Enough Talk, NASCAR Must Act - Vito's View - Comcast.net Sports

For a sport that once threatened to overtake the NFL for viewing supremacy, NASCAR is doing everything it can to alienate its fans.

It stopped running at Rockingham. It uprooted the storied Labor Day Southern 500 and moved it to California. It exchanged Winston for Sprint.

All in the name of breaking away from Southern roots for the sake of expanding into the mainstream. Yet TV ratings and attendance, after climbing to new heights, are tumbling.

Now the product is following suit.

During its second-biggest event of the season—and on American racing’s most hallowed track—NASCAR staged a fiasco that not even the most dedicated racing fans could enjoy. Or excuse.

NASCAR was forced to throw a caution flag every 10 to 12 laps during Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard because the tires Goodyear brought to the track weren’t strong enough. They kept blowing out during practice runs, putting drivers in imminent danger.

A record 52 laps were run under yellow, the longest run under green was a mere 13 laps, and Jimmie Johnson’s sprint to victory covered just seven laps.

Are you kidding me? Ten laps at a time? That’s like stopping a basketball game after every other fast break so the players can lace up new shoes.

“I can’t say enough how sorry we are, and it’s our responsibility being NASCAR that we don’t go through this situation again,” Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, said Tuesday. “The race didn’t come off like we had hoped, the fans didn’t get what they exactly wanted, and we’ll do everything in our power—it won’t happen again, I can tell you that much.”

We’ve seen the NFL apologize for bad officiating. We’ve seen baseball apologize for botched home run calls. We’ve seen the NBA apologize for clock mismanagement.

But we’ve never seen a major event ruined because of pitiful planning.

Despite testing in April, NASCAR and Goodyear claim they were unable to accurately measure the force that the circuit’s new cars placed on the right side of the vehicle. They didn’t consider how the weight distribution of the new set-up—the famous “Car of Tomorrow”—would react to the diamond-grinding process that is applied to Indy’s racing surface, which makes the track super-abrasive.

Pemberton claimed that most within NASCAR expected the rapid tire wear to correct itself once enough laps were run to lay down a coat of rubber on the track. That’s right, they thought this problem would just vanish after a few passes.

Didn’t happen, and NASCAR’s 15th anniversary at Indianapolis turned into a series of heat races.

Fans have every right to be furious.

Offering an apology and accepting responsibility for the debacle is an important first step. But NASCAR must do more.

It must do more testing at all tracks to ensure this doesn’t happen again. It must require Goodyear to bring different types of tires to all events. Sunday’s race, as bad as it was, was only possible because Goodyear shipped in 800 tires that were supposed to be used this weekend at Pocono. Why not have them on hand?

But more importantly, NASCAR must prove to fans that it’s truly sorry for allowing Goodyear to screw up a marquee event.

I, for one, am sick of sports leagues simply mouthing an apology and thinking that some lip service solves everything. It may start the healing process but it doesn’t end it.

NASCAR officials need to do something creative to compensate the estimated 225,000 fans who paid to watch the race at the Brickyard. At least if you were home you could shut it off and salvage the rest of your day. But if you were there, you were a victim of a bait-and-switch. They promised great racing and gave you a pit exhibition.

NASCAR needs to give every single attendee the choice of a full refund or a free pass to the entire weekend surrounding next year’s race. Whether they turn in ticket stubs, credit card receipts, or other proofs of purchase, fans are entitled to collect something of value from NASCAR.

And officials must also figure out a way to give away pit passes, offer free tours of the speedway, and hold autograph sessions for the fans who decide to come back next year.

I don’t care how much it costs. I don’t care how much revenue is lost. I don’t care who is inconvenienced. (And if Goodyear cares to maintain a strong relationship with NASCAR and its fans, it would volunteer to help offset these costs.)

I’m not the biggest racing fan on the planet, but I’m tired of fans getting fleeced by sports leagues.

They are always saying that fans come first and that they are so sorry when something goes wrong. It’s time to prove it.

How should NASCAR try to win back fans? Click here to comment and offer suggestions.

Message Edited by Vito_Forlenza on 08-07-2008 11:16 AM