a voice for the fans ~ From a possum to an elephant to a flying monkey

5/2/2013

PattyKay Lilley

 

R.I.P. Possum

He Stopped Loving Her Today

 

I bid you welcome gentle readers to a portal guaranteed to let your voices be heard by the folks that really matter... those known as the NASCAR Brass. Sounds like a music group, doesn't it? Oh no, that was the Nashville Brass. (Rest in Peace Danny Davis) A warm welcome also to my assigned reader today in the Media and Fan Espionage Center over in Charlotte NC. I do hope you enjoy your time with us, and be sure to pass my regards along to whomever's desk this lands on next.

 

Over the weekend past, I read a column penned by a gentleman that I've always held in high esteem. No, I don't know Monte Dutton personally, but I have always loved reading his columns because he is always straight-forward, no beating around the bush, honest! Honesty is the virtue I find most important in this world and Monte is one of the best at telling it "like it is!" I do hope that I too fall within that category. According to Monte, who covered the NASCAR beat  for many years for the Gaston Gazette before being summarily put out to pasture in January, this column drew more responses than any he has ever written, and I'm not surprised. It was a great read, and it came down fairly hard on NASCAR, which is something readers love to see and agree with on a large scale.

 

Somewhere past halfway in those 82 responses (at this writing) is one from the writer of this column, if you care to read it, and even later is a message from Monte that I found of interest, and from which I've copied over a partial excerpt.

 

"Many thanks to all of you for the overwhelming responses. It would be more instructive to NASCAR officials to read your responses than the blog itself."

 

They have read them Monte. They read us all, lest someone, somewhere, say something they dislike or disdain. That is why this particular column came to exist, because they, NASCAR, made it ever so clear on more than one occasion that they were indeed interested and reading. It starts out at a low level, I'm sure, hence my "assigned reader" is always included in my welcoming statement. I have no idea what the trigger words are, but surely they exist and probably change from day to day, let alone week to week, so I try to include the likely ones. Example: Penalties... that just heightened the level of interest in this column.

 

And... having said the magic word, penalties, those have certainly come to the fore of most every fan discussion available for reading over the past two weeks. The penalties for rear-end problems at Penske Racing South are well-known and need no further rehashing until the appeal is heard, which as I type could be most any time now. I will reiterate though, I've seen Brad Keselowski walking away and frankly, I find nothing whatsoever amiss with his hind quarters...

 

Moving right along to the penalties that have befallen Joe Gibbs Racing for one rod in Matt Kenseth's engine being found 2.7 grams underweight, I'm reminded of a phrase proffered by NASCAR... Robin Pemberton, I believe... in reference to the Penske penalty. Despite the fact that the individual parts had been approved by NASCAR, the sanctioning body found the method of assembly somewhat suspect and invoked something called "the spirit of the rule." However, when pointed out by every journalist and every fan that could make his voice heard that it was a factory error and no one from JGR had done a single thing wrong, NASCAR's corporate attitude was, "Tough beans! It didn't conform to the rule. Guilty!" Excuse me Mr. NASCAR, but what happened to "the spirit of the rule" in this instance... where nothing was or could have been gained by the oversight? There's an elephant in the living room, and someone needs to own up to seeing it there. Are we playing by the rules strictly as written, or are we including "the spirit of the rule?" At this point, NASCAR seems intent on hanging one team with one side of that argument, then turning right around and hanging the other team with the other side of it. Somehow, that doesn't fit nicely into the definition of fairness!

 

Both sets of penalties are now in the hands of the National Stock Car Racing Commission, so please allow me to switch topics entirely and address the next fan complaint to... actually, I know not who. There have been so many shakeups, promotions, demotions, hirings, firings, renamings and repurposings within what used to be called the NASCAR Media Group, but is no longer, that I've lost track of who's running the show. Indeed, the fault may not fall to the Media Group at all, but to whomever may have messed up when agreeing to a broadcast contract with the ABC/ESPN networks.

