I grew up in the south with several family members, particularly older ones, who were hardcore NASCAR fans. None of them watch the races anymore. The reason they gave me: "It used to be about the cars, and the people who drove them. Now it's cookie-cutter drivers taking cookie-cutter cars around cookie-cutter tracks."
But.......hasn't always been like that? I mean not in the beginning, when it was ran with the bootleggers but then again most of those people weren't alive......maybe.
@@madisonatteberry9720 The video talked about the cars becoming more and more similar over the last 20 years and about a perceived lack of personality in the drivers over that time. The tracks that the series raced on have also become more cookie cutter by way of NASCAR building a handful of 1.5 mile tracks and awarding races to those tracks, plus giving additional races to those tracks at the expense of more entertaining tracks. In the heyday the 1.5 mile tracks were desired as they were big enough to have a huge seating capacity and were build in/near major markets to attract those residents as fans. However, smaller tracks in the more traditional NASCAR fan base (primarily the Carolinas) lost races as a result. This led to a much higher percentage of the races being races on tracks that are more about the car's power and setup than about the driver's skill.
NASCAR became popular not being a traditional "stick and ball" sport, but decided to change their product to be more like "stick and ball" with standardized equipment, playoffs, ect... and people stopped watching.
David Land people stopped watching because they saw how pathetic it was to see cars go in circles for 3 hours. Also the inbred trump supporter is declining in numbers.
They added stages because they didn't want to shorten the races. They hoped that by having two stage finishes they could keep people interested during a three hour plus race.
Why NASCAR declined in 1 sentence: They decided the racing wasn't good enough and decided to focus on "entertainment" and changed the rules accordingly.
That's the exact same reason that the WWE has gone to shit. It's about "entertainment" and not about actual wrestling. I haven't watched a race since Stewart retired.
@@mtlnascarfan Exactly about the entertainment aspect of it. I think the NFL is in the same boat so to speak if they haven't been deemed entertainment already.
Cookie-cutter cars? They've been virtually identical (tube frame with solid rear axle, double-wishbone fronts, controlled-size V8 up front etc) for decades, the only differences being "who's better at mucking around within the rules... and with money... to go faster?" It's not like LMP1 where the rules allowed Nissan to roll up with a front-wheel-drive aircraft carrier in a field of closed-cockpit F1 cars.
I find it pretty funny that Dale never stopped criticizing the Restrictor Plate Engine and he dominated Nascar after it was put. Shows how much he cared about Nascar.
I grew up in that awkward era where Nascar was REALLY popular when I was a little kid, but then completely fell into obscurity by the time I was old enough to actually understand the sport. This was very informative!
Another factor: they got rid of a ton of fun smaller tracks and replaced them with generic 1.5 mile ovals that are basically identical, in places that aren’t the south. They even moved the Southern 500 for a while which was nuts
Yep. Their expansion out of the south killed them. I mean they built a track in freaking new hampsire. New England doesn’t give two shits about nascar. They were extremely popular in the south and alienated them by investing all their money into expanding into places that just weren’t that interested in nascar.
Well that's America and capitalism for ya. Always gotta be selling you something. But it commercials truly went up when sponsorship dollars started to decline. Look at cars in 1999. Covered in sponsors. Look at the cars now and its barely nothing. So money has to be made up somewhere.
Despiser Despised who do you think is paying the networks? The companies that are advertising on their networks. More commercials means more money. Same with UA-camrs.
He has a point though. Obviously having your sport be safe is important, but when new safety procedures start having a noticeable impact on the sport then people are going to lose interest because it's not the same thing they enjoyed before. It's like eating a healthier version of your favourite food. Sure it's better for you, but it doesn't taste as good.
what killed the sport was when they tried to take a southern regional sport and make it mainstream. the southern fans went away and the mainstream is only short term, when the fad faded the rest of the fans went as well. nascar did just fine for all them years, why did they have to mess with it.
My dad loved nascar which made me love it and we would watch the race every Sunday. Unfortunately he passed away and my interest hasn’t really been there since.
One morbid answer is that it got too safe, combined with poor management, retiring stars & legends, less driver personalities, the recession, & ticket prices getting higher & higher.
Wild Card 26 the obvious reason is young people don’t care seeing cars go in circles for 3 hours. The traditional fan is dying off which is older inbred people from the south.
@@cocacola6562 come on no need to insult people just for entertainment, but I agree Nascar isn't very entertaining unless you go to the races it has a great atmosphere and snacks but ok tv it's worse
@@sylvestertat1078 true, corperations are the cancer that are sucking our society dry and making it act insane. They will be the downfall of our civilisation. Lets hope archeologists 3000 years from now will learn from our mistakes.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 You know, for as sad as the thought is, sometimes I do wish our civilization would fall, in a way that leaves humans still alive and debris for archaeologists in the future to study, and even a way to keep knowledge of our current languages so we can retranslate old stuff, because at least their civilization would end up better for it, being able to learn from all our mistakes but from a point of view that's easier to enact change, not being in the middle of things like we all are, unable to really shift anything to be better.
@@Freak80MC Who knows, future civilization might have a more interesting take on Nascar than what it is today. Maybe a religion around cars, with patron deities and mechanic-priests.
The biggest problem is that NASCAR keeps getting further and further away from actual stock car racing it’s impressive that guys used to go to a dealership buy a car work on it and have it going 200 mph in a couple weeks now it’s $400k cars that no ordinary person could ever get their hands on it’s just not as relatable
I agree! When is a group of people going to start a real “stock car” race? Bring your own real car, weld in a roll cage if you want or not, put it on the track and race others like you! Buckle up in your stock bucket or bench seat and get up on the wheel and drive that Mustang or Camero or Charger!
I haven't followed NASCAR for many years. I remember when a Chevy was a Chevy, a Pontiac was a Pontiac, a Ford was a Ford, and a MoPar was a MoPar. Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, "Fireball" Roberts, Al Unser, A J. Foyt..... and everybody cheated.... Smokey Yunick was the best cheater. Now, it doesn't matter what name is on the car.... they're all cookie-cutter machines that have zero in common with their "brand".
I remember watching a real 1964 Ford galaxy racing around the track. I was 10. It was wild world of sports. It was a real car. The nascars are not real. They suck.
I liked the "old" NASCAR when Ford, Chevy and Dodge competed. Now all cars are the same with just decals identifying brand name. They should have learned their lesson from IROC.
IROC style cars would make it better. It would certainly make the racing more interesting than Gibbs and Penske winning 25 of the 36 races and the cup because they spent more money in aero testing and R&D. The best actual drivers would compete to win instead of just autopiloting
Boring cars, boring drivers, lack of consistent paint schemes as sponsors, it was at its peak during the “Nextel Cup Series” era and “Sprint Cup Series” has an awful ring to it. NASCAR also changing the points format so many times hasn’t helped. Honestly Championships after 2003 don’t really seem that legit since a playoff format is stupid in Motorsports. They simply lost their identity. Watching old races feels like watching a different sport
Thomas Apple the problem with points though is hypothetically you could win all 35 races before the Championship, toss a piston, and lose the championship.
i cant belive why Nascar leaves out and kicks out Monster energy and this is biggest thing is has got 2 yrs contract? then boom basnished poor Monster energy
@@adamthemainman no he's complaining that the cars moved towards being more of a spec car instead of true stock cars which is truly bogus because they we're barely ever stock to begin with.
Which rules changes would you get rid of? Personally i hate stage racing and artificial yellows, pit strategy is an integral part of racing that they are attempting to ruin. I'm mixed on the championship changes, I think some were necessary, but the current championship seems so artificial. Maybe a return to the original Chase format? I don't know, I do like the emphasis on winning, maybe just increase the points for winning? Genuinely interested to hear your response since I'm a lifelong fan.
Car of tomorrow ruined it for me. When I can’t tell the difference between a Ford and Chevy, I’m done. The 2nd thing is the crop of drivers, they are all so bland.
Yep. That, plus the end of bump drafting. Now the drivers are too chicken shit to break out of single-file line until the last 10 laps of the race. It's boring as balls.
It's not that they are bland, some come in with attitude but Nascar wants things so clean that they can't really do anything. Plus most are spoiled so they have nothing to lose so they don't really care
I was a fan in the 70s and 80s. I remember when Dale Earnhardt was promoting his new #15 Wrangler Thunderbird, let that sink in for a minute. In those days you could immediately tell whether the car was a Ford, Chevy, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, etc. In those days the driver had to drive his machine, the cars weren't all the same size, shape, and possess the same aerodynamic properties. The drivers had personalities but they didn't go fist fight other drivers in public like they were misplaced WWF, yes F, wrestlers. The drivers of old learned their craft off the track where today's drivers are either related to somebody in the sport or their family had enough money to finance them in some other racing series such that they could move up, whether that was the initial intention or not. I know I sound like an old coot that thinks everything old is better than the newer counterpart but NASCAR has changed more than what guys like me can adjust to. Thirty or forty years ago the average race fan was a car guy who could relate to the car-guy drivers that were racing. The drivers were almost expected to be low-life boozehound woman-chasers while today's driver seemingly has a public image to maintain with his respectable behavior and charity functions. It's hard to imagine the likes of a Johnson, LaBonte, or Petty without grease on their hands and under their fingernails where it's hard to imagine any of the newer generation of drivers with dirty hands or messed up hair. And maybe that's my point, older drivers/teams seemed like everyday guys that found a way to make a living from their hobby where the newer group seems to be less relatable to the average person.....and maybe that's just what happens when a sport's fan base grows larger than the core enthusiast of the sport. I don't recall many folks discussing driver's motorhomes or millions in the bank, today that stuff is in your face like and episode of the rich and famous.
You touched on everything. You can look retrospectively and pinpoint exact moments where things got more boring and they all relate to abandoning the original fans and making things more palatable for non-fans. Bullet, meet foot.
@@jlyo1991 Now that PC thuggery has prevailed and we all live in nanny states at the mercy of woke SJW's and so called environmentalists, there isnt a place for NASCAR to thrive anymore, let alone old school NASCAR.
@@TheJingles007 I was pointing out advantages Mario Kart has over NASCAR. The races are shorter, and detaching the race from reality allows racecar and -track designs that would be absurdly dangerous (if not impossible) IRL. Also kart combat, which lets the players interact in a way that new fans can recognize and understand.
"THE FRANCE FAMILY!" That is the reason for NASCAR decline! Stage Races? Cookie cutter tracks, Cars having to be same as a cookie cutter car, Martinsvile a DIRT TRACK? I am 69 years old, and grew up watching auto racing. And after I got married my wife and I every year went to Taladaga and watched a race in person, and if I had to work on a Sunday, the VCR was set to record and no one better tell me the outcome of the race till I watched it! In short, NASCAR was my sport, Earnhart, Elliot, Wallace, Richard Petty, real men real drivers, They The France Family, RUINED the sport! A friend I used to work with ask me last year which race we were going to go to Alabama and watch, I told him HELL NONE! HELL I DO NOT EVEN WATCH NASCAR ON TV ANY MORE! THE SPORT HAS GONE INTO THE CRAPPER!
What killed it for me... 1. Lack of personalities i.e. there was no one left to root for after Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Jr. left 2. Stages was the nail in the coffin.
Mid-late 90's and early-mid 00's when I was growing up as a kid was my favorite era of drivers. They were all so different and interesting. I just caught the race this past week on tv and I had no clue who half of the field were the other half were newcomers 10 years ago that I had no interest in and I think the only driver left that I liked out of 40+ people was Kevin Harvick.
Exactly this. I remember turning on a NASCAR race a little while ago only to switch away because I didn't understand the whole stages thing and didn't wanna bother to learn. Racing is a simple concept. Whoever can go x distance in the fastest amount of time wins. I don't get why you need to add on to that.
@@minecaftpenguin The Stages are a throwback to short track racing. It's broken up into three stages each with bonus points for the playoffs, stage 1, and 2 are usually 1\4th the race distance, and stage 3 is the final half of the race. Not hard to understand. The only thing that i think kills it is the caution at the end of each stage. I think NASCAR creating all the artificial cautions is worse than the stage era. But how else are you going to give the top 3 or 4 drivers a chance to make their cars better without getting lapped too many times? 99% of debris cautions are dubious at best
Back in the day when the first rule of NASCAR was if you aren't cheating you aren't trying hard enough the sport was in it's prime. Early 70's to the mid 90's was the best. Drivers who can and did work on their own cars. Innovate and dominate was the rule of the day. The car of tomorrow turned me into the fan of yesterday.
It's weird with me with that movie I hate Talladega Nights with a passion because it's so stupid but I love it the movie would have been so much better if Ricky just said I love Crepes which they're actually pretty good had one and worked with Girard but nope drama simple as that Edit two scenes in that movie I always skip can't get through them hate them whatever that dumb dinner scene and the hospital after Ricky's big wreck where Carly thinks he's dying so stupid
I'm British, I've never even seen a race but reading the comments it obvious what the problem is! NASCAR has moved too far from it's roots. People saw it as more than just car racing, its culture. Funnily enough, some American owners of English football clubs just tried to eradicate the culture from football (you probably call it soccer) with the creation of the superleague and move to the American sports franchise model. They failed miserably and heads rolled in boardrooms right across Europe. The moral is:- They don't care about your sport, just your money!
Yeah just like the Nashville country music industry trying to appeal to an audience that’s not their audience. Country music fans don’t want mommies boys in skinny jeans that rap and all sound the same! Country music is about story-telling, not some drum beat mix of alcohol, trailer parks, and date nights! Oh and they throw pick up trucks in too, cause you know, they are kinda obligated to it in their marketing scheme.
I lived in Richmond, VA when Dale died. After that every car on the road had a "3" sticker on their cars. Now you never see them. Not only that you almost never see NASCAR stickers on cars. My all time favorite was the car I saw with a ton of Jeff Gordon stickers, and also a gay pride sticker
I miss the rivalries.. Part of what makes a sport exciting isn't just the teams or drivers you love.. It's those you love to hate.. And as a Gordon fan, I had mad respect for Earnhardt but man oh man did I love it whenever Gordon beat his ass 😂
NASCAR has lost its personality! The drivers have no personality, the tracks have no personality and the cars have no personality. Too many cookie cutter tracks and cookie cutter drivers!
