| Subject: backstretch |
Author:
Rick
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Date Posted: Sunday, January 27, 06:23:30pm
Last week Rusty Wallace spoke about NASCAR’s apparent decision to leave long-time fans in the dust as they pursued newer younger fans. Even if you don’t believe this is the case, you can see Wallace’s point every time you tune into a Cup race. The pre-race festivities almost always include some rock or hip hop concert. Kelly Clarkson has been the front person for the NASCAR Foundation and they continuously bombard fans with outrageous personalities on the air such as the tattooed Ricky whats-his-name on Speed Channel.
Ignoring the country music fans was a pretty poor decision on NASCAR’s part because whether you like it or loath it, country music is ingrained into the very fabric of American stock car racing. In fact, if you talk to anyone who actually hates stock car racing, they will invariably link it to twangy cowboy music.
What people don’t realize however is that it has nothing to do with the music. It’s people. NASCAR isn’t about music. It isn’t even really about cars. NASCAR is people. Look, I have been to 56 Maple Leafs games. At Maple Leaf Gardens, people who sat in the grey seats never mingled with the people in the gold section. Why? Because you could buy a grey ticket if you were making minimum wage, but to sit in a gold seat you were either in the 60% incomes tax bracket or you knew someone who was. In the grey seats you wore a Leafs sweater, painted your face blue and white and after the game you went for a slice of pizza. In the gold section you wore a suit and went out for sushi after the game.
NASCAR is different. NASCAR fans don’t care how much money you make. Trust me: I saw this last March at Bristol. In the campground we stayed at, you could see $90 pup tents right next to million-dollar motor homes. The guy pulling down three hundred grand a year could sit down on a folding chair and have a beer with a guy who makes eight bucks an hour serving fries at McDonald’s. They wouldn’t even give each other the time of day back home, but at a NASCAR race, only one thing matters and it ain’t money.
When I was at the Texas race, we were walking toward the front gate, me with my 45 hat on. A woman ran over, grabbed my arm and laughed, saying, “There are two of us here!” She too had a 45 hat on. That’s all that matters.
NASCAR, in their infinite wisdom just doesn’t get it. It’s not the music. It’s not an age or sex thing. There is no logical demographic to it. That’s because NASCAR crosses all social and economic boundaries. NASCAR is a way of life. And the powers that be in Florida had better figure that out before they start to really lose fans.
We don’t go to races or watch it on TV to see rock or country concerts. We watch it for the racing. I once saw a camper that had a big 8 stuck to his satellite dish. I looked at the guy and said, “My God, something crapped on your satellite dish.” Did he get mad? No. He laughed and offered me a beer.
On any given Sunday you can see 75,000 people at a football game. Twenty-one thousand at a hockey game. But not all of them are football or hockey fans. Guaranteed, some are there because the company got free tickets, or her boyfriend begged her to go or because he’s sucking up to the boss. It’s not that way at a NASCAR race. You go to one of those because you’re a fan. It’s not about music or anything else. A NASCAR track is the only place on earth where you can stick 100,000 totally different people into a square mile and find that everyone single one of them have one thing in common: That’s being a NASCAR fan.
It’s not the music: it’s the racing. I hope NASCAR figures that out.
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