 

Point in question: Friday night Nationwide race at Richmond... ESPNews? Start to finish? Really? Do you realize how many folks out here in fan land do not have access to ESPNews? In most venues, that is one the self-important Cable Companies have deemed to be a "rich folks" channel, and many of us lowly NASCAR fans don't fall into that category. ESPN has three regularly functioning channels that fall within the "basic cable" package almost everywhere, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. Somewhere among those three, surely two hours could be arranged to show a Nationwide race... one would think.

 

It's Friday night and ABC has regular network programming; I understand that. ESPN2, "I believe" was showing a basketball game... I'll refrain from comment on that. I guess the NBA was in the finals and I understand that as well. Some folks do like B'Ball. ESPN however, was showing night 2 of the NFL draft. Several million NFL fans and I all watched the top of the draft on Thursday night, making Friday's offering rather anticlimactic, though most of it was over before the Nationwide race even began. I even understand scheduling conflicts between two live programs, though I think the ESPN networks abuse that privilege or excuse far too often. Once the actual draft ended, there followed two or three hours of seemingly endless yammer about who took whom and how did that player fit in with that particular team... in the mind of someone that has no say whatsoever in how that player will be used. Could not that non-productive programming been moved off to ESPNews and the Nationwide race shown on ESPN? What say you NASCAR? Did you sanction the race being moved to a channel with only light access or were you bamboozled at contract signing time into accepting something not fully or correctly understood? If you think you had a lot of happy fans last Friday, you have only to monitor the Twitter feed more closely. If every ear in NASCAR was not ringing, they should have been. One would think that an entity scratching and clawing to regain its lost fan base might treat them a bit better. One would be wrong.

 

...And here's another one to lay at the doorstep of the broadcasting network... this time it's FOX, or maybe both FOX and NASCAR. We, the fans... the folks both of those entities view as some combination of dumb, stupid, slow and ignorant... have been led to believe that NASCAR racing does not exist for the crashes and that NASCAR goes out of its way to make stockcar racing as safe as possible. I'm calling BS on that notion right now! Somewhere in the middle of Saturday night's Richmond race, FOX began touting the upcoming race at Talladega on Sunday. There were no pictures shown extolling the sheer size of that track or the impossible to climb on foot 33º banking that produces the incredible speeds run there. There were no pictures of the somewhat infamous infield, either empty or full, and from some stories I've heard, maybe that was a good thing. Did they show even a peek at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and Museum, housed on the Talladega grounds? Nope.

 

What did they show? Massive multi-car crashes... one after another, after another, after... In the background we heard someone whose vocal tonality was completely suited to Tales From the Crypt, chortling and inviting us to come watch "The Big One. It's not a matter of 'If' but 'When' it happens." I guess that tells us, the fans, what you "think" we like. Mr. France, I realize that you are not about to take my word for this, and I realized as far back as 2004 that you really don't give a flying monkey's butt about what the race fans think, but Sir, you had best be taking a very hard look at what you think, because your ship is sinking. Did you note the size of the crowd at Richmond? That would be Richmond Sir... the track most fans see as almost perfect! Forty-three drivers showed up for 43 positions, and the stands appeared about half-full. Richmond! That is just sad...

 

Mr. Helton, I know you're trying, and I know how hard you're trying. A lot of us out here are pulling for you to succeed, as we love our sport and really do want it to continue... not on X-Box and Wii, but on the tracks we've come to know and love. You and I both know the problems, and I'm counting on you Sir, to solve them. You're the only one that can. That won't get done at a marketing meeting in the Big Apple. It can only get done at the blue-collar level and you know where that is found. Good luck and God bless you Mike.

 

Alright race fans, I'm turning this one over to you for comments. As always, be respectful, but tell them what you think and why you feel as you do. If you've been watching, then you know they've been listening... not just to this column, but to the fans in general... the folks whose fannies fill those grandstand seats, or used to anyway. They want us back; it's a buyer's market.

 

Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you.