I think the biggest nail in the coffin was changing the way the championship worked. Using the chase and other playoff systems was a huge mistake. I don't understand why the driver who has the most points can't just win like every other motorsport. People got mad at dominance but, why shouldn't the best and most consistent driver just win. Especially at the end of the season when one crash can mean the end of your entire year, even if it's with some backmarker car.
I have been a NASCAR fan since the 70's. I stopped watching it probably around 2010 and haven't followed it at all, other than cursory checks once in awhile, for probably the last 5 years. Here is my take: 1. The current format is NOT racing. It's a bunch of potty breaks for the drivers of the vehicles as well as a chance for the network to squeeze in a few more commercials. 2. The drivers are whiny and succumb to the "it's everyone else's fault but mine" mentality whenever ANYTHING goes wrong. 3. People used to care about who drove what. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Plymouth, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Mercury. Cars that were recognizable and actually looked like something you could go down to the dealership and purchase. Today's cars are nothing more than templates with pretty much only stickers and the shape of the rear side windows to tell them apart. To that end, I believe the manufacturers (Dodge for example) gave up because they were tired of NASCAR continually changing the rules for bodies. 4. The announcers. Darrell Waltrip in particular. A 4th rate announcer, a 2nd rate driver and a 1st rate asshole. I couldn't be happier he's gone. Annoying and biased. Good riddance. 5. The points system. A championship should ONLY be for a driver who is the best and most consistent over the course of a season and not just for 10 (or whatever it is) races. It's simply an "everybody gets a trophy" mindset. There are more reasons, but I think I've made a point. I now watch the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship Series. It's basically Australian NASCAR. Check that out for far more interesting racing.
Honey, let me tell you about OLD NASCAR... There were these dynasties of drivers- the Pettys, the Earnhardts, the Allisons, the Yarbroughs, the Waltrips, the Wallaces, etc.- Fathers and sons and brothers and cousins, generations of them. It was a very genuine, connected business. There was room for real talent and real creativity. I used to work in NASCAR merchandising. I can remember when you'd call Dale Earnhardt's licensing company about returning some t-shirts, and one of his kids would answer the phone. Now, it's all corporate. You don't have those great families involved any more. There are no outstanding personalities to watch on the track. It's all the same guy, driving the same car, around the same track, and who cares about any of them? There is zero individuality. Today's NASCAR is anathema to it's origins. Dale Jr. was SMART, to get OUT.
Bay Area Adventures you got that right, Jeff was the best thing to happen to NASCAR, they killed the goose that laid the golden egg, to put into southern lingo.
I would say the best personalities on the track were Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. Once the two of them started to fall of and become less relevant, people stopped caring as much. It also got more boring when Jimmy Johnson kept winning. It would have been fine if he had more personality, but he is just too boring a person to carry a sport.
Lost interest when they switched the points system. Personally I like when the most consistent driver for the entirety of the season gets rewarded a championship. Feels like technology kind of took over too much as well when it comes to the cars. Doesn't seem to be all about how good the driver is but how much money each team has. Hendrick for example vs the wood brothers.
Brandon Plaisted I don’t know about you, but if I see a regular Toyota Camry going 200+ on a track you better believe that’s gonna get more attention than some exotic car
"The car with the chevy decals, passed the car with the ford decals, but couldn't catch the car with the toyota decals". That's the issue: no more stock in stock car racing! Back in the 60's, 70's, 80's besides the drivers, people cheered on the cars also. It was called brand loyalty. Try using camaros, mustangs, and challengers in "stock form", along with production based engines.
I mean technically manufacturers still make the motors for thier brand cars. It just has to be within spec, but Chevy still builds the motors for Chevy cars, ect
@@iillestrs2153 Doesn't really matters if the company makes the motors, when an engine has to be within specs with all others well you kinda have the same engine in every car. The system isn't even flexible everything has to be within specs or else you can't compete. That really takes away from every sport not only NASCAR.
The GT3 format of SRO has successfully created a production car based system that's both cost-effective and diverse fields of cars thanks to an effective Balance of Power system and a Homologation requirement for every car. Perhaps take a few notes from those fellas since there's about 20 racing series that use the system they have.
Growing up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I feel like I grew up on the best era of the sport. The cars, the rivalries, the tracks, the video games, all were just so exciting. I’m grateful for that part of my upbringing, but the dominance of the sport in the 2000’s by one or two elite racing teams robbed the chemistry of it all.
@@jansencunin and they have plenty of road race course they could use. Not in Nascar I agree but as I was saying, show us some tuned Camaros, Stangs, Hellcat Challengers. Don't try to make em look like stupid stock cars. We know they are not. I'm sure the Japos would jump in a serie with their new NS-X and Supras, even Mercedes, Audis and BMWs...
R something tells me if you used to find nascar worth watching, you wouldn’t say it’s like watching grass grow. Why lie? You’ve never been interested in nascar. And that’s okay but no reason to make shit up
I watched this UA-cam video because I'm interested in the way that others see the sport I once enjoyed die! It is as boring as soccer really!. Restricter plates killed it forever
@@weeezeeewee4780 dude, nascar has ALWAYS been boring. It's driving in a circle, over and over and over and over, etc, etc, etc, etc. Maybe as people get older they are now seeing it for what it is.
Agree that NASCAR turned its back on the common man, who used to fill the stands. I started going to races in the mid 1970s and you had access to just about the entire track. Then corporate sponsors came along and started buying up tickets and handing them out to employees who really didn’t care about racing. They started blocking access to different parts of the stands and raising prices so they could have the upper crust separated from the “peons”. Wouldn’t want to mingle with the riff raff. The drivers had personalities and rivalries and the racing was exciting. As the older drivers retired, in came no name drivers with zero personality. To make things worse they have screwed with the rules to supposedly make it more competitive. I hate the stages of the races. It’s like giving trophies for participation.
@@daleeasterwood2683 this! Stage racing doesnt reward skill or power but who happens to be the top 5 cars during the last 3 laps of a stage. It's about luck more than anything. 10 years ago Joey Logano would not have won a championship. Stage racing made that possible.
I live in North Carolina, deep in Nascar country and I couldn't name 5 current Nascar drivers if I tried. The 80s and 90s were my peak years for Nascar. I've only watched one full race since the day Dale Sr died.
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of NASCAR. But I think another contributor to its fall is other motorsports, like drifting, Formula Drift, grassroots drifting, smaller circuit racing, time attack, etc. Most smaller events are so much easier to attend and often times much much cheaper. That's my opinion anyways. I may be wrong about these things.
Nah, I think you hit the nail on the head. There are just better events to go to as a young car enthusiast, with more interesting cars and more interesting activities, that are actually accessible to the average car nut. They just aren't often televised widely.
You nailed it. Not everybpdy can just build or buy a NASCAR spec race car; the engines and related systems alone cost in excess of $100,000. But there's nothing stopping you from attending a track day, going to Gridlife, taking a racing school, and so on. It's much easier now to get in the seat and get on track yourself. Hell you can go out and buy a Miata for 3000$ and have the time of your life. Or a Z06, 1LE, 370Z, GTR, GT350R, and so many other cars. I'd rather race myself than watch someone else anyway.
you're not wrong by the cost either. Most places have a dirt track probably an hour or 2 away or live in a city with a dirt track, my local dirt track brings the World of Outlaws Late Models and Sprint Cars in every year. It's $30-$40 plus concessions for the night. In the end you get about 3-4 hours of racing and action including hot laps, qualifying, heats, last chance, features and the intermission break before the features begin. And after the races you can head down to the pits and chat with the drivers who are still around after the races are over. Now I don't know if that's entirely allowed at NASCAR events but I highly suspect additional money needs to be spent to get that access. Now if you limit yourself correctly and depending on concession costs you can probably spend at most $60 on one night. When the World of Outlaws aren't in town races cost $20 (or $17 if you buy tickets early). Now tickets at Pocono Raceway start at $45 plus any additional fees on top of that when purchasing the actual ticket. Now factor in parking, concessions, travel costs including a hotel if needed. It starts adding up real quick. Chances are at local dirt tracks, tickets don't have extra fees, parking is either very cheap or nothing at all, and concessions likely won't cost you a kidney. All in all, the cost of the event is driving a lot of people away as well, from a sport that started with a motto, "Drive it on Sunday, buy it on Monday".
Doc was a 50s car, prohibition had long ended. But in Cars 3, we meet other racers who knew Doc, who became slow and obsolete because of Doc. And without going out and saying it, because children, they trained McQueen and indirectly Cruz, as if they were smuggling booze just like in old times. One of the cars was a 30s model, and obviously did just this.
I used to attend 2-4 races a year. I had a motorhome to attend, some tracks made it less friendly for us, so I sold it. TV rights, used to be able to watch without having a top tier cable package, also start times all over the place. New, entitled drivers. Constant rule changing and boring racing, mandatory cautions?
Mike Kubican wait. Mandatory cautions? My dad STILL watches. We all got into it in about 1979. I’m SHOCKED to hear that my dad is sitting through mandatory cautions. WTAF is that about???
Holy Toledo. I was a HUGE Darrell Waltrip fan. Still watched after he was gone, but round the time Earnhardt died, I was mostly out. I can’t believe the crazy changes Brian France instituted. He was just in over his head - most people would be, I imagine.
@@KristiLEvans1 its what they are calling "Stage" racing. The races are being broken up into three "stages" where they throw a caution flag at the end of those stages and then they decided to give them extra points for winning those stages
@@aBamaMelmsie Love the idea of stage racing, hate the mandatory cautions. I still watch because the racing is fairly good most weeks but I have to bite my tongue nearly every week with those cautions. They just need to award the points and let the racers keep racing.
Been watching nascar every year since I was born, and its amazing how well you nailed this. I've been saying for years that the safety is getting in the way of the racing, racing is dangerous so accept it or leave. And yes, the chase/playoff system is absolutely terrible and I think everybody knows its all just a big gimmick now. The drivers are pretty much vanilla now with everyone needing to behave a certain way for sponsors and to be "role models" for viewers. I for one can't stand where the sport is now and its only getting worse with the 2022 regs. But also, my dad did stop watching after Earnhardt died being an Earnhardt fan, that was definitely a big blow.
The main reason I stopped watching: The Chase. Stopped watching when all these rules for the chase were implemented. It's so dumb and gets worse every year in my opinion. I really do not feel like the best driver of the season wins, it's a garbage system.
While "the chase" was bad, and it's subsequent variations were worse, what lost many people, including myself, is the extremely stupid "stage racing". If you want to award points at intervals throughout the event, that's one thing. But when you throw a yellow at the end of a "stage", you are affecting the flow of the race, the strategy, and the ultimate outcome. The other rule changes were also detrimental, GWC, "lucky dog" etc, but it was the stage nonsense that did it for me.
I'm a younger guy (24), always been into cars, I know a lot about mechanics and working on cars And yet...I've NEVER found Nascar entertaining! Watching 40+ cars (that are all the same tightly regulated cookie-cutter template) go in a circle for hours on end, on T.V... it's just not interesting IMO
@I know you are right, And I just got owned but: HUH??!! What part of "I've always been into cars, and know a lot about working on cars" did you not understand?!
In the US IMSA is a much better motorsport IMO it has all the driver talent and new works teams seem to join every year, the races are still long but the multi class system thats always existed in sports car racing makes it more appealing, to a younger audience the teams testing a lot of green tech also helps
@I know you are right, And I just got owned but: Are you talking to yourself in the mirror again? You're offended by someone voicing a reasonable opinion. You don't even see the irony in calling someone else a snowflake.
My son and i attended the Winston / Memorial Day race as Dale Earnhardt supporters (from Chicago and never been to a race) 20-yrs ago. Holy Cow - what a “hoot”! As we walked to enter the race every racers has his own promotional trailer hawking every kind of item. Then pre-race going to the infield to see the cars, meet the pit crew & racers still working the car - Dale Earnhardt standing around car talking to his guys - another holy cow! And that dastardly Jeff Gordon! It was a great day! Son now 40+, will never forget the excitement. I think NASCAR forgot their roots and sold out to Madison Ave. They use to be counter-culture / bad-boy / southern / kick--ass event. They weren’t a fancy event for NYC types - it represented true southern heritage! So little of that left in America!
Enjoyed NASCAR. I am from the south. Growing up, it was college football, Atlanta Braves and NASCAR. Over time, stopped watching NASCAR. Why? 1. Got boring. Not the racing itself. But the people who won championships. Jimmy Johnson was as bland as a bag full of salt less popcorn. 2. Drivers racing the system, not the tracks. 3. Name/sponsorship confusing. Part of the charm is identifying with the product that was on your favorite drivers car. I liked Mark Martin, so I only used the oil on the hood of his car in my car. Then cars got multiple sponsorships. I did not identify with ED treatment at 18 years old. Then the name of the actual championship. I just thought it was called “Winston” because some bootlegger names Winston was an owner or something. They changed the name of the trophy a few times after that. Would be like if the NFL changed the name of their championship, branding matters. 4. Expense. The price of going to a race became too much. You could take your whole family, then you soon where priced out. 5. Championship became to complicated.
Jody Claborn Thank you. I never missed a race when I was a kid. Over the last ten years I have maybe watched two races. Still watch baseball, and that is a bit of a tedious event. But they have basically stayed the same from World War II. NASCAR seems to change every three years.
"I'm gonna race so my team can win." Fuck your team. One hero one car. If your team needs you to come in not first to max them out then it's not a Race anymore. Didn't see Dale wanting to lose a Race for anyone. But that's not the Meta anymore.
Good video, but one other factor is the ticket prices soaring. For a largely blue collar audience, tickets being 60 dollars is crazy to watch cars drive
Competition cautions 10 laps into a race when you have an equally silly stage break 10 laps later, Watkins Glen....NASCAR used to be about endurance, and the best built cars would win. Now, with all the breaks, the audience gets gets bored, switches over to dog training shows or reality whatever shows. Bring back the 500 mile, no break, constant, all out racing, and fans will return.
