How Times Have Changed for the Daytona 500...

[zerofor]

When the manufacturer's were involved true the many car brands were under the same big umbrellas, but it ensured their were more available seats for guys to fill.And with the car makers footing a lot of the financial burden the fields were never going to shrink to the levels you have recently. Now all of a teams drivers didn't necessarily get treated the same( and the best example of that is what Mario Andretti said Ford tried to do to him with engines the year he won the 500)and there isn't the availability of corporate sponsors willing to foot the bill for an entire race season any longer.There are only a few rides that will sport the name of the same main sponsor on their quarter panels for every race in the season.The deal you mentioned O.S. where Petty brought in STP if you remember that wasn't just racing news at the time that was national news.The first million dollar sponsorship deal ever in NASCAR. Nowadays its chicken feed.And the sponsors wanted more and were banging on NASCAR's door to get in.Now there trying to tear the door off to get out.

[jacko241]

Nowadays its chicken feed.And the sponsors wanted more and were banging on NASCAR's door to get in.Now there trying to tear the door off to get out.

LOL, that is funny, but it is also true. I agree with OS, that NASCAR will survive, but I am convinced it will be on a much smaller scale. There are many reasons as we all have mentioned for their downward spiral, some are affecting all types of sports. But one that I don't hear mentioned too often is the fact that NASCAR just has too many series. In the old days, you had Cup, Late Model Sportsman, and local short track racing. In the beginning, LMS wasn't a full on traveling series. The drivers in Cup mainly came up from there, along with some of the USAC guys. Now they have 3 major traveling series, plus I think 2 K&N series, and god knows what else I can't think of. There isn't enough money to go around to support all these. It was amazing to me when I walked thru the ARCA garage this last weekend, the difference in the cars and teams. Some were still pulled in a old beat up tag trailer. Some of the cars bodies were not near as nice as the Sportsman cars at NSS. But you know what? The on track product didn't look much different from a Cup show. At probably 1/100 the cost. Same thing happened in sports car racing. With the manufacturers involved, the costs skyrocketed, chasing off most of the privateers. The manufacturers pulled out, and pro sports car racing in this country almost died. Then the Frances came up with the idea of a low cost tube frame prototype, the DP. Now in sports car racing they are experiencing boom time again with lots of manufacturers involved, and they have chased off most of us privateers again. Look at TRG. When we raced in 2008 they had 7 cars in the 24 hour. This year they had one. It will happen to them again when the manufacturers decide to leave, which they will.

[fred23]

Jacko is right, there are too many divisions in NASCAR, not unlike most short tracks that have 7,8,9 divisions.
I would like to see NASCAR do a few things that would eliminate some divisions and give the "privateer" opportunities to compete.
Since the charters aren't going away, they should have every cup team with a charter have to run a Xfinity car and make them finance it etc, but no cup drivers can drive in the xfinity series except rookies and only at races where both divisions are running the same track that weekend.
I would like to see the trucks go completely independent from Cup Charter owners. Make it more of a grass roots series where guys can have a couple of trucks and be able to compete. Again, drivers from Xfinity or Cup cannot run in the trucks. I would almost like to see the Trucks and ARCA combine in some way.(I know with sponsorship money paid by Camping World and TV this probably couldn't happen).
The K&N series should be Super Late Models. This would allow them to get fields of 30 or 40 cars.
Pretty sure none of this will ever happen because like someone posted earlier, Cup is getting close to F1 than grass roots and it will only continue to get more expensive. How it costs 12-15 million dollars to run a cup team is beyond me. Especially when you can run an xfinity car for 3-4 million.

[kendo]

At least scantily clad women are back in victory lane...

[OldSchool+]

"...In sports car racing...With the manufacturers involved, the costs skyrocketed, chasing off most of the privateers. The manufacturers pulled out, and pro sports car racing in this country almost died. Then the Frances came up with the idea of a low cost tube frame prototype, the DP. Now in sports car racing they are experiencing boom time again with lots of manufacturers involved, and they have chased off most of us privateers again...It will happen to them again when the manufacturers decide to leave, which they will."--Jacko

Absolutely correct. And in other blobs, er, blogs, folks just love the DPis & detest the DPs. Go figure.

Re: Cup--The way I see it, it's all good. If it "shrinks", I anticipate that the manufacturers and the private sponsors will stay, but will also shrink what they are willing to pay as Cup implodes.

Eventually (hopefully) they will have to lose and/or downsize their big boring tracks.

But even if not, it will all be self leveling at some point. They will jack around the show until the numbers flatten, and then maybe grow at a moderate pace from there.

Like the .com bubble and the housing bubble, the racing-is-the-latest-trendy-thing has deal has come and gone.

[zerofor]

The problem isn't so much from too many divisions

As much as it is what NASCAR is or in some cases isn't doing with them.They have( with the exception of their very earliest days) always maintained at least four divisions.Those of us that are old enough to remember the old convertible division that was the xfinity division of its day at its inception.NASCAR has always had a modified division for instance.The modified division was the breeding grounds for the newest Grand National guys.Even in the 1960s you had modified, sportsman, convertible, and grand national or cup as it's now called.The convertibles ran with mainly cup guys but shorter races.They eventually gave way to the Grand American series which were camaros,mustangs,cougars,Firebirds.But the main difference there was it was full of big name stars who's careers were ending.Buck Baker,Red Farmer,Tiny Lund,to name a few.This is what the truck division SHOULD have become. A place for guys like Mike Waltrip,the Labonte's etc could have had a place to race that would have taken less financial resources for the aging stars that still have the ability to bring fans.But as far as K&N NASCAR puts literally NO real promotion into their events.It has no real star power and rarely even has an entrant from a local guy to the track they are racing at and they are incredibly missing the mark there.If there were local drivers also entered in those events they would self promote themselves.Did anyone go to the inaugural short lived Battle at the Beach?They gave it NO promotion. I went for the one and only super late event and there couldn't have been more than a couple hundred people in the stands.No stars( even though Kyle Larson won it but nobody knew who he was yet)no promotion,no crowd.

[OldSchool+]

Briefly thought about going to "The Clash" Sunday morning.

Guessed the cost at $250. Had the wife check it on the way to church.

In fact is was more than that for low seats in turn one.

Continued on to church-it was far more cost effective.

Oh yeah, reportedly there were 15,000 in the stands. I would have gone if it wasn't so expensive.

Good service, though!