A Voice For The Fans ~ An Open Response To Brian France
11/22/2013
PattyKay Lilley
Dear Mr. France,
As promised in my
last column, I am responding to your letter of November 15, 2013, written to
all NASCAR fans in general and no one in particular. Rather than force my
readers to jump between your letter and my response, I've chosen to use the
format whereby my answers will directly follow your statements, point by point.
I do hope that is to your satisfaction.
An Open
Letter From Brian France
November
15, 2013
Dear
NASCAR Fans,
In a few
short days, a dramatic 2013 season will end -- as will the milestone 10th Chase
for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
I have
said a number of times that we created the Chase to provide fans with more high
stakes, late season competition that goes right down to the final event. Now 10
years into the Chase, we can point to a number of instances which fit that
description. You can look back at Kurt Busch’s tight victory over Jimmie
Johnson in the very first Chase. Revel in the epic back-and-forth between Tony
Stewart and Carl Edwards in 2011. And now this year, Jimmie Johnson continues
his march toward history, attempting to fend off Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick
in Sunday’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
And I Sir, have said more times, that all the Chase has created is
an unequal playing field as far as the NASCAR Cup Championship is concerned.
Please understand, I have all the respect in the world for Jimmie Johnson, Chad
Knaus and Hendrick Motorsports as a whole, but none of their six Championships
has been won as a full-season Champion, as were all before them in the
"modern era."
It's a bit ironic
that only last
week I offered a column that included a
full race report of the Atlanta finale in 1992, wherein six... yes Sir, six
drivers were eligible for the Championship on that day. The race was simply
spell-binding, from beginning to end, and needed no one or nothing to add hype
or excitement at any point. That all came naturally, as have
most all of the full-season Championships. Perhaps Sir, if you spent
less time in board rooms and more time at race tracks, that would have become
clear to you.
As good
as the Chase has been for our sport, we want more. We want more excitement, more passing, more
drama. We want to give you more reasons to go to the race track and continue to
follow our sport week after week. Rest assured that we as an industry are
working hard to accomplish this goal. We’re on a mission to make the racing the
best it can be. Frankly, your passion and commitment to NASCAR warrant our
resolve to continuously pursue ideas that will make the best racing in the
world even better.
Again, I must beg
to differ; the Chase has been anything but good for our sport; look around you,
at the empty seats that removal won't fix and only partially conceal. Already,
those paid to provide spin with a large modicum of deceit mixed in, are
comparing Johnson to men named Petty and Earnhardt. Say what you will, but
there can be no comparison, because of your infernal Chase format. You still
seem deluded that the fans like the format, but Sir, I can assure you they do
not. In my line of work, I am fortunate to be able to speak directly and indirectly
with a great cross-section of fans across this country and Canada, our neighbor
to the North. If I had to quote a mathematical ratio, I'd say it falls close to
24 out of 25 fans against the Chase format. That means only 4% of the fans find
any merit in it. No, I'm not claiming that to be scientific in origin, but it's
very close to what a study would produce. Very close.
How do I go about
explaining to you that drama and excitement are already inherent to racing? They
cannot be "created." Your first mistake was in trying, and by doing
so you've broken something that was working just fine until you took the reins.
Again, I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone, but if you thought Matt
Kenseth was so boring that racing needed to be spiced up to make it palatable,
then how do you suppose the rest of us find it as we watch the same driver take
the trophy in six of those ten years? I'll see your "Ho-hum" and
raise you a decade worth of yawns. Even the instances you see as so
exhilarating had to be manufactured by destroying someone's season-long lead in
order to "create" excitement.
The
debut of the Gen-6 race cars – the Toyota Camry, Chevrolet SS and Ford Fusion –
led to a number of highlight-reel moments on the race track this season. They
not only look better but they have delivered significantly more passing across
the season and some incredible moments in the capable hands of the best drivers
in all of racing. But again, we want more. Our team at the NASCAR Research
& Development Center, in concert with all of our NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
race teams, is testing a number of rules packages in order to improve upon this
season’s on-track product for 2014 and beyond. I’m proud of the effort and care
put into this mission from all involved.