I grew up in Surry and Yadkin county area. When I learned that NASCAR originated in North Carolina but then they decided to abandon their roots, I was completely disappointed. I wish I could still love the sport but I just can't anymore.
I think the point was more or less along the lines of new people coming into the sport. As older people dropped off, newer would come in and keep the numbers up. Due to environmental concerns with the newer generations they stopped coming to the sport in the numbers they used to. I get what you are saying, but it just misses the point I think.
No safety is what killed it. Sad buttrue. People are animals deep down and they want the chance to see someone hurt. It's why UFC and football are huge. The danger. Baseball has no danger and it's why its dying as well. Football starts to add more and more safety and the ratings have declined a bit. People are just twisted and wanna see a trainwreck.
Thomas C. You are right. Athens Greece, public executions in medieval Europe, Indigenous Central/South American Indians throwing people in volcanoes, etc. Violence has always been an exciting pass time for our ancestors and it’s still is today for a lot of people.
I used to watched it Sunday morning when i was suffering from a hangover. I learn something about cars while watching it. I thin the biggest reason for the decline is that cars are more complex and people do not bother with them. There is a lack of appreciation for how cars work and thus an interest in racing them. The next is the lack of strong personalities. You can't just watch it. You have know the drivers. Dale, Richard petty, Waltrip, etc....
Still to this day most people have broadcast TV and if you haven't noticed cable TV is going down to who wants to pay $120 a month to watch commercials all day
I watch everything online free I don't pay to stream anything. Movies, music, t.v. series all free I pay $30 a month for 10mps of bandwidth that's it. I can find all the shows and movies that Netflix and Hulu offer I can see any movie even the ones in theaters a week after their release. UA-cam is the only offender of advertisements at this point.
the latest TV deal where NBC was awarded the second half of the season and ESPN didn't even get a chance to bid on it. After that we got stage races and a lot more races on NBCSN hoping NASCAR fans would buy a bigger cable bundle to help offset the cost of their TV deal, instead NASCAR fans turned off the TV
Wow, I’m looking at the prices you folks pay for cable, that’s pretty cheap compared to the $260 a month I had to pay because I was living in a co-op and couldn’t get much of a choice on what to watch
There is one thing that would solve many of these problems: switching to production engines. The series has lost all relevance. They haven’t been using anything close to stock cars since about the late 80s, but CoT was kind of the last nail in the coffin. The bodies were still partially based on production cars up to that point, even if the drivetrains were completely different (in most cases, we’re talking about longitudinal FR layouts underneath cars masquerading as transverse FFs). In similar series in other parts of the world, like Australia’s V8 Supercars and Germany’s DTM, they still use vehicles largely based on production cars, and their drivers aren’t dropping like flies. To be fair, they’re able to use real cars partly because their own domestic brands still make big FRs (in Australia’s case, they still were until a couple years ago), but NASCAR could at least go back to production-based engines. All three constructors have perfectly good V8s ready to replace the antiquated units NASCAR is currently using. They could modify them slightly to improve durability (using titanium rods and whatnot), but keep the power output at stock levels. What would be the benefits of doing this, you ask? There are three main ones, and they address many of the concerns in the video. -Relevance: There used to be a saying, “what wins on Sunday sells on Monday”. Manufacturers would build faster cars just so that they could be used in NASCAR, and if they proved successful, people would often come in to their local dealership to take a look at the cars. Even if they didn’t drive home in a homologation special like the Plymouth Superbird, they still might buy another car on the lot. As I explained before, modern NASCAR “stock” cars are anything but. Nobody cares if the winning Ford had a sticker on the front that said “Fusion”, it has nothing to do with the boring family sedan for sale. If they were to at least go back to production engines, the salesman could explain that the engine in the Camaro you’re looking at just won at Daytona. If you ended up buying it, you and your friend who bought a Mustang might start watching the races to see who picked the winning team. It’s a win-win for NASCAR and the manufacturers. -Ease of entry: Everyone who knows anything about NASCAR knows about the big arguments that flared up when Japanese manufacturer Toyota decided to throw their hat in the ring (never mind that there were plenty of foreign cars in the early days of the series, but I digress). What most don’t know, however, is all of the trouble that Toyota went through to make it happen. Because the other constructors were using engines based on designs from the 60s as per the rules, and Toyota didn’t have any pushrod V8s in their back catalog to work with, they had to design one from scratch. Besides being ridiculous on the face of it, designing a 1960s engine in the mid 2000s built to withstand the kind of abuse it had to wasn’t cheap. If one could simply drop an existing engine in a NASCAR body, more manufacturers would be interested in the series because it wouldn’t be as expensive. Volkswagen and Honda have toyed with getting involved, for example, but balked at the cost. It would be cheaper for the racing teams too, as they could use more off-the-shelf parts. This might get more teams off the ground, and give the family dynasties something to worry about. A series with more constructors and new teams is much more interesting to watch. I say take it a step further and allow them to use either a naturally-aspirated V8 or a turbo V6. Who wouldn’t want to see a race involving Ford’s Coyote, Toyota’s UR, Chevrolet’s LT, the turbo V6 from the Acura NSX, Dodge’s latest Hemi, the turbo V6 from the Nissan GT-R, and one of Volkswagen’s V8 Audi engines? -Environment: NASCAR was still using unleaded fuel until 2007 and carburetors until 2012. They also switched to an ethanol blend in 2011. Their environmental record has improved, but using modern production engines would be another big step in the right direction because they already have to meet federal emissions standards.
great points. What about -Entertainment? Not just watching drivers turn left for 3 hours, but relaxing the rules so you see more aggressive driving, more fighting outside and in the pits. people like conflict. NASCAR is too "sanitary" now its just boring. aside from the winner and crashes, 95% of the race you already know whats going to take place.
DTM cars share no parts with their production "counterparts". So are the Japanese Super GT 500 series. Those cars are prototype racers playing dress up as road car variants.
I used to watch Nascar as a kid, mostly because my family watched it. I remember seeing Dale crash and it was pretty sad. We watched for a while after that but then eventually stopped. I’ve tried to get back into it recently, but with the different stages or rounds or whatever they call it, it’s just kind of boring. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a whole race from start to finish
It's interesting to notice the difference with Formula One, which by contrast has seen the average age of its fans getting lower and currently has one of the youngest audience of any major sport
They got away from their Southern roots and it backfired on them. I'm not saying they can't have tracks outside the South, but its primarily fanbase was always in the South, and that's where it made its most money.
Car of tomorrow, no racing to the flag, overpricing, cookie cutter tracks, no short track month, stage racing, there are hundreds of reasons, basically - corporate greed.
Been a fan for over 40 years, until 2017, when everything really changed. Nascar was WAY bigger in the mid-late 90's especially with the help from the Tom Cruise/Mike Rooker "Days of Thunder" movie. The DECLINE is specifically due to Nascar changing the rules from an actual start-to-finish points-race, to a "staged game-style" format. Meaning, no longer is it a 200-lap, start-to-finish race, they STOP 3 or more times during the race to bunch people up and so everyone can pit. No more strategy, no more speed, no more fun, no more fans in the stands:( NOW its the insane amount of wokeness that has killed ratings and fan enjoyment and the sport in general. Such a shame.
Izzy Long doesn’t help their most famous racer died years ago, NASCAR pretty much died with Earnhardt, people already lost interests when restrictor plates were required
For me, I stopped watching when Gordon stopped racing. I really disliked the playoff system but I kept watching as long as Gordon was competing. I hate how the new rules essentially stole 3 titles from him. I was really hoping Truex Jr would win the title in 2015 without winning a single race to show the officials how stupid the playoff systems is. IMO
Yeah, I used to love watching NASCAR with my dad back when Davey Allison was alive, I cried when he died in that helicopter crash. Even though I still felt back then that the cars were not what I wanted to see because they were custom and not something you could see on the road, but I still liked it. I can't stand it nowadays the cars are identical, and when watching a race it's so obvious they're trying to make it look like a football game or a video game with all this animated crap, bouncy sound meters, fake gauges wiggling around the screen and I won't even go into the POINTS. So in short the cars have gotten more boring, and the points are boring. Coming in 1st is winning, this isn't a video game where a trick move gets you 50 more points and you suddenly win instead of finishing 5th.
I'm almost 50, and have been a fan since I was a kid. My first race to see in person, Richard Petty was still driving. But I lost interest around the car of tomorrow era. The wings were so absurd that it almost single handedly made me lose interest. But I stuck it out for a few more years, until so many rules changes, and changing up the points system made it almost impossible to follow anymore. I was a huge fan, went to both races here at Texas every year, but have not even watched an entire race in about a decade. As for the issue with new fans, the anti-corporate sentiment that is so strong with younger generations likely has a lot to do with that. Corporate sponsorship, being on display the way it is, is what makes the sport work. It's also going to be a detractor for many younger potential fans.
They got to me in the late '80s. Debris on the track, every single race with ten laps to go. Bunch the field, shootout for five laps, negate the previous 3 hours of driving. Last race I watched, the commentator said "look, there actually is debris out there." Probably got fired.
I grew up wanting to be a race car driver, I told everyone about it. I’m 50 now and Life happened. I didn’t make my race car driver dream work, so I watched it. A lot, until I wasn’t able to recognize all of my favorite drivers. Numbers changed and paint schemes weren’t consistent. The coverage was better than ever, but the cars and drivers were hard to follow. Next was The chase, it was designed wrong from the beginning. Here’s how it should have been: only top 3 get season trophy’s. at the last race, whoever has the most wins. if 2 drivers have the same #, then a shootout occurs. For first, second, and third. 5 laps. The races are too long, they need to be more shorter races. They penalize drivers and teams so hard that there no room for a guy similar to Earnhardt. He and his team wouldn’t make it now. The cars are safer, I’m ok w that. But let the Toyotas and Chevys look different, come freakin on. Keep them safe, but make them different. Let the manufacturers decide the shapes. If there was one thing that tipped the scales for me it was the evil stepmother that took everything away from Jr. Everyone knew what his dad wanted, but she wasn’t having it. She will be going to hell for her actions. More iroc style races. Stock cars. How about a Tesla race? Corvette race? All cars that race MUST BE the same cars SOLD AT DEALERSHIPS. More short tracks and road courses, dirt. Change it up. LET THE RACE IN THE RAIN WITH RAIN TIRES! I stopped watching it 10-12 years ago. There’s more, but this is too long. Happy trails all.
Give me a motorsport with simple rules, cars based on cars you can buy at a dealership, no convoluted points chase, and drivers with personality who are allowed to tell it like it is. Oh wait, I'm describing NASCAR of the 60s to the 90s.
Same with f1 and DTM. It's just to commercialised now. Completely sanatised and gimicky to try to appeal to the masses. Stoped watching those as well around 2007 after 15 years of following and reading everything to do with both. Not worth my time anymore.
Agreed I remember going to the 24 hours at Daytona. Watching and hearing the different engines and watching which type blew up was important. The first Ford Probes ran in it and blew.
For me the turning point was when Dale Jr. got fined championship points for accidentally cussing during an interview immediately after a race. They wanted to cater to everyone losing their identity in the process.
1.)Completely got away from there roots and left the legendary tracks that made it what it was. 2.) driver’s personality 20 years ago much different and there approachability. 3.) few sponsors stick with a driver/team for very long.
I hate #1. I get building new tracks, but as people noted, they dumped a lot of really unique tracks for essentially cookie cutters. I remember when I still watched, there was like Atlanta, Texas, and I want to say Las Vegas which were all basically literally the same track. #3 also. In the old days, a driver/team was a complete brand. Driver + team + manufacturer + sponsor + color schemes, etc. Now, all of those can change every couple of years. It'd be like if NFL teams moved cities, nicknames, and their core rosters every couple of years. You're not going to generate a whole lot of team loyalty doing that.
No mention of a huge reason. NASCAR is limited in how much of it can grow because of its ambiance. Huge segments of the population are not going anywhere near the track because of the impression that they are not welcome there. You can argue that the impression is wrong, but you cannot deny the perception. All of the whining we hear about not being able to bring Confederate flags to race tracks certainly does not help.
I watched the opening ceremony of the 2020 Daytona 500. President Trump's "The Beast" limo is closest thing to a "stock" car that NASCAR has seen in a long time.
Who said it was "never a problem before". Deviating from stock in a sport called "stock car racing" has been a problem for a long time. For me it started in the 80s. Bill Elliott dominated long tracks so NASCAR allowed the Chevys and Pontiacs to run bubble back windows. Next was NASCAR allowing "stock" v6 or 4 cylinder cars to run v8s and "stock" front wheel to run rear wheel drive. The four door Taurus some how became a two door on the track. The deviation continued and I finally dropped out with the car of tomorrow. I have tried to watch from time to time but just can't get into it. So it has been a problem for decades for me.
@@kenh5317 I disagree. Speaking for myself, I just find it boring. If it was more exciting I'd be interested. I could care less about the environmental impact for racing when I know there's other stuff that's way worse.
Chad Atha Formula ((E)) Was a big fat mistake. Nobody watches it, and they lose millions every race. I wouldn't be surprised if it stopped existing in a year or 2.
1) They priced themselves out of it. Greed 2) As enthusiasm dwindled, they started changing the rules to make it more interesting. 3) The new savior Kyle Busch that cheats and gets praised for it. 4) The older guys that been there forever were being forced out or just got tired of the politics of it all.
I started losing interest when they started the whole "chase" format. It didn't help that my favorite driver, Jeff Gordon, would have won I believe 3 more championships if the points system was still in place. But then when Gordon retired, there wasn't anyone standing out to replace him and I have almost completely lost interest. The whole thing just feels gimmicky now. I grew up on local dirt track racing in Indiana, and NASCAR just doesn't compete with that type of excitement anymore.
You may already watch it, but just in case, I'd highly recommend checking out WRC (World Rally Championship). It takes place over mostly twisting back roads where the cars will do 200 kmh/125 mph or more. Definitely exciting to watch, and lots of spectacular crashes.
I tried getting into NASCAR, but found that F1 was more interesting, more turns, and they race all over the world in more countries than NASCAR and it's faster! Still watch NASCAR from time to time and I still think it's a great sport.
