NASCAR- Making this up as they go?

[DSNY FN]

Originally Posted by Emil

Hmmm, we must not be watching the same thing.

All I ever see is the damn highlites when I watch wind tunnel with Dave despain and listen to all the people complaining about the way guys are driving and how NASCRACK is tossing yellow flags for phantom debris on the track etc. Kinda like the idiots throwing beer bottles etc on the track after a race. Sorry but that shows how classless the fans at the races truly are. For them to actually garner fan support they need to adopt new rules and run on roadcourses and let the DRIVERS decide the races.

[rbinck]

For them to actually garner fan support they need to adopt new rules and run on roadcourses and let the DRIVERS decide the races.

That obviously is just your opinion as the attendance figures don't bear this out. According to Wikipedia NASCAR pulled in 6,700,000 at 36 events (Average 186,000) (2003). Ref: List Of Sports Attendance

Looking down the list quite a few lines it seems the road racers would only cause a drop in fan support. F1 attendance is very difficult to find in a summary as their site seems to try their best to advoid talking about it, but maybe I just don't know how to navigate that site.

[DSNY FN]

Originally Posted by rbinck

That obviously is just your opinion as the attendance figures don't bear this out. According to Wikipedia NASCAR pulled in 6,700,000 at 36 events (Average 186,000) (2003). Ref: List Of Sports Attendance

Looking down the list quite a few lines it seems the road racers would only cause a drop in fan support. F1 attendance is very difficult to find in a summary as their site seems to try their best to advoid talking about it, but maybe I just don't know how to navigate that site.

Oh no the site isn't user friendly in that way at all but I know for the Canadian GP I think it is something like 175K on a bad year and over 200K on a good weather weekend. In Europe and the other stops ther pull in about 200K per event. As for the Nascar number they sure seem to be declining this year so much so that they have had the promoters for events on air to try to rally support for attendance.

[rbinck]

I think if you look at the numbers they do give it is well below your figure. Take the Total attendance for the 2006 Australian Grand Prix held in Melbourne was 301,500 with a raceday total of 103,000 (a drop from the 2005 total of 118,200), so you should differenciate from the raceday results that NASCAR uses from the event, usually four days, that F1 tend to report. Looking at the raceday results they have reported, they are a far cry away from the 180,000+ average of NASCAR.

[18 is # 1]

rbinck-

Are you using American math or Canadian math?
This could explain the difference in our common language

[Emil]

Originally Posted by DSNY FN

All I ever see is the damn highlites when I watch wind tunnel with Dave despain and listen to all the people complaining about the way guys are driving and how NASCRACK is tossing yellow flags for phantom debris on the track etc. Kinda like the idiots throwing beer bottles etc on the track after a race. Sorry but that shows how classless the fans at the races truly are. For them to actually garner fan support they need to adopt new rules and run on roadcourses and let the DRIVERS decide the races.

Now I understand, your comments are based on the media and not from actually watching the races. I can see how you would get such an inaccurate view of Nascar.

[DSNY FN]

Originally Posted by Emil

Now I understand, your comments are based on the media and not from actually watching the races. I can see how you would get such an inaccurate view of Nascar.

I prefer to get no view of NASCARP but alas it is now all over speed channel which used to have great motorcycle coverage and F1 coverage was fair at best. For my F1 I watch TSN and get the races in HD.

I think if you look at the numbers they do give it is well below your figure. Take the Total attendance for the 2006 Australian Grand Prix held in Melbourne was 301,500 with a raceday total of 103,000 (a drop from the 2005 total of 118,200), so you should differenciate from the raceday results that NASCAR uses from the event, usually four days, that F1 tend to report. Looking at the raceday results they have reported, they are a far cry away from the 180,000+ average of NASCAR.

You may very well be correct in this as I have only ever attended the Canadian GP in Montreal and the announced race day attendance was close to 200 thousand. Now they announced it as raceday attendance but if what you are saying is accurate and I have no reason to believe it isn't that could have been race weekend attendance. I do know that teh Moto GP event in Cali at Laguna has 300 plus thousand again announced race day attendance so that is what I have to go on.

