I don't really know what to call this rant!

[gunner]

I just hope that they pull their heads out of their butts soon or there will be no Nascar left. The powers that be seem more interested in sponsorship money over good racing. I'm watching more F1 now than Nascar because it is so fun to watch. I can only hope that Mark Martin has a far better season this year than last year.

[ra7c7er]

  On 1/11/2011 at 11:13 AM, gunner said:

I just hope that they pull their heads out of their butts soon or there will be no Nascar left. The powers that be seem more interested in sponsorship money over good racing. I'm watching more F1 now than Nascar because it is so fun to watch. I can only hope that Mark Martin has a far better season this year than last year.

You are exactly right. I watch more American LeMans Series races than Nascar and that's sad considering only 6 AMLS races are televised a year.

[Zoom Zoom]

  On 1/11/2011 at 11:25 AM, ra7c7er said:

You are exactly right. I watch more American LeMans Series races than Nascar and that's sad considering only 6 AMLS races are televised a year.

There will be ZERO live racing televised by ALMS this year. ZERO. Their "big announcement" this week was a huge step backwards for TV viewers. Races will be televised by ABC or ESPN2...a day late. The TV coverage will only be highlights..."The 90 Minutes of Sebring". Races will be live via the internet (ESPN3 or ALMS websites)...and fans are livid I can't exactly invite friends over to huddle around my laptop to watch an endurance race

There isn't enough sponsorship $. So when they need more fans and more $ by sponsors, they're forced into less. ALMS is loved by the fans, but it is having a terrible time getting enough sponsorship $ to keep it going.

This is why there are sports car and open wheel drivers who choose to go where the $ is. Aka "NASCAR". It's not because they love driving the cars or the races. It's because it's where they have a chance to make a living driving by following the $.

[CAL]

The problem with ALMS is they are their own worst enemy. 4-5 years ago it was a solid exciting series, great battles, close racing, but they keep jacking with the rules and often unfairly. And all the sudden you'd have races that were complete blowouts. They kept jacking with it kept jacking with it. The Audi TDI kind of sealed their fate because the gas cars couldn't compete on the same level - even though they were supposedly in the same class. The final blow was Porsche and Penske who made no bones about it. They wanted to compete for out right wins, not just class wins. They were really close and then ALMS pull the rug out from under Penske and Porsche, which about the same time Acura entered the scene. This would have left Acura high and dry crying in their beer mugs. Penske and Porsche said screw you guys, and it became a one make per class series again anyway. Not to the same extent, the same thing happened in the GT classes. Corvette was racing themselves, and they kept slowing the Porsche down everytime they won a race until the point were they nowhere near competitve. Unless you had a Pontiac you were not going to win.

ALMS is a perfect example of over policing a series. Many less to be learned there. At best it's an active test-bed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, any longer.

Edited January 11, 2011 by CAL

[2002p51]

  On 1/11/2011 at 3:52 PM, Bluesman Mark said:

Heck, even the IndyCar Series is going to be broadcast on the Versus network,

That's true, and I don't know how many know this but, IndyCar is PAYING Versus to carry the races, not the other way around, as it usually is.

And now, from the lame humor department:

What's the difference between NASCAR and IndyCar?

In NASCAR the fans know all the driver's names, in IndyCar, the drivers know all the fan's names!

Phone caller to the speedway's office;

"Hello, what time does the IndyCar race start today?"

Office clerk:

"What time can you be here?"

[crazyjim]

I'll tell you what a real rant is. A real rant is putting itmes up for trade and a member says he's interested in a particular item. You put that item to the side and then you never hear from the person again. VERY frustrating.

[Harold]

  On 1/8/2011 at 4:16 AM, Harry P. said:

I think the one big change NASCAR could make that would really breathe new life into the sport is to run road courses... you know, turning left and right...

Amen, Harry. I've been running the #99 Ford at Laguna Seca on GT5. How about an exhibition race on the Nurburgring North Loop? The Nationwide guys run a lot more road courses- Road America, Montreal, Mexico City- heck- drop some of the dates from places like Texas and turn 'em loose on road courses. That #99 is a blast on the Daytona road course.

[ra7c7er]

The owners of Nascar are just mad that AMLS style racing has gained in popularity while Nascar has gone down. Remember who owns and runs ALMS the the same ownership team as nascar. This was talked about last year on a slot car forum. The less tv competition Nascar has the more will watch Nascar. Its just Nascar blocking ALMS like they tried to do when they first bought it. They tried to kill it off but the rules changes made for better racing. Everyone thought the DP class would be the death kneel for ALMS and all it did was make it better. Now Nascar is back tracking and trying to stifle ALMS from being televised. I am sure this move had nothing to do with the fact that 3 of the Speed televised ALMS races last year got more viewers than 75% of the Nascar races on the same channel. Nope Speed just drops high viewership programming because they don't want to be watched.

[Mark Brown]

  On 1/13/2011 at 7:05 PM, Harold said:

drop some of the dates from places like Texas and turn 'em loose on road courses.

Speaking of Texas, I hope they're looking at the possibility of bring one (or more) of the series to the new F1 track here in Austin, once it's completed. I enjoy watching NASCAR on the road courses as much or more than any of the ovals.

[Roadkill2525]

  On 1/11/2011 at 2:52 AM, CAL said:

Mario and Michael Andretti probably the best father son success story.

I don't know about them, what other father and son team can drive into the back of a safety truck?

Edited January 13, 2011 by El Destructo Inc