I'm a big fan of both NASCAR and Indycar but for some reason I have trouble enjoying modern day F1 but I enjoy watching videos from F1 in the 80s and 90s. I guess one issue is most of the races start at like 6:00 AM for me on the west coast so it's tough for me to watch a race when I'm tired and just waking up. I also find the on track action to be lackluster most of the time although from some of the highlights I've seen from this season it looks like it's been decent. Another issue I have is the cars don't sound good. I wish they still had big V10 or V12 engines that are loud. I don't find the quiet V6 engines to be that interesting. Also, seeing the same 3 teams win every week gets pretty boring. F1 needs more teams that can compete for the win to be more interesting. Also, the driver skill required for today's F1 cars is nothing like it used to be. I'd love to see the skill get put back into the driver's hands with lower downforce and more horsepower.
F1 died around the same time. It has the same fundamental problems as nascar. So does DTM. I switched from car racing to motor racing which still is exciting. As well as rally which is also fun from time to time.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 I agree. My love for F1 is at an all time low for pretty much the farce it is atm, the engine/rule changes, inconsistent penalties, and in general....boredom.
I quit NASCAR when they brought in the Car of Tomorrow. IROC already exists, and nobody was clamoring for NASCAR to be more like it. The image became too family-friendly, too well-cultivated. It failed to resonate as authentic. They also "expanded" to new tracks in new parts of the country, but only succeeded in ostracizing old/current fans and not really creating new fans in these new areas to replace them.
I watched his vid about Dale Earnheardt and it tugged at my heartstrings. EmpLemon is right. There really will never ever be another driver like him. Race in peace, Dale.🤘
As a NASCAR fan, here are some reasons nascar isn’t as popular: 1) the format changes-In 2003, NASCAR changed the championship format. 2) Popular drivers retiring-Drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, And Matt Kenseth...all fan favorites..had massive fanbases. With those fans left without a driver to root for, they either left nascar entirely, Or rooting on their protégée VIA Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Erik Jones. 3) Introduction of stage racing-Divided races into 3 segments. I would say that nascar is on a slight upswing in 2019. Good races and popular drivers like Chase Elliott being successful have brought in slight but noticeable TV rating changes for the better. Admittedly yeah the races get boring, but I’m a fan for life. And i ain’t leavening now!
I really don't get the 3 stage hate. i think it works really well, it quite often stops the lead couple of cars from just soaring off the whole race and lapping the entire field like what happens a lot in F1
@@levitikan For me it just doesn't feel like a NASCAR race anymore. It feels little kid-ish. Shorter races are fun at hometown tracks, but NASCAR isn't supposed to have them
It sucks when what you lovedeclines. It's like that with star wars. I hate the current era but i dont wanna leave,I just want good leadership to fix silly things like the tarkin novel saying sidious isnt evil....sidious...the master of Vader isnt evil???
It doesn't help the matter when the same 2, 3 drivers win every week or are in the discussion on winning every week. That doesn't help audiences connect to anyone.
The Oppermans from Texas will always love and miss Dale Earnhardt Sr, your fans forever. Yes, Dale Earnhardt Sr was the only reason we followed Nascar because we were devoted to Dale and his racing. When we lost Dale we lost our desire to watch afterwards. We followed Neil Bonnett plus Dale since they were best buddies. We have not watched since 2001 when Dale Sr died. Thank you from Jerry and Sugar Bear and Gloria and Bear, Dale Earnhardt Sr fans forever
I was a NASCAR fan ever since I was a kid - - I'm not anymore. I mainly didn't care for the new drivers - - they are too young and whiny. When I started watching, most of the field was in their 30s and raced competitively, not recklessly (more or less). Plus the constant rule changes made winning feel less "earned" and more "given." Don't change the fundamental rules - - that messes everything up.
Completely agree. No one races like that anymore. The why Dale Earnhardt was called The Intimidator. He wouldn't think twice about putting someone into the wall or pushing them out of the way in order to win. Today if someone does that everyone starts crying and talking about how unfair it is. Please, it's like all the participation trophies has taken away peoples drive to be the best.
And too many safety changes that have dumbed the sport down. No one grows up and says "I want to be a Nascar driver cause it's safe". Like football players, you know the risks when you sign that contract.
As a Brit I can tell you one problem that befell Nascar: no international appeal. Sure, if you're big enough you can get along solely in the US just fine, but it is hard to claim that here and those foreign dollars are large and tasty should you get hold of them. The NFL for example is taking off massively over here now because they saw just how much more they can make if they can export the game and put in the effort to do so.
Even worse than that is the fact that nascar just has REGIONAL appeal. It doesn’t even have nationwide appeal. The American south is fanatical about nascar and goes crazy for the races and events. Most of the rest of the country just either doesn’t care, or does care but not at the level the south does
The decline in sponsor monies, shifts to more 'corporate friendly' drivers took over, no more fights in pits, stopped races at popular traditional locations, politics, Toyota, aging out of the audience and failure to be more diverse, too difficult to cheat to win. RJ Reynolds and other tobacco sponsors got into the sport to advertise on cars when TV ads were banned in the early 1970's. By the late 1990's, Federal and state laws ended such marketing and tobacco demand was much lower so their money disappeared and not replaced at the same level and still much higher costs to operate cars. Today many companies find auto racing connected marketing to be of limited benefit, they get a much bigger return with better targeted ads on other programs, sports No doubt the drivers changed, to more 'corporate friendly' ones, stiff penalties if even looked at a driver the wrong way. They were good drivers for sure, like Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson but not traditional in personality. Some like Stewart were the last of 'old school' style but his causing in part the death of a driver in a non-Nascar race, some of his toughness, wasn't liked anymore. Many races left fan favorite (North Wilksboro) traditional tracks to 1.5 mile cookie cutter ovals with no personality and owned by the France family or 2 other big groups. Only a few are left that are owned by independents. Some had to be ended as couldn't meet modern safety standards. Then you had the audience getting older as noted, not replaced by younger fans some of whom are more into other action sports, if into vehicles then into Japanese brands. Toyota in and Chrysler brand out. Many like me never accepted Toyota as a NASCAR brand as not a USA based company. Politics was part of it, they banned the CSA battle flag from being displayed at race sites, turning off some fans. NASCAR was and still is a 'White Southern Male' dominated sport, failing to attract Black and Hispanic/Latino drivers, owners, with a few exceptions and not getting a more diverse audience. And yes no innovations, no cheating, cars much slower, for sound safety reasons. Too many races too long with long multi crash endings and supplement laps to have a race to the end.
The reason: The Chase. I am a lifelong fan of NASCAR and for the first time ever in my life, I did not watch or attend one race. How can Kyle Busch miss half the season and still be the champion? The chase.
@@dme1016 You may want to review the definition of a sport. a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job: It would appear you have other issues with racing then the definition.
Born in ‘62 and became a NASCAR Grand National fan in ‘73. I missed a lot of great racing action before my time as a fan. Richard Petty was my guy. STP was “The Sponsor”; The Racers Edge! My dad drove a Dodge, so I was locked in. Grand National Stock Car Racing was of a different time. A time when real drivers and their gutsy crews stepped up to work their asses off on the track to support their families while thrilling all the fans. Those guys were heroes for the shows they put on and sometimes gave their lives for. NASCAR and NHRA’s brand association motto, “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was a real thing. All the factory Hi Perf cars Dodge, Plymouth, Ford, Mercury, Chevrolet, Olds, Pontiac, Buick and AMC put out during the golden years of muscle cars was one of the most special times of my life. I was lucky enough to be around when these masterpieces were just cars on the streets. It really was a great time to be alive. Now many of the same cars are rare, highly coveted and super expensive. Today, all we have is the Challenger, Mustang and Camaro. None of these Pony cars were in NASCAR back in the day. They were built for the TransAm Series. The fact that they are in present day NASCAR along with the Toyota Camry is one of the many the reasons that NASCAR is dead. I haven’t been to or seen a NASCAR race on TV since the “Car of tomorrow”. I had become a Jeff Gordon fan. When the 48 team won 5 straight championships, that’s when fat lady sang on NASCAR. Other reasons: -When the cars stopped being derived from actual stock full sized factory 2 door rear wheel drive coupes. -When big money sponsorships became a necessity to compete. -When single car Owner/Driver teams were forced out. -When NASCAR became a spec racing series like IROC. What happened to “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’!? -When NASCAR alienated their core Southern fans and tracks to “Grow the sport”! They were just greedy. Had they had the intelligence to know the audiences NASCAR was already reaching in the early 70’s without stepping on too many toes they would have taken baby steps toward improvements and expansion. -NASCAR pissed away it’s product. The intrigue of the moonshine runners outrunning the police in their specially modified and tuned cars. Now it’s just good money after bad aimed at the goal of making something that was once so relevant, so American die a disgraceful death.
Earnhardt's death did more than bring on the boring safety rules. He was called the intimidator for a reason. He was the lovable antihero that fans loved to see, and drivers hated. When he died, noone did or could have (new safety regs and sportsmanship rules) taken up the mantle. The fun was just.. sucked out for most.
He was the Nascar version of Stone Cold Steve Austin, before there was a Stone Cold Steve Austin. God how I miss seeing that black Goodwrench Chevy #3 on the track.
Very true. When he died, I said it this way,, I hated Dale Earnhardt, and I’m gonna miss him. Sports needs a bad guy. Wrestling has what they call heels. Hockey has their goons. Football has their cheap shot guys. Baseball has cheaters. NASCAR chose to go with clean, corporate, vanilla sponsorship reps. Blechhh !!!! 😖
I grew up in the south with several family members, particularly older ones, who were hardcore NASCAR fans. None of them watch the races anymore. The reason they gave me:
"It used to be about the cars, and the people who drove them. Now it's cookie-cutter drivers taking cookie-cutter cars around cookie-cutter tracks."
But.......hasn't always been like that? I mean not in the beginning, when it was ran with the bootleggers but then again most of those people weren't alive......maybe.
Well I mean I'm surprised a sport where you only turn left lasted this long.
@@madisonatteberry9720 The video talked about the cars becoming more and more similar over the last 20 years and about a perceived lack of personality in the drivers over that time. The tracks that the series raced on have also become more cookie cutter by way of NASCAR building a handful of 1.5 mile tracks and awarding races to those tracks, plus giving additional races to those tracks at the expense of more entertaining tracks. In the heyday the 1.5 mile tracks were desired as they were big enough to have a huge seating capacity and were build in/near major markets to attract those residents as fans. However, smaller tracks in the more traditional NASCAR fan base (primarily the Carolinas) lost races as a result. This led to a much higher percentage of the races being races on tracks that are more about the car's power and setup than about the driver's skill.
yep
cookie-cutter means what here?
NASCAR became popular not being a traditional "stick and ball" sport, but decided to change their product to be more like "stick and ball" with standardized equipment, playoffs, ect... and people stopped watching.
dAvId HaTeS nAsCaR
Playoff's suck dick sports don't need game 7 moments every year.
David Land coming in with the hot takes
David Land people stopped watching because they saw how pathetic it was to see cars go in circles for 3 hours. Also the inbred trump supporter is declining in numbers.
@@danielhorsman7235 Spec Miata races
Loved NASCAR as a kid. Hate the chase, hate the gimmicks, hate the stages. Hated the Car of Tomorrow. They really blew it.
Same here. Their "playoff" format was the last straw for me. I haven't watch a race since that was implemented.
"stages" was the final straw for me.
They added stages because they didn't want to shorten the races. They hoped that by having two stage finishes they could keep people interested during a three hour plus race.
Not enough of short tracks and most of them had close down
That and half the drivers are so bland that if they're not unlikable, they're entirely forgettable.
Why NASCAR declined in 1 sentence: They decided the racing wasn't good enough and decided to focus on "entertainment" and changed the rules accordingly.
That's the exact same reason that the WWE has gone to shit.
It's about "entertainment" and not about actual wrestling.
I haven't watched a race since Stewart retired.
And I havent watched wrestling since the early 2000s
@@mtlnascarfan Exactly about the entertainment aspect of it. I think the NFL is in the same boat so to speak if they haven't been deemed entertainment already.
Stages are stupid.
Lies again? NASCAR USD SGD
1. Restrictor plate engines
2. Cookie cutter cars
3. Their end-of-the-year Chase point system.
Exactly
Cookie cutter tracks also
Number 3 for me. Haven’t watched NASCAR in over a decade.
Cookie-cutter cars? They've been virtually identical (tube frame with solid rear axle, double-wishbone fronts, controlled-size V8 up front etc) for decades, the only differences being "who's better at mucking around within the rules... and with money... to go faster?" It's not like LMP1 where the rules allowed Nissan to roll up with a front-wheel-drive aircraft carrier in a field of closed-cockpit F1 cars.
I find it pretty funny that Dale never stopped criticizing the Restrictor Plate Engine and he dominated Nascar after it was put. Shows how much he cared about Nascar.
When you can miss 11 races and win the championship something's wrong .
carolina ghost Yeah... that was some serious shit.
How is that possible? How points are counted in nascar, and how many races are in one season?
*cough* Kyle Busch *cough* sorry I had something in my throat
@@kevinhanandi 32 races in a season 22 without a playoff system
@@matthewtgg8491 playoff system just like NBA? In motorsport? That is new for me
Fathers start a business
Son’s build the business
Grandsons wreck the business
Facts
Why are you talking about Star Wars?
You are correct.
I like that
You my friend hit the nail on the head. France Jr is a DIMWITT
I grew up in that awkward era where Nascar was REALLY popular when I was a little kid, but then completely fell into obscurity by the time I was old enough to actually understand the sport. This was very informative!
Another factor: they got rid of a ton of fun smaller tracks and replaced them with generic 1.5 mile ovals that are basically identical, in places that aren’t the south. They even moved the Southern 500 for a while which was nuts
So right! Most everyone I know stopped watching after they stopped having the Southern 500 on labor day weekend.
Eric Cunningham they didn’t move the venue of the southern 500 they moved the date and changed the name. Now it’s changed back
Very true eric
Yep. Their expansion out of the south killed them. I mean they built a track in freaking new hampsire. New England doesn’t give two shits about nascar. They were extremely popular in the south and alienated them by investing all their money into expanding into places that just weren’t that interested in nascar.
