Everything is great. Everyone is happy. NASCAR is not a sport on the decline.
NASCAR Drivers, Teams Present United Message: The Sport Is Just Fine, Thanks
Whether that’s accurate or just spin, that was the message sent by NASCAR drivers, owners and series officials this week on the recently completed media tour. It left some of the 200 reporters in attendance wondering if a nearby natural spring of Kool-Aid had just been discovered.
The media received lectures from Roush Fenway Racing President Geoff Smith (the sky is not falling!) and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing co-owner Felix Sabates (things aren’t so bad!) and were told by some drivers that public criticism of the sport would no longer come from their mouths.
NASCAR’s video screens had a motto that read, “Great racing...great storylines” during the annual stop at its Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C., where officials discussed rules changes and trumpeted its willingness to change.
So what gives?
Those who said the sport is headed in the right direction after several years of tumbling ratings, declining attendance and mass layoffs in the industry insisted NASCAR was not putting words in their mouths.
NASCAR held preseason meetings with nearly every team and driver, but NASCAR President Mike Helton said no one was told what to say.
Helton said Thursday that those in the closed-door meetings were presented with facts that showed a direct correlation between criticizing the sport and fan opinion.
These facts, he said, were the result of research from NASCAR’s 12,000-member fan council and direct fan correspondence to NASCAR.
"Our goal was to develop a good, solid line of communication with the competitors," Helton said. "And in doing that, we laid out facts that we've learned - not our own opinions, but just plain facts - and then asked them to reach their own conclusions."
It was clearly effective based on the united front presented by those involved with the sport.
“They weren’t in there saying, ‘Don’t do this anymore’ or ‘Don’t do that anymore,’” said the sport’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. “They showed us some examples of us being negative, and then they showed us some examples of the exact, direct reflection of that on the sport and what it did to the ratings...and it was very convincing.
“They didn’t fudge the whole equation to look good for them or try to convince us. It was pretty convincing what they showed me.”
Either way, Earnhardt Jr. told reporters he would not criticize NASCAR in public if he had concerns and would instead take his complaints directly to Helton.
Helton said it was all part of people in the garage understanding the need to work for the greater good and cited a quote from NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. that adorned the wall of the R&D Center.
“We’re all interested in one thing,” France Sr. had said on the day he founded NASCAR, “and that’s improving the present conditions.”
If the present conditions need to be improved, how great can they be?
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