commenting on the situation just in case it turned out to be a Kurt Busch situation but it certainly seems to not be the case. Dude is a grade A moron.

That would definitely be a "personal" matter.

Odds Rick Ware Racing leaves NASCAR after this season just jumped to 8-5.

I think their days are numbered even ignoring this whole Cody thing. With Earnhardt Jr being vocal about charter cost preventing him from entering* as well as multiple teams expressing interest in expanding NASCAR will more than likely be increasingly pressured into enforcing the performance clause (finish in the bottom 3 for 3 consecutive years they can strip the charter). I'd imagine both Ware and Live Fast will cash out before NASCAR pulls the trigger, especially Live Fast since they don't have additional cars to play charter swap games with.


*I'd imagine having to buy-out Rick's share of the Xfinity team is also a rather sizable hump.

 

[Eggstor]

I think their days are numbered even ignoring this whole Cody thing. With Earnhardt Jr being vocal about charter cost preventing him from entering* as well as multiple teams expressing interest in expanding NASCAR will more than likely be increasingly pressured into enforcing the performance clause (finish in the bottom 3 for 3 consecutive years they can strip the charter). I'd imagine both Ware and Live Fast will cash out before NASCAR pulls the trigger, especially Live Fast since they don't have additional cars to play charter swap games with.


*I'd imagine having to buy-out Rick's share of the Xfinity team is also a rather sizable hump.

The 51 team is on the clock for the performance clause - according to Jayski, RWR swapped the charters, and the one now on the 51 spent the last 2 years in the bottom 3 on the 15. More tellingly, the only reason the 51 isn't currently in the bottom 3 is the 31 lost 75 owners' points in Louver-Gate, and even after that 75-point loss, the 51 is only 7 points (less the tiebreaker) ahead of the 31.

The charters currently on the 15 (on the 52 in 2021, 51 in 2022) and 78 were only in the bottom 3 last year - those were, respectively, 32nd and 31st among chartered teams - the unchartered 37 was ahead of both in 2021. With that said, RWR does have some room if NASCAR allows them to game the system again by switching charters mid-season - the 15 is 45 points (give or take tiebreakers) ahead of the 77 and 78 for 35th/36th.

 

[Northstar]

The 51 team is on the clock for the performance clause - according to Jayski, RWR swapped the charters, and the one now on the 51 spent the last 2 years in the bottom 3 on the 15.

While it is just an assumption on my end, I have to imagine the clock resets when the charter is transferred even if it is within the same team. Otherwise what was the point of swapping the charters if not to take advantage of a loophole?

 

[Eggstor]

While it is just an assumption on my end, I have to imagine the clock resets when the charter is transferred even if it is within the same team. Otherwise what was the point of swapping the charters if not to take advantage of a loophole?

There's a bit of opacity in how it actually works, but given RWR's machinations over the years, especially using two of his "four" teams to barely keep the 51 out of the 3-strikes rule in 2021, I doubt the clock resets on transfers.

When Spire picked up the 53 (ex-Front Row) charter after 2 years of RWR running that as a bottom-3 team, they put it on the stronger 7 team (which had/has a full-time driver) and moved the charter that had been on the 7 to the part-time-drivers 77 team. When 23XI overpaid for the former StarCom charter, which also had spent the previous 2 years in the bottom 3, they hired Kurt Busch, who got the team in the playoffs before his concussion.

 

[Northstar]

There's a bit of opacity in how it actually works, but given RWR's machinations over the years, especially using two of his "four" teams to barely keep the 51 out of the 3-strikes rule in 2021, I doubt the clock resets on transfers.

Wouldn't it have to reset though? Otherwise you would basically be hanging a completely new team out to dry if they bought a charter from a team on year 2/3 and happened to get off to a slow start.

 

[Eggstor]

Wouldn't it have to reset though? Otherwise you would basically be hanging a completely new team out to dry if they bought a charter from a team on year 2/3 and happened to get off to a slow start.

It could well reset; nobody has actually put forth an answer. I doubt it would reset for internal transfers though.

Also, we had our first short-track rain tire laps in the Trucks tonight - the first 27 laps were run with the rain tires and rain lights. They didn't bring enough rain tires though, as NASCAR threw a red flag that was too short to be for lightning after the first stage and ultimately shortened the race from 200 laps to 124 due to even more rain.

 

[ICEYOU3]

SHR sure did choke this race away so bad, I'm surprised Briscoe didn't have any real forward movement after the 4 tire call.

 

[opelgt1969]

NASCAR HAD their own channel in Speed. Then they went reality TV chasing and it essentially

 

[Dennisch]

SHR sure did choke this race away so bad, I'm surprised Briscoe didn't have any real forward movement after the 4 tire call.

Nobody had any real forward movement on track. Little action apart from a period somewhere half way through where everyone got a bit more aggressive.

Shame.

 

[Suzuki-Cara]

TV Ratings are down alot this year

You can thank the Stanley Cup playoffs, NBA Playoffs, Baseball season starting, and I'll even go as far as mentioning the NFL's lesser siblings.

NASCAR HAD their own channel in Speed. Then they went reality TV chasing and it essentially died.

I vaguely remember the reality TV content on Speed, but I do remember Mike Joy's sign off.

I wouldn't be surprised with the revenue sharing the teams are banding together for, followed by the renewals looming on the horizon that Speedvision will get some NASCAR content on it's streaming service.

Worst case scenario? MAVTV picks it up.

 

[meganinja]

Oh boy, boys will get (uselessy) in awkard needlessly panic on that
They are confirmed that AT WORST they will go hybrid but/or with efuels will be largerly used on motorsport on future and years to come...

 

[Dylan]