You can thank Speedway Motors on that one.
Remember once NASCAR got that HUGE contract the networks ruined the sport with endless commercials.
Well that's America and capitalism for ya. Always gotta be selling you something.
But it commercials truly went up when sponsorship dollars started to decline. Look at cars in 1999. Covered in sponsors. Look at the cars now and its barely nothing. So money has to be made up somewhere.
Everything has commercials
Don't they show the race during the commercials? That's better than every other sport
*coughs* side by side
Despiser Despised who do you think is paying the networks? The companies that are advertising on their networks. More commercials means more money. Same with UA-camrs.
“Safety is boring”
-Company Man 2019
-Emplemon 2019
"Safety is when nothing happens"
Safety is not boring, but cars not being able to pass each other is.
He has a point though. Obviously having your sport be safe is important, but when new safety procedures start having a noticeable impact on the sport then people are going to lose interest because it's not the same thing they enjoyed before. It's like eating a healthier version of your favourite food. Sure it's better for you, but it doesn't taste as good.
It is though in a lot of cases.
what killed the sport was when they tried to take a southern regional sport and make it mainstream. the southern fans went away and the mainstream is only short term, when the fad faded the rest of the fans went as well. nascar did just fine for all them years, why did they have to mess with it.
*The* answer.
You nailed it.
They messed with it because they hate white America
When they couldn’t wave the confederate battle flag they left in a huff
My dad loved nascar which made me love it and we would watch the race every Sunday. Unfortunately he passed away and my interest hasn’t really been there since.
Same thing with baseball for me. Dad loved it. I watched it with him. He can no longer remember players and I just don't watch it anymore.
Exactly!
I’m the opposite. Since my uncle died, I started watching it more
God bless man⚡️who was his favorite racer?
I’m sorry for your loss
One morbid answer is that it got too safe, combined with poor management, retiring stars & legends, less driver personalities, the recession, & ticket prices getting higher & higher.
Bingo
Wild Card 26 the obvious reason is young people don’t care seeing cars go in circles for 3 hours. The traditional fan is dying off which is older inbred people from the south.
Nailed it .
@@cocacola6562 come on no need to insult people just for entertainment, but I agree Nascar isn't very entertaining unless you go to the races it has a great atmosphere and snacks but ok tv it's worse
Wild Card I would rather have it too safe than risk of someone being killed, ask the drivers if they wanna remove the Hans Device.
"Driver, you can't show that type of personality or emotion! Our company logo is on your car and racing outfit!"
Yup, media training killed most sports.
@@sylvestertat1078 true, corperations are the cancer that are sucking our society dry and making it act insane.
They will be the downfall of our civilisation. Lets hope archeologists 3000 years from now will learn from our mistakes.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 You know, for as sad as the thought is, sometimes I do wish our civilization would fall, in a way that leaves humans still alive and debris for archaeologists in the future to study, and even a way to keep knowledge of our current languages so we can retranslate old stuff, because at least their civilization would end up better for it, being able to learn from all our mistakes but from a point of view that's easier to enact change, not being in the middle of things like we all are, unable to really shift anything to be better.
@@Freak80MC Who knows, future civilization might have a more interesting take on Nascar than what it is today. Maybe a religion around cars, with patron deities and mechanic-priests.
@@cdcdrr i think that exists in the movie mad max.
The biggest problem is that NASCAR keeps getting further and further away from actual stock car racing it’s impressive that guys used to go to a dealership buy a car work on it and have it going 200 mph in a couple weeks now it’s $400k cars that no ordinary person could ever get their hands on it’s just not as relatable
I agree! When is a group of people going to start a real “stock car” race? Bring your own real car, weld in a roll cage if you want or not, put it on the track and race others like you! Buckle up in your stock bucket or bench seat and get up on the wheel and drive that Mustang or Camero or Charger!
I haven't followed NASCAR for many years. I remember when a Chevy was a Chevy, a Pontiac was a Pontiac, a Ford was a Ford, and a MoPar was a MoPar. Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, "Fireball" Roberts, Al Unser, A J. Foyt..... and everybody cheated.... Smokey Yunick was the best cheater. Now, it doesn't matter what name is on the car.... they're all cookie-cutter machines that have zero in common with their "brand".
I remember watching a real 1964 Ford galaxy racing around the track. I was 10. It was wild world of sports. It was a real car. The nascars are not real. They suck.
Nascar hasn't been stock since the 60s, this is the worst argument I've ever came across when it comes to this.
@@gregplatt3936 then go to your local track
I liked the "old" NASCAR when Ford, Chevy and Dodge competed. Now all cars are the same with just decals identifying brand name. They should have learned their lesson from IROC.
IROC style cars would make it better. It would certainly make the racing more interesting than Gibbs and Penske winning 25 of the 36 races and the cup because they spent more money in aero testing and R&D. The best actual drivers would compete to win instead of just autopiloting
IROC? Islamic Republic Of Congo?
@@deeas6518 International Race of Champions
Rodd Wayne I'd love to see a challenger running on the track.
Don't forget PONTIAC POWER!
Getting rid of the overly expensive and generic cars would help. Put the stock back in stock car.
Doesn't "stock" mean generic? Lol
@@B3Band Stock means what is "in stock" at a dealership
Nascar died after 350 cid became standard
@EDVERSiTY go take a look at european touring car leagues and then try to pretend stock races cant be entertaining.
@EDVERSiTY theyre stock car races. That was the point of contention.
Boring cars, boring drivers, lack of consistent paint schemes as sponsors, it was at its peak during the “Nextel Cup Series” era and “Sprint Cup Series” has an awful ring to it. NASCAR also changing the points format so many times hasn’t helped. Honestly Championships after 2003 don’t really seem that legit since a playoff format is stupid in Motorsports. They simply lost their identity. Watching old races feels like watching a different sport
man your right. pull up the 1984 firecracker 400 and watch that finish between petty and cale yarbrough. ford vs gm. that was racing.
Thomas Apple the problem with points though is hypothetically you could win all 35 races before the Championship, toss a piston, and lose the championship.
another real shot!! ill agree to you broo goose bumps👊! Nascar has got more lack. to those young fans dnt expect that gen7 is really good.
i cant belive why Nascar leaves out and kicks out Monster energy and this is biggest thing is has got 2 yrs contract? then boom basnished poor Monster energy
For me, it peaked as the Winston cup.
Two things killed it for me. 1, when they moved away from "stock" cars to the increasingly homogenous cars. 2, All the kindergarten playground rules .
Hasn't been stock since the 60s man
@@H0LLOW_PRIV he probably means like every car company dosent have a like different car like in the 90s and before
@@adamthemainman no he's complaining that the cars moved towards being more of a spec car instead of true stock cars which is truly bogus because they we're barely ever stock to begin with.
idk why people complain about the cars not being stock
Which rules changes would you get rid of? Personally i hate stage racing and artificial yellows, pit strategy is an integral part of racing that they are attempting to ruin. I'm mixed on the championship changes, I think some were necessary, but the current championship seems so artificial. Maybe a return to the original Chase format? I don't know, I do like the emphasis on winning, maybe just increase the points for winning? Genuinely interested to hear your response since I'm a lifelong fan.
Car of tomorrow ruined it for me. When I can’t tell the difference between a Ford and Chevy, I’m done. The 2nd thing is the crop of drivers, they are all so bland.
Yep. That, plus the end of bump drafting. Now the drivers are too chicken shit to break out of single-file line until the last 10 laps of the race. It's boring as balls.
It's not that they are bland, some come in with attitude but Nascar wants things so clean that they can't really do anything. Plus most are spoiled so they have nothing to lose so they don't really care
@Jacquan Brown bruh
Done. Sad.
The only good thing was the Wing looked cool
I was a fan in the 70s and 80s. I remember when Dale Earnhardt was promoting his new #15 Wrangler Thunderbird, let that sink in for a minute. In those days you could immediately tell whether the car was a Ford, Chevy, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, etc. In those days the driver had to drive his machine, the cars weren't all the same size, shape, and possess the same aerodynamic properties. The drivers had personalities but they didn't go fist fight other drivers in public like they were misplaced WWF, yes F, wrestlers. The drivers of old learned their craft off the track where today's drivers are either related to somebody in the sport or their family had enough money to finance them in some other racing series such that they could move up, whether that was the initial intention or not. I know I sound like an old coot that thinks everything old is better than the newer counterpart but NASCAR has changed more than what guys like me can adjust to. Thirty or forty years ago the average race fan was a car guy who could relate to the car-guy drivers that were racing. The drivers were almost expected to be low-life boozehound woman-chasers while today's driver seemingly has a public image to maintain with his respectable behavior and charity functions. It's hard to imagine the likes of a Johnson, LaBonte, or Petty without grease on their hands and under their fingernails where it's hard to imagine any of the newer generation of drivers with dirty hands or messed up hair. And maybe that's my point, older drivers/teams seemed like everyday guys that found a way to make a living from their hobby where the newer group seems to be less relatable to the average person.....and maybe that's just what happens when a sport's fan base grows larger than the core enthusiast of the sport. I don't recall many folks discussing driver's motorhomes or millions in the bank, today that stuff is in your face like and episode of the rich and famous.
I wasn't aware the World Wildlife Fund has wrestlers.
You touched on everything. You can look retrospectively and pinpoint exact moments where things got more boring and they all relate to abandoning the original fans and making things more palatable for non-fans. Bullet, meet foot.
@@jlyo1991 Now that PC thuggery has prevailed and we all live in nanny states at the mercy of woke SJW's and so called environmentalists, there isnt a place for NASCAR to thrive anymore, let alone old school NASCAR.
@@SamBrickell back in the day the WWE was the WWF
"Back in my day..." 😆
*_To be honest, Mario Kart 64 is one of the most interesting sports that race fans wanted to see._*
Mario kart esports
It shortens the races while adding the personality, track distinctiveness, and player interaction that NASCAR largely (if not completely) lacks.
@@timothymclean what?
So what your suggesting is Daytona USA
@@TheJingles007 I was pointing out advantages Mario Kart has over NASCAR. The races are shorter, and detaching the race from reality allows racecar and -track designs that would be absurdly dangerous (if not impossible) IRL. Also kart combat, which lets the players interact in a way that new fans can recognize and understand.
"THE FRANCE FAMILY!" That is the reason for NASCAR decline! Stage Races? Cookie cutter tracks, Cars having to be same as a cookie cutter car, Martinsvile a DIRT TRACK? I am 69 years old, and grew up watching auto racing. And after I got married my wife and I every year went to Taladaga and watched a race in person, and if I had to work on a Sunday, the VCR was set to record and no one better tell me the outcome of the race till I watched it! In short, NASCAR was my sport, Earnhart, Elliot, Wallace, Richard Petty, real men real drivers, They The France Family, RUINED the sport! A friend I used to work with ask me last year which race we were going to go to Alabama and watch, I told him HELL NONE! HELL I DO NOT EVEN WATCH NASCAR ON TV ANY MORE! THE SPORT HAS GONE INTO THE CRAPPER!
The "France" family ? What the hell man....
What killed it for me...
1. Lack of personalities i.e. there was no one left to root for after Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Jr. left
2. Stages was the nail in the coffin.
Mid-late 90's and early-mid 00's when I was growing up as a kid was my favorite era of drivers. They were all so different and interesting. I just caught the race this past week on tv and I had no clue who half of the field were the other half were newcomers 10 years ago that I had no interest in and I think the only driver left that I liked out of 40+ people was Kevin Harvick.
Exactly this. I remember turning on a NASCAR race a little while ago only to switch away because I didn't understand the whole stages thing and didn't wanna bother to learn. Racing is a simple concept. Whoever can go x distance in the fastest amount of time wins. I don't get why you need to add on to that.
Kenneth Bolte whoa didn’t know those guys left ! Been ages since I watched it
I agree 100%, I couldn't have put it better myself !
@@minecaftpenguin The Stages are a throwback to short track racing. It's broken up into three stages each with bonus points for the playoffs, stage 1, and 2 are usually 1\4th the race distance, and stage 3 is the final half of the race. Not hard to understand. The only thing that i think kills it is the caution at the end of each stage.
I think NASCAR creating all the artificial cautions is worse than the stage era. But how else are you going to give the top 3 or 4 drivers a chance to make their cars better without getting lapped too many times? 99% of debris cautions are dubious at best
Back in the day when the first rule of NASCAR was if you aren't cheating you aren't trying hard enough the sport was in it's prime. Early 70's to the mid 90's was the best. Drivers who can and did work on their own cars. Innovate and dominate was the rule of the day. The car of tomorrow turned me into the fan of yesterday.
Earnhardt Wasn't Called
"The Intemidator" For Nothing &
TonyStewart Carried THAT Torch!
Will Ferrell made a movie on them at the peak, now *nobody cares.*
It's weird with me with that movie I hate Talladega Nights with a passion because it's so stupid but I love it the movie would have been so much better if Ricky just said I love Crepes which they're actually pretty good had one and worked with Girard but nope drama simple as that
Edit two scenes in that movie I always skip can't get through them hate them whatever that dumb dinner scene and the hospital after Ricky's big wreck where Carly thinks he's dying so stupid
@Noah Wetzel I'm not starting anything
same as those shopping MALL's in US plenty of them sitting there - empty built in 1970's or 1980's
@Noah Wetzel oh
@@1sonyzz two words online shopping more convenient people are too lazy these days
I'm British, I've never even seen a race but reading the comments it obvious what the problem is! NASCAR has moved too far from it's roots. People saw it as more than just car racing, its culture.
Funnily enough, some American owners of English football clubs just tried to eradicate the culture from football (you probably call it soccer) with the creation of the superleague and move to the American sports franchise model. They failed miserably and heads rolled in boardrooms right across Europe.
The moral is:- They don't care about your sport, just your money!
I am an American, and I can tell you I agree on both Nascar and Soccer.
No one really pays attention to either one of those in the US. If it's not NBA or NFL the majority of people don't watch it
@@seanc.5310 America in a nutshell!
