Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the Great American Race…make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in the full upright and locked position and your right hands are firmly attached to your wallet.
If you’re one of NASCAR’s core fans, whatever that means, then you’re on NASCAR’s radar, and that can be both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on where you sit.
What is NASCAR’s core fan? That depends on who you ask, I’m guessing. To NASCAR, it’s the fan of long standing who was with the sport when it wasn’t driven by dollars (well, driven only by dollars, at any rate) and who formed the basis for today’s NASCAR fans, the ones who came aboard in the last five years or so and go crazy buying merchandise, tickets and whatever else the sport puts out there.
I’m not picking on NASCAR just to be controversial — shoot, that’s a long line, isn’t it? I’m picking on NASCAR a little because the beast it created is out of control. NASCAR racing has been fantastically successful, in equal parts because of the personalities and competition and the overwhelming urge to identify with one or the other.
It’s a 24-hour nuclear brush eater, and it must be constantly fed. That’s where the problems begin.
Once upon a time, 43 men got together at a particular place, unloaded their race cars, ran around a bit and raced. They loaded up their cars, headed home and did it again the next week. Folks won races, got paid, fed their families, and everyone was happy.
Now, you drive to the track, park in the garage, unload the car, go to the hotel. In the morning, you take the time to do all the technical stuff NASCAR allows (which these days takes about 20 minutes) and go practice, then qualify. The next day you come back and practice some more and go home for the night.
Then it’s race day.
I guess the point is, as happy as people are that NASCAR is successful and growing and knocking on the NFL’s door in terms of popularity, there’s a lot left wanting when it comes to how things are perceived.
Race fans, those poor, benighted race fans, are facing the prospect of not being able to fully participate in the sport they love above all others. Some of that is NASCAR’s doing, and some belongs to others, like hotel operators and the like.
NASCAR has been actively asking the individual tracks to help calm things down, especially in the local hotels. Anyone who has booked a room in Daytona in the past 15 years knows that. Seven-night minimums, rooms that ordinarily cost less than $100 go for $300 and up per night…you can’t argue with the free market, but you’d like it to give you a break now and again, right?
Ticket prices are up, parking is the same hassle it’s always been and there are more and more obstacles to having a good time. Even those of us who attend NASCAR races for a living face ever-higher frustrations when it comes to getting the job done.
A family of four spends about $400 on tickets, close to $1,000 on hotels and food, not to mention gasoline. It’s becoming a vocation, rather than a vacation.
But here’s the kicker: You could increase costs twice more and fans would still keep coming, still keep spending and still pay attention. That’s what race fans do. They love their sport, defend it daily against effete snobs who just don’t get it and find time to build mini-shrines to “their” drivers in their homes, garages and offices…
Disposable income is a wonderful thing, and motorsports in general has soaked up enough of it in years past to weather whatever economic storm might be looming over the horizon.
When the engines rumble to life on Sunday and another season begins, race fans will put aside such gloomy thinking and get ready to rumble one more time. I’ll be there too, two eyes on the race cars and one hand on my wallet.