Last season was one of the best Nascar seasons in recent memory. Drivers like Trevor Bayne and Regan Smith finally breaking into victory lane, drivers getting into heated rivalries and close, exciting, side-by-side competition and a championship that was decided in a winner-take-all tiebreaker. Fans loved it and they showed up to the track in droves.
But this year, aside from the towering inferno midway through the first prime time Daytona 500 in Nascar history, the racing has been anything but exciting.
There have been very few cautions and torn up sheet metal this year. Tempers have remained in check and the on-track product has been more like Formula 1 and less like the rough and tumble spectacle fans have come to love.
So after Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega, when drivers raced in a pack again and there were several wrecks, just like every other race at the Alabama speedway. But this time, after the race ended, there were a couple of drivers who decided to open their big mouths about the racing that had gone on and chastise the fans for questioning the racing that they are being provided.
First, Martin Truex, Jr took to Twitter to fill fans in on what his team's day was like, as drivers often do. After trading barbs with some Jeff Gordon fans, the New Jersey native posted "Guess the fans got the cautions they wanted today. Goodnight."
Tony Stewart chimed in as well, but he had much more to say.
"We didn't quite crash half the field which is what we normally look to do here," quipped Stewart. "I was excited about it. I thought it was a pretty good race. I made it further than I thought I would before I got crashed. I call it a successful day."
He went on to criticize Nascar and their minimizing the grille openings on the race cars and downsizing the radiators to five gallons. With the temperatures around 90- degrees most of the weekend, drivers were forced to monitor their gauges and manage their engines in a pack instead of racing in tandems, as had become the routine.
"It's fun to race and watch the gauges at the same time," Smoke went on to say. "It makes us drivers have to do so much more. Being able to make yourself run on the apron and everything else to try to get clean air, it makes it fun." The Stewart-Haas Racing owner later said the sanctioning body "...ought to just tape (the cars) off solid and run them until they blow up. I think it would make it a lot more exciting for the fans." He also cracked, "I feel bad if I don't spend at least $150,000 on torn up race cars going back to the shop. We definitely have to do a better job with that. I'm upset that we didn't crash more. I feel like that's what we are here for."
In closing, Stewart said the race should be extended until half the field is wrecked and for the next race, that the track should be reconfigured into a Figure Eight "and/or we can stop at the halfway point make a break and turn around and go backwards the rest of the way. Then, with 10 laps to go, we split the field in half. Half go the regular direction and half of them go backwards."
Drivers opinions do matter, but why do they feel the need to express them in a way that alienates longtime fans of the sport. Texas, Kansas and even Richmond at times featured nothing but single-file, green flag racing with little or no change in the running order and only fifteen or twenty cars on the lead lap. Race tickets are not cheap and, when coupled with high gas prices and hotel rates, fans spend a small fortune to come and see these drivers race. Without the fans, these 43 racers would have to get real jobs like the rest of us.
While, Stewart's comments were mostly a jab at Nascar's lack of flexibility with the rules at plate tracks now, the words wrecks and excitement were used interchangeably. Both he and Truex were no doubt referring to fans wanting to see wrecks, not the racing they are providing.
Calling fans names and making it sound like they only show up to watch drivers take their best shot at knocking down the wall is unfair and it's a great way to turn even more fans off a sport struggling with television ratings and low attendance. The NFL has not blamed their current issues with the New Orleans Saints on bloodthirsty fans because they realize that the fans are what make their sport possible.
If the fans want to see drivers race backwards in a Figure Eight, then that is what they should see on Sunday afternoon.
If we are not going to see bent up sheet metal and tempers during a race, then Nascar really needs to change their commercials for the All Star Race next week because it is nothing but wrecks set to Blake Shelton's hit "Kiss My Country Ass." Given how racing on the "cookie cutter" tracks has been this year, a more fitting ad would be footage of cars racing single file, set to Leroy Anderson's "The Syncopated Clock."
All these comments will do is make fans angry and drive them, especially the longtime ones, away from the sport. When television ratings drop even further and once packed grandstands are covered by tarps, we will see what the sport's elite have to say about the on-track product then.
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