Yeah just like the Nashville country music industry trying to appeal to an audience that’s not their audience. Country music fans don’t want mommies boys in skinny jeans that rap and all sound the same! Country music is about story-telling, not some drum beat mix of alcohol, trailer parks, and date nights! Oh and they throw pick up trucks in too, cause you know, they are kinda obligated to it in their marketing scheme.
@@sevinstorey4365 you can say that again
I lived in Richmond, VA when Dale died. After that every car on the road had a "3" sticker on their cars. Now you never see them.
Not only that you almost never see NASCAR stickers on cars. My all time favorite was the car I saw with a ton of Jeff Gordon stickers, and also a gay pride sticker
@Noah G.
Beat me to it! 😂
I miss the rivalries.. Part of what makes a sport exciting isn't just the teams or drivers you love.. It's those you love to hate.. And as a Gordon fan, I had mad respect for Earnhardt but man oh man did I love it whenever Gordon beat his ass 😂
@@KaiDub24 And years ago the rivalry between Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough.
@Noah G. Fuck off.
It's not the 90s anymore, grow up.
Loss of “Stock” in stock car, and stupid rules that made NASCAR the WWE of motorsport.
When did NASCAR stopped using stock cars (even if modified) for racing and switched to those tubular chasis things pretending to be stock cars?
Cars haven't been "stock" since about 1965...
Bill Steinbach III Technically true. But the area of the Bill Elliot aerobirds still looked exactly like the cars sold to the public.
@@mrpalaces They started that back in the 1980's.
Nikki S. That is true
NASCAR has lost its personality! The drivers have no personality, the tracks have no personality and the cars have no personality. Too many cookie cutter tracks and cookie cutter drivers!
Well said.
All of the things you mentioned that don't have personality except one...aren't persons...ur an idiot
Straight line racing has came back with a vengeance and is not going anywhere for sometime.
KBBHPro thanks to kyle busch
If a driver tries to stand out one or off the track “ They are fines,suspended and mitigated!
I think the biggest nail in the coffin was changing the way the championship worked. Using the chase and other playoff systems was a huge mistake. I don't understand why the driver who has the most points can't just win like every other motorsport. People got mad at dominance but, why shouldn't the best and most consistent driver just win. Especially at the end of the season when one crash can mean the end of your entire year, even if it's with some backmarker car.
I have been a NASCAR fan since the 70's. I stopped watching it probably around 2010 and haven't followed it at all, other than cursory checks once in awhile, for probably the last 5 years. Here is my take:
1. The current format is NOT racing. It's a bunch of potty breaks for the drivers of the vehicles as well as a chance for the network to squeeze in a few more commercials.
2. The drivers are whiny and succumb to the "it's everyone else's fault but mine" mentality whenever ANYTHING goes wrong.
3. People used to care about who drove what. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Plymouth, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Mercury. Cars that were recognizable and actually looked like something you could go down to the dealership and purchase. Today's cars are nothing more than templates with pretty much only stickers and the shape of the rear side windows to tell them apart. To that end, I believe the manufacturers (Dodge for example) gave up because they were tired of NASCAR continually changing the rules for bodies.
4. The announcers. Darrell Waltrip in particular. A 4th rate announcer, a 2nd rate driver and a 1st rate asshole. I couldn't be happier he's gone. Annoying and biased. Good riddance.
5. The points system. A championship should ONLY be for a driver who is the best and most consistent over the course of a season and not just for 10 (or whatever it is) races. It's simply an "everybody gets a trophy" mindset.
There are more reasons, but I think I've made a point. I now watch the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship Series. It's basically Australian NASCAR. Check that out for far more interesting racing.
Totally agree. Especially 1-3
And 5 lol
I think Dodge left because it was becoming to expensive
boogity boogity boogity down that backstraight! LOL, sticking a finger down my throat.
Dodge is still in the Nascar Pintys series. Just saying...
Honey, let me tell you about OLD NASCAR...
There were these dynasties of drivers- the Pettys, the Earnhardts, the Allisons, the Yarbroughs, the Waltrips, the Wallaces, etc.- Fathers and sons and brothers and cousins, generations of them. It was a very genuine, connected business. There was room for real talent and real creativity. I used to work in NASCAR merchandising. I can remember when you'd call Dale Earnhardt's licensing company about returning some t-shirts, and one of his kids would answer the phone. Now, it's all corporate. You don't have those great families involved any more. There are no outstanding personalities to watch on the track. It's all the same guy, driving the same car, around the same track, and who cares about any of them? There is zero individuality. Today's NASCAR is anathema to it's origins.
Dale Jr. was SMART, to get OUT.
Fantastic comment. That's it in a nutshell!
Great point.
Just had to bring up no Talent
Gordon fans quit watching when the chase cost him 3 championships
Bay Area Adventures you got that right, Jeff was the best thing to happen to NASCAR, they killed the goose that laid the golden egg, to put into
southern lingo.
Jeff Gordon was what tiger woods was to golf. And outsider winning shit ton of competitions.
That's when I left. And also Jimmie's string of consecutive championships. Not his fault, he played the game like everyone did.
I would say the best personalities on the track were Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. Once the two of them started to fall of and become less relevant, people stopped caring as much. It also got more boring when Jimmy Johnson kept winning. It would have been fine if he had more personality, but he is just too boring a person to carry a sport.
Gordon fans were going to quit watching when he was done, no matter what. By the time he retired, the sport was unrecognizable.
Lost interest when they switched the points system. Personally I like when the most consistent driver for the entirety of the season gets rewarded a championship. Feels like technology kind of took over too much as well when it comes to the cars. Doesn't seem to be all about how good the driver is but how much money each team has. Hendrick for example vs the wood brothers.
Got boring when the cars no longer resembled real cars.
The cars look exactly like the real ones, I don’t know what you’re talking about
@@CaptainWoogie06 that's the point. why see cars racing that looks like one you can get from the dealer.
Brandon Plaisted I don’t know about you, but if I see a regular Toyota Camry going 200+ on a track you better believe that’s gonna get more attention than some exotic car
Makes no sense because at the sports most popular the cars weren’t close to street cars at all
And when the drivers quit resembling real racers.
"The car with the chevy decals, passed the car with the ford decals, but couldn't catch the car with the toyota decals".
That's the issue: no more stock in stock car racing!
Back in the 60's, 70's, 80's besides the drivers, people cheered on the cars also. It was called brand loyalty.
Try using camaros, mustangs, and challengers in "stock form", along with production based engines.
I mean technically manufacturers still make the motors for thier brand cars. It just has to be within spec, but Chevy still builds the motors for Chevy cars, ect
@@iillestrs2153 Doesn't really matters if the company makes the motors, when an engine has to be within specs with all others well you kinda have the same engine in every car. The system isn't even flexible everything has to be within specs or else you can't compete. That really takes away from every sport not only NASCAR.
The GT3 format of SRO has successfully created a production car based system that's both cost-effective and diverse fields of cars thanks to an effective Balance of Power system and a Homologation requirement for every car. Perhaps take a few notes from those fellas since there's about 20 racing series that use the system they have.
The challengers would have to be changed to Chargers because challengers are rather brick-like.
Does Toyota build an OHV STOCK PRODUCTION engine? Hell no
There’s something about the way you present your content that just gets me hooked. Love your videos man. Keep it up!
Growing up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I feel like I grew up on the best era of the sport. The cars, the rivalries, the tracks, the video games, all were just so exciting. I’m grateful for that part of my upbringing, but the dominance of the sport in the 2000’s by one or two elite racing teams robbed the chemistry of it all.
Lost interest in Nascar in my late teens (2004ish) when I discovered WRC/Rally and Road Course racing with more realistic cars.
WRC better.. in all aspects.. challenging courses, endurance, driver skills n drama too.. esp the horrific crash..
I like DTM. They don't try to look like stock cars. They should try that formula in USA.
Racing around in circles is boring.
WRX too, where bashing into another car hard enough to concuss is simply standard driving procedure.
@@jansencunin and they have plenty of road race course they could use. Not in Nascar I agree but as I was saying, show us some tuned Camaros, Stangs, Hellcat Challengers. Don't try to make em look like stupid stock cars. We know they are not. I'm sure the Japos would jump in a serie with their new NS-X and Supras, even Mercedes, Audis and BMWs...
I used to watch NASCAR....now I watch grass grow, because it's more exciting.
R no need for all caps. it's not that exciting..
R something tells me if you used to find nascar worth watching, you wouldn’t say it’s like watching grass grow.
Why lie? You’ve never been interested in nascar. And that’s okay but no reason to make shit up
and yet here you are watching nascar youtube videos??? quit lying, you watch nascar and still cheer it on.
I watched this UA-cam video because I'm interested in the way that others see the sport I once enjoyed die! It is as boring as soccer really!. Restricter plates killed it forever
@@weeezeeewee4780 dude, nascar has ALWAYS been boring. It's driving in a circle, over and over and over and over, etc, etc, etc, etc. Maybe as people get older they are now seeing it for what it is.
The personality in nascar is gone...
Remember how they treated Jimmy Spencer..???
Nascar turned it's back on the common man..
The end...
Tom Maryott jimmy spencer was a moron , good riddance
Agree that NASCAR turned its back on the common man, who used to fill the stands. I started going to races in the mid 1970s and you had access to just about the entire track. Then corporate sponsors came along and started buying up tickets and handing them out to employees who really didn’t care about racing. They started blocking access to different parts of the stands and raising prices so they could have the upper crust separated from the “peons”. Wouldn’t want to mingle with the riff raff. The drivers had personalities and rivalries and the racing was exciting. As the older drivers retired, in came no name drivers with zero personality. To make things worse they have screwed with the rules to supposedly make it more competitive. I hate the stages of the races. It’s like giving trophies for participation.
@@daleeasterwood2683 this! Stage racing doesnt reward skill or power but who happens to be the top 5 cars during the last 3 laps of a stage. It's about luck more than anything. 10 years ago Joey Logano would not have won a championship. Stage racing made that possible.
I live in North Carolina, deep in Nascar country and I couldn't name 5 current Nascar drivers if I tried. The 80s and 90s were my peak years for Nascar. I've only watched one full race since the day Dale Sr died.
@@daleeasterwood2683 Welcome to Capitalism and 'the Wisdom of the Free Market'. ;-p
We need the Whinston Cup back.
A young woman in a bikini giving me. 2 packs of winston's in the parking lot kind of appeals to me.
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of NASCAR. But I think another contributor to its fall is other motorsports, like drifting, Formula Drift, grassroots drifting, smaller circuit racing, time attack, etc. Most smaller events are so much easier to attend and often times much much cheaper. That's my opinion anyways. I may be wrong about these things.
Nah, I think you hit the nail on the head. There are just better events to go to as a young car enthusiast, with more interesting cars and more interesting activities, that are actually accessible to the average car nut. They just aren't often televised widely.
You nailed it. Not everybpdy can just build or buy a NASCAR spec race car; the engines and related systems alone cost in excess of $100,000. But there's nothing stopping you from attending a track day, going to Gridlife, taking a racing school, and so on. It's much easier now to get in the seat and get on track yourself. Hell you can go out and buy a Miata for 3000$ and have the time of your life. Or a Z06, 1LE, 370Z, GTR, GT350R, and so many other cars. I'd rather race myself than watch someone else anyway.
I'd rather watch MotoGP or F1 than "Turning left for 3 hours".
I am in the minority here but I think nasscar is a lot more entertaining then formula 1, but nothing beats a live show
you're not wrong by the cost either. Most places have a dirt track probably an hour or 2 away or live in a city with a dirt track, my local dirt track brings the World of Outlaws Late Models and Sprint Cars in every year. It's $30-$40 plus concessions for the night. In the end you get about 3-4 hours of racing and action including hot laps, qualifying, heats, last chance, features and the intermission break before the features begin. And after the races you can head down to the pits and chat with the drivers who are still around after the races are over. Now I don't know if that's entirely allowed at NASCAR events but I highly suspect additional money needs to be spent to get that access.
Now if you limit yourself correctly and depending on concession costs you can probably spend at most $60 on one night. When the World of Outlaws aren't in town races cost $20 (or $17 if you buy tickets early). Now tickets at Pocono Raceway start at $45 plus any additional fees on top of that when purchasing the actual ticket. Now factor in parking, concessions, travel costs including a hotel if needed. It starts adding up real quick. Chances are at local dirt tracks, tickets don't have extra fees, parking is either very cheap or nothing at all, and concessions likely won't cost you a kidney.
All in all, the cost of the event is driving a lot of people away as well, from a sport that started with a motto, "Drive it on Sunday, buy it on Monday".
So doc from cars illegally smuggled alcohol....cool
Wasn't that brought out in cars 3?
Yeah the same time period (i think) on dirt roads and the pictures even look like cars 3: 2:00
Doc was a 50s car, prohibition had long ended. But in Cars 3, we meet other racers who knew Doc, who became slow and obsolete because of Doc. And without going out and saying it, because children, they trained McQueen and indirectly Cruz, as if they were smuggling booze just like in old times. One of the cars was a 30s model, and obviously did just this.
@@UmmYeahOk they outright said it in the scene where they were driving through the night
so doc didn't smuggle alcohol but the other older characters he replaced did?
I used to attend 2-4 races a year. I had a motorhome to attend, some tracks made it less friendly for us, so I sold it. TV rights, used to be able to watch without having a top tier cable package, also start times all over the place. New, entitled drivers. Constant rule changing and boring racing, mandatory cautions?
Mike Kubican wait. Mandatory cautions? My dad STILL watches. We all got into it in about 1979. I’m SHOCKED to hear that my dad is sitting through mandatory cautions. WTAF is that about???
Holy Toledo. I was a HUGE Darrell Waltrip fan. Still watched after he was gone, but round the time Earnhardt died, I was mostly out. I can’t believe the crazy changes Brian France instituted. He was just in over his head - most people would be, I imagine.
@@KristiLEvans1 its what they are calling "Stage" racing. The races are being broken up into three "stages" where they throw a caution flag at the end of those stages and then they decided to give them extra points for winning those stages
@@aBamaMelmsie Love the idea of stage racing, hate the mandatory cautions. I still watch because the racing is fairly good most weeks but I have to bite my tongue nearly every week with those cautions. They just need to award the points and let the racers keep racing.