This might surprise
you, but I am a flag-waving fan of the Gen-6 cars, and have been almost from
the beginning. I say, "almost" only because
I reserved judgment for some 6 races in order to see for myself how they
differed from the COT. In fact, I am so pleased with the Gen-6 cars that like Dickens'
Oliver Twist, I have a request. "Please Sir, I want some more."
What I mean by
"more" is probably not the same thing you mean though. My feelings,
and those of so many of the fans I've heard from, are that more control should
be given back to the factories that build the original prototypes for these
cars, Fusion, SS and Camry. You may be too young to remember, but once upon a
time, the manufacturers built the cars, and if one make wasn't as fast as the
others, that same factory set about redesigning it so it would be. That Sir,
without all the current micro-management from NASCAR, was what produced the
adage, "Win on Sunday; sell on Monday." By all means Sir, let's have
some more of that, and a lot less of templates, laser scans, post-race failures
of cars that passed pre-race inspection just hours before, mystery late-race
cautions and other not too subtle attempts by the sanctioning body to not only
alter, but outright control the outcome, not just of a single race, but of an
entire season.
In terms
of the 2013 season, we have had some very special moments and great
accomplishments at all levels. Our first Nationwide Series race at Mid-Ohio was
a great success for our sport near the home of valued series sponsor,
Nationwide Insurance. In the Camping World Truck Series, the highly successful
return to dirt at Eldora Speedway and the series’ first race outside of the
United States at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park stand out as huge milestones.
The Canadian Tire Series, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series and Toyota Mexico Series
all delivered spectacular moments to NASCAR fans in all of those regions of the
world, and the first Toyota Mexico Series event held in the United States at
Phoenix International Raceway earlier this year will go down as a memorable,
landmark moment in NASCAR’s rich history.
You bring forth a
couple of very interesting examples of what you see as "special moments
and great accomplishments" Sir. The first point offered is a Nationwide race at Mid-Ohio, and despite having run a race
near the Nationwide headquarters, your "valued series sponsor" is to
the best of my knowledge, still gone. Allow me to point out to everyone reading
that Mid-Ohio is a road course. The second point made is the Camping World
Truck Series race... on the dirt... at Eldora Speedway. Eldora, Sir, is a short
track. The fact that it still runs on dirt is icing on an already delicious
cake. Please, I beg of you, keep that race in mind! There were no empty seats
at Eldora, and many more could have been sold and filled, had they existed...
and all that for a third-tier series. I believe there is a message there
somewhere.
Staying with the
Truck Series for a moment, more impressive than the fact it was run on Canadian
soil was the fact that Motorsport Park is yet another road course. Sadly, none
of those three races pertains to the Cup Series, which is the series that
concerns most of the fans. This may come as a bit of a surprise, but in all the
years I've been writing or even going to races, I've never once heard a fan
opine on either the Euro Series or the Series run in Mexico, so in the interest
of time and space, I'll just say, "Whatever."
The important point
to be made in all of that is that the fans respond to and show up for races on
short tracks and road courses, not
the omnipresent cookie cutter 1.5 milers that dot the countryside like grazing
sheep. These old fingers have typed requests by fans for both more short tracks
and more road courses on the Cup schedule over and over again. They are telling
you what they want Sir, loudly and clearly, but it seems that you are not
getting the message. Threats of increasing the number of tracks run with
restrictor plates will not attract more fans Sir; it will quite honestly drive
away the ones that are left, who are barely hanging onto the hope that things
"might" get better, as they feel they could not get worse.