[DSNY FN]

Originally Posted by 5 is # 1

rbinck-

Are you using American math or Canadian math?
This could explain the difference in our common language

Ya Canadian math tends to be much more accurate LOL...

[Emil]

I prefer to get no view of NASCARP but alas it is now all over speed channel which used to have great motorcycle coverage and F1 coverage was fair at best. For my F1 I watch TSN and get the races in HD.

I think it's best then to reserve judgement till you watch a few races.
Enjoy!

[rbinck]

You may very well be correct in this as I have only ever attended the Canadian GP in Montreal and the announced race day attendance was close to 200 thousand. Now they announced it as raceday attendance but if what you are saying is accurate and I have no reason to believe it isn't that could have been race weekend attendance. I do know that teh Moto GP event in Cali at Laguna has 300 plus thousand again announced race day attendance so that is what I have to go on.

I don't know where that was announced. Here's what I saw:

MONTREAL The 38th Grand Prix of Canada failed to set a record for total attendance despite being held on the St. Jean Baptiste holiday weekend for the first time.
With Sundays crowd of 119,000, attendance for the three-day event was 332,000 2,000 shy of the record set last year. A crowd of 103,000 showed up for Fridays practice sessions, followed by 110,000 for Saturdays qualifying.
Last years figures for Friday and Saturday were 102,000 and 111,000, respectively.

Source: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazett...8-9253250e9f54

119,000 is way short of 200,000.

We can go back and forth on this for a long time, but my point was that the NASCAR attendance figures do not bear out a problem with fan support as you implied, expecially compared to F1 attendance. NASCAR does not compile the entire event figures in the same way as F1 does, so to exactly compare the two is very difficult, but it is clear to me that NASCAR's 180,000 avg per race is more than the F1 averages since Canada and Austrailia are a couple of the largest.

[F91]

NASCAR attendance is sliding, nothing to do with how they total it or F1, it's just LESS people are going. Jayski's talks about it a lot. Ratings are tanking too.

[Lee Stewart]

Originally Posted by F91

NASCAR attendance is sliding, nothing to do with how they total it or F1, it's just LESS people are going. Jayski's talks about it a lot. Ratings are tanking too.

And why shouldn't they?

The cars are exactly the same. The motors are exactly the same.

When I watch NASCAR I think a car is made by TIDE or UPS. . . cause that is what I see.

So it's now who is your favorite driver? We don't need super expensive cars and teams to determine this.

Heck . . . it would be more fun to watch our favorite drivers jump into plain old go-karts and do a few laps on a Super Speedway.

The race would be fast and we would have more time for the true "sport of sports" when it comes to 4 tire'd vehicles . . . .

Drag Racing!

It's fast . . . it's LOUD . . . and there is a new "race" every minute or so. It is also the fastest sport on the planet (and also the loudest - 150+ db's).

2 Top Fuel Dragsters have the combined horsepower of 16 NASCAR vehicles!

[F91]

I'm not defending NASCAR, trust me. They're running the franchise into the ground ala' Indy cars. I will say this though, 43 NASCAR uh...cars...are pretty friggin loud! Not that it's a good thing...

[rbinck]

Originally Posted by F91

I'm not defending NASCAR, trust me. They're running the franchise into the ground ala' Indy cars. I will say this though, 43 NASCAR uh...cars...are pretty friggin loud! Not that it's a good thing...

I wasn't trying to defend NASCAR particularly either. The point that road racing would boost fan support just seems to be wrong. In fact the big open wheel races are all on speedways, so even in open wheel racing the ovals rule the attendance figures with the Indy 500 at 270 thousand plus being the largest raceday.

I agree the original NASCAR premise that caused the popularity has been eroded away. With all of the cars having essentially the same engines, the same bodies, tires, gas, etc. it loses all of the manufacturer's competition, which is what they want. I liked the races much better when it was more of a manufacturer's competition.

And NASCAR is not the only motor sport that is losing attendance, and time will tell if the recent rule changes will add interest or not.

[Lee Stewart]

I guess we can hope that the TRANS AM will be resurected once all "big three" have a competitive car. It really is almost like what is being suggested:

Late model cars running big HP engines on a road course. The only "mandate" was the CID of the engine. It was anything goes past that.