Amen!
Been watching nascar every year since I was born, and its amazing how well you nailed this. I've been saying for years that the safety is getting in the way of the racing, racing is dangerous so accept it or leave. And yes, the chase/playoff system is absolutely terrible and I think everybody knows its all just a big gimmick now. The drivers are pretty much vanilla now with everyone needing to behave a certain way for sponsors and to be "role models" for viewers. I for one can't stand where the sport is now and its only getting worse with the 2022 regs. But also, my dad did stop watching after Earnhardt died being an Earnhardt fan, that was definitely a big blow.
The main reason I stopped watching: The Chase. Stopped watching when all these rules for the chase were implemented. It's so dumb and gets worse every year in my opinion. I really do not feel like the best driver of the season wins, it's a garbage system.
Now they are getting political with that black lives matter car 🤦🏻♂️
While "the chase" was bad, and it's subsequent variations were worse, what lost many people, including myself, is the extremely stupid "stage racing". If you want to award points at intervals throughout the event, that's one thing. But when you throw a yellow at the end of a "stage", you are affecting the flow of the race, the strategy, and the ultimate outcome. The other rule changes were also detrimental, GWC, "lucky dog" etc, but it was the stage nonsense that did it for me.
@@johnjones5354 Well said!
Gordon would have like 7 championships if not for the Chase!
@@williama.3652 there's also a Trump car 🤷♂️
As a NASCAR UA-camr watching this video you hit it right on the head.
The NASCAR UA-cam community is gonna love this video!
Thank you for making this!
Black Flags Matter I had a feeling you guys would show up
Can't wait to hear about this tonight on the podcast
Dang the whole NASCAR community is showing up here
In before Eric Estepp 🏁
Get him on the podcast!
I'm a younger guy (24), always been into cars, I know a lot about mechanics and working on cars
And yet...I've NEVER found Nascar entertaining! Watching 40+ cars (that are all the same tightly regulated cookie-cutter template) go in a circle for hours on end, on T.V... it's just not interesting IMO
@I know you are right, And I just got owned but: HUH??!! What part of "I've always been into cars, and know a lot about working on cars" did you not understand?!
It's because of restrictor plates and safety regulations. It used to be more exciting.
In the US IMSA is a much better motorsport IMO it has all the driver talent and new works teams seem to join every year, the races are still long but the multi class system thats always existed in sports car racing makes it more appealing, to a younger audience the teams testing a lot of green tech also helps
@I know you are right, And I just got owned but:
Are you talking to yourself in the mirror again?
You're offended by someone voicing a reasonable opinion. You don't even see the irony in calling someone else a snowflake.
@K W Yeah, if I grew up back then...I probably would have been into it. But I wasn't around for those better more exciting days
My son and i attended the Winston / Memorial Day race as Dale Earnhardt supporters (from Chicago and never been to a race) 20-yrs ago. Holy Cow - what a “hoot”! As we walked to enter the race every racers has his own promotional trailer hawking every kind of item. Then pre-race going to the infield to see the cars, meet the pit crew & racers still working the car - Dale Earnhardt standing around car talking to his guys - another holy cow! And that dastardly Jeff Gordon! It was a great day! Son now 40+, will never forget the excitement. I think NASCAR forgot their roots and sold out to Madison Ave. They use to be counter-culture / bad-boy / southern / kick--ass event. They weren’t a fancy event for NYC types - it represented true southern heritage! So little of that left in America!
Enjoyed NASCAR. I am from the south. Growing up, it was college football, Atlanta Braves and NASCAR.
Over time, stopped watching NASCAR.
Why?
1. Got boring. Not the racing itself. But the people who won championships. Jimmy Johnson was as bland as a bag full of salt less popcorn.
2. Drivers racing the system, not the tracks.
3. Name/sponsorship confusing. Part of the charm is identifying with the product that was on your favorite drivers car. I liked Mark Martin, so I only used the oil on the hood of his car in my car. Then cars got multiple sponsorships. I did not identify with ED treatment at 18 years old. Then the name of the actual championship. I just thought it was called “Winston” because some bootlegger names Winston was an owner or something. They changed the name of the trophy a few times after that. Would be like if the NFL changed the name of their championship, branding matters.
4. Expense. The price of going to a race became too much. You could take your whole family, then you soon where priced out.
5. Championship became to complicated.
Aaron Knowles Thanks for writing all that for me! That is spot on a description of me too.
Jody Claborn Thank you. I never missed a race when I was a kid. Over the last ten years I have maybe watched two races. Still watch baseball, and that is a bit of a tedious event. But they have basically stayed the same from World War II. NASCAR seems to change every three years.
Pretty much nailed it there...
Jimmie Johnson’s streak killed the sport.
"I'm gonna race so my team can win."
Fuck your team. One hero one car. If your team needs you to come in not first to max them out then it's not a Race anymore.
Didn't see Dale wanting to lose a Race for anyone. But that's not the Meta anymore.
Good video, but one other factor is the ticket prices soaring. For a largely blue collar audience, tickets being 60 dollars is crazy to watch cars drive
But they went down from the good ol days
We have so much entertainment nowadays, nascar us going to be ibsoletet
$60?????.....
That's cheap.....you might want to double that
Maybe for the best seats. I can get tickets for both races at Dega this October for 50. MIS at 39, Kentucky I paid 49.
How long have you been going??? When NASCAR was at its peek Bristol night race was over 1500.00 and impossible to get. Harder than Masters tickets
*I used to be a MAJOR NASCAR enthusiast..,*
*...but then **_everything changed when the 2010s attacked._*
Thanks Obama...
Oh god no that was a joke!
@@thetman0068 Come to my chat.
@Deplorabology I think NASCAR's done a good enough job fucking itself over; it didn't need Obama outlawing anything.
Competition cautions 10 laps into a race when you have an equally silly stage break 10 laps later, Watkins Glen....NASCAR used to be about endurance, and the best built cars would win. Now, with all the breaks, the audience gets gets bored, switches over to dog training shows or reality whatever shows. Bring back the 500 mile, no break, constant, all out racing, and fans will return.
We don’t care anymore
I stopped going regularly when we lost our races at North Wilksboro, and Rockingham.
Ed Walton been to both of those tracks. May they Rest In Peace.
Winston Salem still has bowman grey but it’s rapidly decaying
Haven’t been in years
I grew up in Surry and Yadkin county area. When I learned that NASCAR originated in North Carolina but then they decided to abandon their roots, I was completely disappointed. I wish I could still love the sport but I just can't anymore.
That right now I went to.....
"Oh yeah I used to like racing but then I became more environmentally conscious."
-No-one ever.
The people who care about the environment would never even get into NASCAR in the first place.
I think the point was more or less along the lines of new people coming into the sport. As older people dropped off, newer would come in and keep the numbers up. Due to environmental concerns with the newer generations they stopped coming to the sport in the numbers they used to. I get what you are saying, but it just misses the point I think.
Actually that's me but not NASCAR, Formula 1 and Rallying. But I changed. Would you believe I now drive a Tesla, it's true.
That's not just funny but very true!!
Well you know this millennial who put this video together doesn't know any better.
I’d say NASCAR’s troubles started with the death of Dale Earnhardt
and all the commercialization!
btw, dale#3 is my 7th cousin.
No safety is what killed it. Sad buttrue. People are animals deep down and they want the chance to see someone hurt. It's why UFC and football are huge. The danger. Baseball has no danger and it's why its dying as well. Football starts to add more and more safety and the ratings have declined a bit. People are just twisted and wanna see a trainwreck.
that's an excuse
Thomas C. You are right. Athens Greece, public executions in medieval Europe, Indigenous Central/South American Indians throwing people in volcanoes, etc. Violence has always been an exciting pass time for our ancestors and it’s still is today for a lot of people.
@@albertwesker5674 why do you think people watch pro wrestling , it's violent
I used to watched it Sunday morning when i was suffering from a hangover. I learn something about cars while watching it.
I thin the biggest reason for the decline is that cars are more complex and people do not bother with them. There is a lack of appreciation for how cars work and thus an interest in racing them. The next is the lack of strong personalities. You can't just watch it. You have know the drivers. Dale, Richard petty, Waltrip, etc....
Still to this day most people have broadcast TV and if you haven't noticed cable TV is going down to who wants to pay $120 a month to watch commercials all day
I watch everything online free I don't pay to stream anything. Movies, music, t.v. series all free I pay $30 a month for 10mps of bandwidth that's it. I can find all the shows and movies that Netflix and Hulu offer I can see any movie even the ones in theaters a week after their release. UA-cam is the only offender of advertisements at this point.
Same here my dad pays $95 for dish each month and i am like can we just have Over The Air or use Netflix more. Today's show are 🗑.
@@WilliamHollinger2019 I quit watching television awhile ago. Too little entertainment value across the board.
the latest TV deal where NBC was awarded the second half of the season and ESPN didn't even get a chance to bid on it. After that we got stage races and a lot more races on NBCSN hoping NASCAR fans would buy a bigger cable bundle to help offset the cost of their TV deal, instead NASCAR fans turned off the TV
Wow, I’m looking at the prices you folks pay for cable, that’s pretty cheap compared to the $260 a month I had to pay because I was living in a co-op and couldn’t get much of a choice on what to watch
There is one thing that would solve many of these problems: switching to production engines.
The series has lost all relevance. They haven’t been using anything close to stock cars since about the late 80s, but CoT was kind of the last nail in the coffin. The bodies were still partially based on production cars up to that point, even if the drivetrains were completely different (in most cases, we’re talking about longitudinal FR layouts underneath cars masquerading as transverse FFs).
In similar series in other parts of the world, like Australia’s V8 Supercars and Germany’s DTM, they still use vehicles largely based on production cars, and their drivers aren’t dropping like flies. To be fair, they’re able to use real cars partly because their own domestic brands still make big FRs (in Australia’s case, they still were until a couple years ago), but NASCAR could at least go back to production-based engines. All three constructors have perfectly good V8s ready to replace the antiquated units NASCAR is currently using. They could modify them slightly to improve durability (using titanium rods and whatnot), but keep the power output at stock levels.
What would be the benefits of doing this, you ask? There are three main ones, and they address many of the concerns in the video.
-Relevance: There used to be a saying, “what wins on Sunday sells on Monday”. Manufacturers would build faster cars just so that they could be used in NASCAR, and if they proved successful, people would often come in to their local dealership to take a look at the cars. Even if they didn’t drive home in a homologation special like the Plymouth Superbird, they still might buy another car on the lot. As I explained before, modern NASCAR “stock” cars are anything but. Nobody cares if the winning Ford had a sticker on the front that said “Fusion”, it has nothing to do with the boring family sedan for sale. If they were to at least go back to production engines, the salesman could explain that the engine in the Camaro you’re looking at just won at Daytona. If you ended up buying it, you and your friend who bought a Mustang might start watching the races to see who picked the winning team. It’s a win-win for NASCAR and the manufacturers.
-Ease of entry: Everyone who knows anything about NASCAR knows about the big arguments that flared up when Japanese manufacturer Toyota decided to throw their hat in the ring (never mind that there were plenty of foreign cars in the early days of the series, but I digress). What most don’t know, however, is all of the trouble that Toyota went through to make it happen. Because the other constructors were using engines based on designs from the 60s as per the rules, and Toyota didn’t have any pushrod V8s in their back catalog to work with, they had to design one from scratch. Besides being ridiculous on the face of it, designing a 1960s engine in the mid 2000s built to withstand the kind of abuse it had to wasn’t cheap. If one could simply drop an existing engine in a NASCAR body, more manufacturers would be interested in the series because it wouldn’t be as expensive. Volkswagen and Honda have toyed with getting involved, for example, but balked at the cost. It would be cheaper for the racing teams too, as they could use more off-the-shelf parts. This might get more teams off the ground, and give the family dynasties something to worry about. A series with more constructors and new teams is much more interesting to watch. I say take it a step further and allow them to use either a naturally-aspirated V8 or a turbo V6. Who wouldn’t want to see a race involving Ford’s Coyote, Toyota’s UR, Chevrolet’s LT, the turbo V6 from the Acura NSX, Dodge’s latest Hemi, the turbo V6 from the Nissan GT-R, and one of Volkswagen’s V8 Audi engines?
-Environment: NASCAR was still using unleaded fuel until 2007 and carburetors until 2012. They also switched to an ethanol blend in 2011. Their environmental record has improved, but using modern production engines would be another big step in the right direction because they already have to meet federal emissions standards.
Very well said👍👌
Yes, very well said, even though I only read the first two paragraphs.
Great points.
great points. What about -Entertainment? Not just watching drivers turn left for 3 hours, but relaxing the rules so you see more aggressive driving, more fighting outside and in the pits. people like conflict. NASCAR is too "sanitary" now its just boring. aside from the winner and crashes, 95% of the race you already know whats going to take place.
DTM cars share no parts with their production "counterparts". So are the Japanese Super GT 500 series. Those cars are prototype racers playing dress up as road car variants.
I used to watch Nascar as a kid, mostly because my family watched it. I remember seeing Dale crash and it was pretty sad. We watched for a while after that but then eventually stopped. I’ve tried to get back into it recently, but with the different stages or rounds or whatever they call it, it’s just kind of boring. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a whole race from start to finish
Come check out INDYCAR. There’s some great racing there!
@@devinmackey83 INDYCAR is just as boring as NASCAR for the same reason. It's the same 4 turns over and over.
Must not of watched INDYCAR lately because most races are road courses with multiple right and left turns
@@devinmackey83 then watch F1. It's better in every single way to IndyCar
F1 is just the same car winning every race. In what way is that better?
It's interesting to notice the difference with Formula One, which by contrast has seen the average age of its fans getting lower and currently has one of the youngest audience of any major sport
Drive to survive helped with that
@@junioradult6219massively
They got away from their Southern roots and it backfired on them. I'm not saying they can't have tracks outside the South, but its primarily fanbase was always in the South, and that's where it made its most money.
