I think Nascar has hit a plateau of fans. Every things in this world can get so big that it's begins folding on itself due to lack of resources to "feed the beast". Toyota I have no problem with but the cars and drivers, as well as the sponsor money and the one guy get's to call all the shot's doesn't have a care in the worls about the future beyond his own.
The cars need enough power to separate the drivers from each other. seperates the mech, designers, and everything else too. Technology has improved well enough in the 20 years that these cars all drive the same, asided from having the spring and shock packages identical so handle is the same they are just too damn easy to maneuver. While being athlete's is not my concern right now, it's can't be hard to drive a car where it's "flat to the floor till you hit a wall of air", Without pedal modulations you don't have to learn any car control techniques. I honestly think anybody in this world with minimal training could crawl into one of those cars and run at the back at least. It's like when you first learned to drive. It felt really weird at first but it's a feeling you weren't used to and most people can keep up with min hwy traffic within a few miles driving time. Cookie cutter race tracks and pretty faces with different colored cars isn't showing who's best at getting a car to do what, it's a popularity contest. Oval track racing is largely setup anyway. As long as the driver can keep a rhythm to increase consistency. Nascar doesn't want to bore people with technical stuff on TV so this may seem a little known fact. I can attest to drivers feeling a loose car is more of what the watch say's then the seat of the drivers pant's when the tires are bigger than the car. My opinion is based from 15 years of driving race cars.As an example, todays typical dirt modified class has 750hp on a 8" tires harder than street tires on a dryslick track means that 95% of the time You use less than 1/2 throttle. More like japenese drifting than most realize. Some have been trying to learn the slick track for 220 years and can't get it. It's a far cry from hammer down and hold it.
Sponsors have to much power in Nascar. I can't run my racing business with them, so I can't hate them, in fact I have made many freinds and really enjoyed them all but they don't tell me what color to paint my car, what races to run, what place I have to finish and what to say on camera if I win. While I like to do well for them they understandwhat the money they gave me is not to make more money but to get into something very entertaining for a whole family can get into. THe bonus is tax deductions make it more affordable. if I lose, they pat me on the back and say, We'll get em next week, if I win, even they don't get a lot of recongniton for maybe there will be 5000 fans instead of TV mutimillions they dont tell me I have to this or that or shake so many hands or sign so many things because they are worried they might not get thier money's worth. In fact, I do it for fun and enjoyment of lighting up a kids eye's when he sit's in my car, or the guy's holding thier ears over the exhaust note and the fun the families are having. Laughing joking and hangin out. It means more than anything else to me. The entire Nascar community has been eaten alive with advertisement money. Fans and television are showing the sickness too. Nascar doesn't seen to have control over the sponsor money's. It's as if the team of 43 sponsors tells Nascar what to do instead of being part of racing, they are care about the money they spent to get as much TV time. I bet Nascar would have a commercial cover the last three laps of a race if the money were good enough. I really believe that. I watch em, not because I like em, because I'm hoping to find something that let's me know there's a future for auto racing. It's all I have to teach my kids.
