In NASCAR, it’s the most wonderful time of the year (NASCAR.com)
March 31, 2010
Quite naturally for a sport that opens with its biggest event and closes with a championship coronation, most of the focus on NASCAR is on the beginning and the end. The Daytona 500 brings with it a welcome respite from a cold, dark offseason, all of it played out in Florida sunshine and upon the circuit’s grandest stage. The Chase turns the final 10 events into a pulse-pounding crucible of nerves and intensity, where even the smallest mistakes can have massive ramifications. Together they are the bookends of the Sprint Cup season, magnets for attention that help support everything that comes in between.
It goes without question that they are the most important parts of a long campaign, even though every race on the schedule pays the same in terms of points. But to find the most interesting, the most enjoyable, the most fun segment of the whole season, just take a look at the races going on around you right now. There’s the biggest track, the smallest tracks, the quirkiest tracks, the oldest tracks, the longest race. The period between Bristol and the Coca-Cola 600 provides an abundance of the unusual, a cornucopia of differing challenges, and a welcome break from the 1.5-mile, tri-oval routine. In NASCAR terms, this is the most wonderful time of the year.
Think about it. You start with Bristol, a half-mile cereal bowl that’s arguably the most beloved track in NASCAR, which had sold out 55 straight races before the lingering effects of the recession finally took its toll. You move on to Martinsville, which produces some of the best racing on the circuit, and Monday saw Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth fuming at one another, and Denny Hamlin banging his way to the front. You head to Phoenix, that ancient D-shaped oval in the desert, a track that can be as unforgiving as the stark landscape around it. Then there’s Texas, which is a 1.5-mile tri-oval, but an exceedingly fast one run by a promoter who’s never shy about stirring things up. Next is big, fast, mean Talladega, where anything can happen, and usually does.
It’s on to Richmond, a .75-mile layout that’s often full of fun and calamity and leaves drivers wanting to take swings at one another. Next is Darlington, a grand old lady that’s still as difficult to master as it was half a century ago, and where the walls still bite. Then it’s Dover, a 1-mile concrete pit that perhaps offers the best combination of big-track speed and short-track action, and where even a mild fender-bender can collect half the field. And finally we move to Charlotte, first for that Saturday night of no-consequences chaos known as the All-Star event, and then finally for the 600. When the sun at last sets on the longest and most punishing event in all of major motorsports, it also sets on the absolute best NASCAR has to offer.
That it all occurs in the springtime, when temperatures are rising and trees are blooming, comes as an added bonus. No question there are grand races and passionate fan bases at other times of the season, too, from the spectacle of Indianapolis and Las Vegas, to the sellout crowds at New Hampshire, to the throngs who travel the two-lane roads to Pocono. But no other time of the year better blends past and present than this one, which takes fans and drivers back to so many of the kind of small, strange, and ancestral tracks that legends once competed on in their prime. No other time of the year offers more variety in terms of venues, with three short tracks and Talladega within six races of each other. No other time of the year gives us one-of-a-kind places like Darlington and Dover and Phoenix, so close together you could cover them all with a blanket.
This part of the NASCAR schedule is really the heart and soul of NASCAR itself, a 10-race span that traces the sport’s trajectory from moonshine-fueled Southern bullrings to the larger, grander facilities of today. So often you hear purists pine for tracks of yesteryear, places like North Wilkesboro and Rockingham, facilities that were dropped from the schedule due to age or disinterest. This part of the season, though, has more traditional race tracks than Brad Keselowski has enemies. Facilities like Martinsville and Richmond are just what people crave during that tri-oval-heavy start to the season, when consecutive events at Fontana, Las Vegas, and Atlanta inevitably invite gripes over the quality of competition.
And yet, Bristol’s consecutive sellout streak, which dated back to 1982, is now a thing of the past. Martinsville would have had gaps in its grandstands even if rain hadn’t pushed that event to Monday. Phoenix has cut its grandstand capacity by 20,000 seats. Richmond has similarly contracted after seeing a long streak of full houses come to an end. Dover and Charlotte each had notable attendance issues for their races last season. Darlington saw its modest run of four straight sellouts come to an end last year.
Now clearly, places like Bristol, Richmond, and Charlotte, which still draw relatively well even when they’re not full, aren’t going anywhere. But for other traditional tracks trying to fill seats—particularly those with two races each year—these are uneasy times given the drumbeat for second annual events as Kansas and Las Vegas, and Kentucky waiting for a schedule spot. With apologies to people in Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Sparta, Ky., nobody who enjoys racing wants to see additional 1.5-mile tri-ovals at the expense of facilities with more character and history.
And yet, the spectators vote with their wallets. People who yearn for the old North Carolina Speedway conveniently forget that it was dropped because of woeful attendance, even in those last years when everyone knew the end was coming if the trend didn’t reverse itself. Fans have the power to eliminate a race track, and they have the power to save one, just as they did with Darlington, which went from the brink of obsolescence to a successful Mother’s Day fixture because people poured through the turnstiles to salvage its one remaining event.
Will they do the same for charming old Martinsville, which for years now has dealt with the notion that it may be next on the chopping block when NASCAR again decides to realign its schedule? Will they keep Phoenix viable, despite the facility’s age and relative lack of modern amenities? Will they ensure that Dover, overbuilt but still entertaining, remains a foothold in the Northeast? Those are questions only they can answer.
Granted, these days there are mitigating factors. No question the recession has socked the NASCAR fan base very hard, and keeping homes or finding jobs are far more important matters than buying race tickets. No question that with troubles in the furniture, textile and tobacco industries, that the economy in much of the rural South—where many traditional tracks are located—was tough enough even without the recession. Cynics like to pretend that empty seats are some kind of show of solidarity against NASCAR, a baseless generalization that shows a galling lack of empathy for people who are struggling to piece their lives back together.
One day, though, the recession will end and disposable income will increase and more people will have more money with which to buy race tickets again. Once that happens, the vote count will begin to be kept in earnest. And we can only hope that race fans choose to keep this part of the NASCAR season as wonderful as it is right now.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
