Signing for the times (Yahoo! Sports)
July 31, 2009
This year, we’ve rediscovered that attending a NASCAR race is a discretionary purchase, not a requirement. Sellouts hardly exist, as these tough economic times have forced people to cut back and make tough decisions about their entertainment and vacations.
I received an email this week from a fellow named Tim from Indianapolis that reflects this to some degree, but it also exposes a much greater risk in my opinion. Here’s part of the letter:
Jeff Gordon has been one of NASCAR’s best ambassadors over the last 15 years. (Getty)
Mr. Craven: The main reason for empty seats and lower ratings is not the economy. It is because the sport has become so less fan friendly.
My wife and I have been going to Indy for years, and after this weekend we are finished and NASCAR is not going to get another dime from us. We are regular working people that took time off from work and spent hard-earned money to attend the track Friday through Sunday. We used to enjoy taking photos of the drivers and even getting autographs. This weekend, the drivers would look away when they saw fans trying to take photos.
We got up at 4 a.m. to get to the track early Friday and when we actually found ourselves standing a few feet away from Driver X, my wife asked him for a autograph and he quickly looked away like we were nothing.
We did not get any autographs this year and not one good photo.
After years of buying NASCAR items we are finished. They and the drivers don’t want people like us as fans any longer, and I am sure Driver X and NASCAR could care less that we are finished with the sport but they are finding out that works both ways. Thank you for letting me write.
First, I must explain “Driver X.” The point of this story is to focus on the larger issue of drivers being fan friendly, not on one incident involving one driver. This is why I replaced his name with “Driver X.”
Now back to the letter: Is what this fan wrote the exception rather than rule?
First off, I have to defend the drivers, because I’ve lived that life, and I can explain how this might happen.
Drivers are no different than any other person holding a job. Their ability to maintain that job is directly linked to performance. Sometimes that gets lost.
We look at the drivers from an entertainment perspective and sometimes lose sight of the fact that they are working while others attending a race are not. For example, on a typical weekend drivers and crews are trying to gather 10 hours’ worth of information in a two-hour practice. With only a few minutes left in practice, a crew chief may call a driver from his transporter back to the car, saying, “We need one more run. We need five more good laps.” So the driver has just enough time to get from his transporter to his car, get strapped in and give his crew chief those five laps before practice ends, perhaps making the difference in where they qualify or where they finish.
In a case like this, stopping to sign one autograph often leads to 10. So to be fair, we’ve all been Driver X at some point.
But you can’t be Driver X the majority of the time.
Today’s drivers could learn from the example set by Richard Petty, who has always had time for fans. (Getty)
To some degree, I have no interest in being critical of drivers. But I think it’s healthy for every one of the drivers to acknowledge letters like Tim’s, because nobody in the sport can afford to lose this kind of support, this type of fan. It simply cannot happen.
Maybe there needs to be better awareness for all drivers about what the expectations are. From my experience, Tim represents the majority of people who buy tickets to NASCAR races. They are hard-working people who work to save money in order to make one or two of these trips a year, and like any of us who makes that kind of effort, the expectations are sky high.
So drivers do owe it to these people to give a little extra. And as difficult as that may be because of all the demands on drivers’ time these days – sponsor appearances, a 36-race schedule, interview requests, hardly any offseason – they have to remember the foundation of the sport was built on fan interaction. It was built by people with the last names Petty, Earnhardt, Allison, Waltrip and Yarborough – drivers who interacted with the fans better and did it for a whole lot less money.
These are the people I connected with as a kid, and they didn’t disappoint.
Richard Petty continues to do it today. Although no one should be expected to duplicate what he’s contributed, they should be expected to try. It’s that important! NASCAR depends on that foundation to remain strong. Fan interaction is the sweet spot that got this train moving and will be what keeps it steaming along.
In my 10 years in NASCAR, I absolutely was Driver X at least a few times in my career. And everyone who ever wore a helmet for an extended period has been Driver X at some point.
To be fair, there also is a side to drivers that the public doesn’t always get to see, the side where drivers visit hospitals, call fans on their birthdays, go to autograph sessions around the country. They don’t do these things for publicity. They do it because they feel good about it and because they owe it to the people who supported them.
Also keep in mind that every one of these drivers has obligations during the evenings of the race weekends, connecting with people employed by their sponsor, attending organized autograph sessions or helping to raise money or awareness for a particular cause.
With all this said, if a fan works overtime or weekends to afford a trip to a race and comes home as unhappy as Tim and his wife, and if that happens often, then we are all in trouble.
To that end, if any of these athletes are Driver X the majority of the time – if it’s the rule rather than the exception – then they should consider another career. Because while I am absolutely convinced that many of the empty seats today are a reflection of the economy, when the economy turns, there needs to be demand for the product, and part of the demand for NASCAR has always existed because of the relationship drivers have with their fans.
Ricky Craven is Yahoo! Sports NASCAR analyst. Send Ricky a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
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