Darrell
Wallace Jr. made history, becoming the first African-American driver in 50
years to win on the NASCAR national series stage. Kyle Larson’s win at
Rockingham Speedway earlier this year, Darrell’s victory and innumerable great
young drivers taking the spotlight in the K&N Pro Series ranks show that
our Drive for Diversity, NASCAR Next and development series initiatives are
bearing fruit on the track. These programs are filling the talent pipeline with
emerging stars we’ll someday see chasing the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Finally,
we are thrilled with the unification of sports car racing in North America and
look forward to the inaugural TUDOR United SportsCar Championship beginning
next year.
Oh, Mr. France, I
really wish you hadn't said that... and then unwittingly gone on to add that
short second paragraph, thereby confirming with your own words what I am about
to say... again. Darrell Wallace Jr. aka Bubba is a great kid and has all the
makings of a great driver. I find myself rooting for him in every race and was
thrilled when he claimed his first victory, but Sir... Bubba is the third, not
the second black man to win a race in a National NASCAR series. This was quite clearly delineated in an article here on these pages on November 1, 2013, only about three weeks
ago.
** If one checks the records, one will find that on May 14,
2011, 50-year old Bill Lester, partnered with 20-year old Jordan Taylor, stood
in Victory Lane at Virginia International Raceway as winners of the GT division
of the NASCAR sanctioned Grand-Am
Rolex Series race. Too many seem to forget that the Rolex Series has run under
NASCAR sanction since at least 2010 that I can readily verify, and controlling
CEO is none other than Jim France, son of Bill France Sr. and younger brother
of Bill France Jr.
The Rolex Series is most certainly a NASCAR sanctioned national
touring series. That is incontrovertible. The fact that Bill Lester is a black
man is as true as true can be. Given those indisputable facts, please follow
the link to see the winners of the Grand Touring division at VIR in May of
2011, two and a half years before Bubba Wallace scored his win last Saturday.
**
http://racing-reference.info/race/2011_Bosch_Engineering_250/GA
As you so astutely
pointed out Sir, the Grand-Am SportsCar Series and the American Le Mans Series
(ALMS) will merge for 2014 into the TUDOR United SportsCar Series, but both
series were national and international before the merger. I do so wish that
NASCAR would try harder to keep its history accurate. Mistakes make for hurt
feelings and cost fans.
Of
course, this season has not been without challenge. As a sport, we were
presented with a number of unprecedented moments. In each instance, we met our
responsibility to act in what we believe was in the best interest of the sport
as a whole. We recognize there are times when you have agreed and others when
you have not. Please know, wherever you stand on these issues, we appreciate
your passion for NASCAR. It does not go unheard or unnoticed.
Now as
we head into the season-ending races at Homestead-Miami Speedway and begin the
countdown to Daytona, on behalf of the entire NASCAR team, I thank you for your
continued passion for our sport. You are the greatest fans in the world and we
wish you the very best during this coming holiday season.
Best
regards,
Brian
France
In closing Sir, I
will simply concur with you that NASCAR fans are indeed the best in the world...
those of us that are still left. Your marketing practices indicate that you
still direct most or all efforts toward an extremely young demographic, while
ignoring those of us with some years behind us. My advice for the New Year
would be to rethink that. Folks that spend their days in boardrooms in New York
City know little or nothing about stock car racing or its fans. On their
advice, you ignored and insulted the old fans while attempting to romance the
younger fans. The one thing they did not take into account Sir, is that those
younger fans are our children and grandchildren. Racing has always been a
family sport, so it followed that when we stopped coming, they stopped coming
as well. That is at least one and probably two generations lost to NASCAR, and
quite frankly, I'm not sure you can get enough back to make the difference...
but I hope so.
Please Mr. France,
don't scoff at those that speak here; we are the fans, and we want to go
racing. We discuss on a weekly basis, whatever is timely on the racing scene.
Pay attention to the fans and not those wearing suits in New York City. We will
not steer you wrong. We want you to succeed. We want NASCAR to succeed. In your
own words Sir, "We want more."
Be well gentle
readers, and you too Mr. France. Remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on
you!
~
PattyKay
[email protected]