Car of tomorrow, no racing to the flag, overpricing, cookie cutter tracks, no short track month, stage racing, there are hundreds of reasons, basically - corporate greed.
New stupid ass rules
Corporate f's up everything
OMG stage racing...i tried to watch the daytona 500 and couldn't put up with it. Done with it.
Stage racing was what caused my exit from the sport.
Theyre all ovals. Whats this cookie cutter shit youre talking about? Its not Formula 1.
Been a fan for over 40 years, until 2017, when everything really changed.
Nascar was WAY bigger in the mid-late 90's especially with the help from the Tom Cruise/Mike Rooker "Days of Thunder" movie.
The DECLINE is specifically due to Nascar changing the rules from an actual start-to-finish points-race, to a "staged game-style" format.
Meaning, no longer is it a 200-lap, start-to-finish race, they STOP 3 or more times during the race to bunch people up and so everyone can pit.
No more strategy, no more speed, no more fun, no more fans in the stands:(
NOW its the insane amount of wokeness that has killed ratings and fan enjoyment and the sport in general. Such a shame.
Izzy Long doesn’t help their most famous racer died years ago, NASCAR pretty much died with Earnhardt, people already lost interests when restrictor plates were required
@@elderrusty541 but Gordon was the superstar by then
For me, I stopped watching when Gordon stopped racing. I really disliked the playoff system but I kept watching as long as Gordon was competing. I hate how the new rules essentially stole 3 titles from him. I was really hoping Truex Jr would win the title in 2015 without winning a single race to show the officials how stupid the playoff systems is. IMO
Yeah, I used to love watching NASCAR with my dad back when Davey Allison was alive, I cried when he died in that helicopter crash. Even though I still felt back then that the cars were not what I wanted to see because they were custom and not something you could see on the road, but I still liked it. I can't stand it nowadays the cars are identical, and when watching a race it's so obvious they're trying to make it look like a football game or a video game with all this animated crap, bouncy sound meters, fake gauges wiggling around the screen and I won't even go into the POINTS. So in short the cars have gotten more boring, and the points are boring. Coming in 1st is winning, this isn't a video game where a trick move gets you 50 more points and you suddenly win instead of finishing 5th.
Abztraktt but ask anyone who knows anything about nascar to name a racer, I’d bet money most of them would name Earnhardt
I'm almost 50, and have been a fan since I was a kid. My first race to see in person, Richard Petty was still driving. But I lost interest around the car of tomorrow era. The wings were so absurd that it almost single handedly made me lose interest. But I stuck it out for a few more years, until so many rules changes, and changing up the points system made it almost impossible to follow anymore. I was a huge fan, went to both races here at Texas every year, but have not even watched an entire race in about a decade. As for the issue with new fans, the anti-corporate sentiment that is so strong with younger generations likely has a lot to do with that. Corporate sponsorship, being on display the way it is, is what makes the sport work. It's also going to be a detractor for many younger potential fans.
Bill France turned it over to Brian France. That’s what happened.
And it seems Brian's departure has changed nothing. The course is set.
I quit watching when the sport manufactured TV timeouts, better known as "debris on the track" (cut to commercial for 10 minutes).
They got to me in the late '80s. Debris on the track, every single race with ten laps to go. Bunch the field, shootout for five laps, negate the previous 3 hours of driving. Last race I watched, the commentator said "look, there actually is debris out there." Probably got fired.
I started watching NASCAR in the 70's and lost interest when they started the new "Chase" format. It's not 'racing' anymore.
Dang
I grew up wanting to be a race car driver, I told everyone about it. I’m 50 now and Life happened. I didn’t make my race car driver dream work, so I watched it. A lot, until I wasn’t able to recognize all of my favorite drivers. Numbers changed and paint schemes weren’t consistent. The coverage was better than ever, but the cars and drivers were hard to follow.
Next was The chase, it was designed wrong from the beginning. Here’s how it should have been: only top 3 get season trophy’s. at the last race, whoever has the most wins. if 2 drivers have the same #, then a shootout occurs. For first, second, and third. 5 laps.
The races are too long, they need to be more shorter races.
They penalize drivers and teams so hard that there no room for a guy similar to Earnhardt. He and his team wouldn’t make it now.
The cars are safer, I’m ok w that. But let the Toyotas and Chevys look different, come freakin on. Keep them safe, but make them different. Let the manufacturers decide the shapes.
If there was one thing that tipped the scales for me it was the evil stepmother that took everything away from Jr. Everyone knew what his dad wanted, but she wasn’t having it. She will be going to hell for her actions.
More iroc style races. Stock cars. How about a Tesla race? Corvette race? All cars that race MUST BE the same cars SOLD AT DEALERSHIPS.
More short tracks and road courses, dirt. Change it up.
LET THE RACE IN THE RAIN WITH RAIN TIRES! I stopped watching it 10-12 years ago.
There’s more, but this is too long. Happy trails all.
Give me a motorsport with simple rules, cars based on cars you can buy at a dealership, no convoluted points chase, and drivers with personality who are allowed to tell it like it is. Oh wait, I'm describing NASCAR of the 60s to the 90s.
tcr mate
Same with f1 and DTM.
It's just to commercialised now. Completely sanatised and gimicky to try to appeal to the masses.
Stoped watching those as well around 2007 after 15 years of following and reading everything to do with both. Not worth my time anymore.
British Touring cars ❤️
@@simosimouk yep thats what i was going to say. BTCC is awesome
Agreed I remember going to the 24 hours at Daytona. Watching and hearing the different engines and watching which type blew up was important. The first Ford Probes ran in it and blew.
NASCAR should have a new campaign. “The Car of Yesterday”
Spicy, I like it.
Great idea!
nah
So basically what ARCA was a while
Brilliant!
When Junior and Jeff Gordon called it quits, i too then retired from watching Nascar.
For me the turning point was when Dale Jr. got fined championship points for accidentally cussing during an interview immediately after a race. They wanted to cater to everyone losing their identity in the process.
1.)Completely got away from there roots and left the legendary tracks that made it what it was.
2.) driver’s personality 20 years ago much different and there approachability.
3.) few sponsors stick with a driver/team for very long.
I hate #1. I get building new tracks, but as people noted, they dumped a lot of really unique tracks for essentially cookie cutters. I remember when I still watched, there was like Atlanta, Texas, and I want to say Las Vegas which were all basically literally the same track.
#3 also. In the old days, a driver/team was a complete brand. Driver + team + manufacturer + sponsor + color schemes, etc. Now, all of those can change every couple of years. It'd be like if NFL teams moved cities, nicknames, and their core rosters every couple of years. You're not going to generate a whole lot of team loyalty doing that.
The death of Dale Earnhardt left a big hole in the soul of NASCAR. Nobody has been able to fill it nobody probably never will.
I stopped watching Nascar when Eric Cartman retired
I didnt
Hahahaha!!!!!!!!
For real, the viagra team went downhill afterwards
It was actually vagasil
SCREW YOU GUYS.... IM GOING HOME!!
No mention of a huge reason. NASCAR is limited in how much of it can grow because of its ambiance. Huge segments of the population are not going anywhere near the track because of the impression that they are not welcome there. You can argue that the impression is wrong, but you cannot deny the perception. All of the whining we hear about not being able to bring Confederate flags to race tracks certainly does not help.
I watched the opening ceremony of the 2020 Daytona 500. President Trump's "The Beast" limo is closest thing to a "stock" car that NASCAR has seen in a long time.
Don Dove lol! Too true
NolanEP
Exactly, the cars haven’t been stock since almost the birth of NASCAR, yet, now all of a sudden it’s a problem
Jake M - Yeah, but at least the cars that our parents and grandparents watched resembled stock cars. It's all about appearances.
Who said it was "never a problem before". Deviating from stock in a sport called "stock car racing" has been a problem for a long time. For me it started in the 80s. Bill Elliott dominated long tracks so NASCAR allowed the Chevys and Pontiacs to run bubble back windows. Next was NASCAR allowing "stock" v6 or 4 cylinder cars to run v8s and "stock" front wheel to run rear wheel drive. The four door Taurus some how became a two door on the track. The deviation continued and I finally dropped out with the car of tomorrow. I have tried to watch from time to time but just can't get into it. So it has been a problem for decades for me.
@@realjrq I don't think they actually know what a true stock car is
Absolutely no one, who was a diehard fan of NASCAR left in part, partially or even just a teensy tiny bit do to the environment.
WolveMarine Agreed. But it is a big reason why NASCAR has not attracted younger fans.
@@kenh5317 I disagree. Speaking for myself, I just find it boring. If it was more exciting I'd be interested. I could care less about the environmental impact for racing when I know there's other stuff that's way worse.
Ken H if that was the case formula E would be bigger than it is now.
Chad Atha Formula ((E)) Was a big fat mistake. Nobody watches it, and they lose millions every race. I wouldn't be surprised if it stopped existing in a year or 2.
Why doesn't NASCAR have an Internet Explorer car?
Because it would keep crashing.
They did. Danica Patrick.
@@Drewcooks24 r/woooosh
1995 called , they want their joke back.
Ba dum tish
😂😂😂
1) They priced themselves out of it. Greed 2) As enthusiasm dwindled, they started changing the rules to make it more interesting. 3) The new savior Kyle Busch that cheats and gets praised for it. 4) The older guys that been there forever were being forced out or just got tired of the politics of it all.
I started losing interest when they started the whole "chase" format. It didn't help that my favorite driver, Jeff Gordon, would have won I believe 3 more championships if the points system was still in place. But then when Gordon retired, there wasn't anyone standing out to replace him and I have almost completely lost interest. The whole thing just feels gimmicky now. I grew up on local dirt track racing in Indiana, and NASCAR just doesn't compete with that type of excitement anymore.
You may already watch it, but just in case, I'd highly recommend checking out WRC (World Rally Championship). It takes place over mostly twisting back roads where the cars will do 200 kmh/125 mph or more. Definitely exciting to watch, and lots of spectacular crashes.
Same, I didn't watch too much in the late-2000s but Gordon had been my favorite since the 90s.
Gordon was my guy too. After he left thay really put the nail in the coffin for me.
Smoking, Rock music...Nascar, they all belong to a culture that had it's era. Different times now.
Jetze de Jager Being replaced by vaping, dub step, and e-gaming. 🤔
I tried getting into NASCAR, but found that F1 was more interesting, more turns, and they race all over the world in more countries than NASCAR and it's faster! Still watch NASCAR from time to time and I still think it's a great sport.
I'm a big fan of both NASCAR and Indycar but for some reason I have trouble enjoying modern day F1 but I enjoy watching videos from F1 in the 80s and 90s. I guess one issue is most of the races start at like 6:00 AM for me on the west coast so it's tough for me to watch a race when I'm tired and just waking up. I also find the on track action to be lackluster most of the time although from some of the highlights I've seen from this season it looks like it's been decent. Another issue I have is the cars don't sound good. I wish they still had big V10 or V12 engines that are loud. I don't find the quiet V6 engines to be that interesting. Also, seeing the same 3 teams win every week gets pretty boring. F1 needs more teams that can compete for the win to be more interesting. Also, the driver skill required for today's F1 cars is nothing like it used to be. I'd love to see the skill get put back into the driver's hands with lower downforce and more horsepower.
@@Rolandminer1 well merc have been dominant for the last like 5 yrs, wait till the 2021 rule change.
@@eichardo Yep I read about the 2021 rule changes. I have high hopes that it will make F1 better.
F1 died around the same time. It has the same fundamental problems as nascar.
So does DTM.
I switched from car racing to motor racing which still is exciting. As well as rally which is also fun from time to time.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 I agree. My love for F1 is at an all time low for pretty much the farce it is atm, the engine/rule changes, inconsistent penalties, and in general....boredom.
I quit NASCAR when they brought in the Car of Tomorrow. IROC already exists, and nobody was clamoring for NASCAR to be more like it. The image became too family-friendly, too well-cultivated. It failed to resonate as authentic. They also "expanded" to new tracks in new parts of the country, but only succeeded in ostracizing old/current fans and not really creating new fans in these new areas to replace them.
I am not a fan of NASCAR, but EmpLemon's video about Dale Earnhardt nearly brought me to tears, really reccomend anyone to check his channel out.
I watched his vid about Dale Earnheardt and it tugged at my heartstrings. EmpLemon is right. There really will never ever be another driver like him. Race in peace, Dale.🤘
I was a huge fan of #3 (I have so much memorabilia still). I will have to check this out with a stiff drink and some tissues it sounds like. Thank you
Because posting a link would make things to fucking simple. NASCAR Fan Logic
It died with him almost. They left it alone for a little while and jimmie johsnon made it popular but it went soon after.
Yea I watched it
As a NASCAR fan, here are some reasons nascar isn’t as popular:
1) the format changes-In 2003, NASCAR changed the championship format.
2) Popular drivers retiring-Drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, And Matt Kenseth...all fan favorites..had massive fanbases. With those fans left without a driver to root for, they either left nascar entirely, Or rooting on their protégée VIA Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Erik Jones.
3) Introduction of stage racing-Divided races into 3 segments.
I would say that nascar is on a slight upswing in 2019. Good races and popular drivers like Chase Elliott being successful have brought in slight but noticeable TV rating changes for the better. Admittedly yeah the races get boring, but I’m a fan for life. And i ain’t leavening now!
I really don't get the 3 stage hate. i think it works really well, it quite often stops the lead couple of cars from just soaring off the whole race and lapping the entire field like what happens a lot in F1
@@levitikan For me it just doesn't feel like a NASCAR race anymore. It feels little kid-ish. Shorter races are fun at hometown tracks, but NASCAR isn't supposed to have them
I would add to the list of popular drivers retiring: Carl Edwards.
It sucks when what you lovedeclines. It's like that with star wars. I hate the current era but i dont wanna leave,I just want good leadership to fix silly things like the tarkin novel saying sidious isnt evil....sidious...the master of Vader isnt evil???
It doesn't help the matter when the same 2, 3 drivers win every week or are in the discussion on winning every week. That doesn't help audiences connect to anyone.
I have a crazy, radical idea to revitalize NASCAR:
Just let them race!
Spectre2300 I agree. The house that Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt build
@@danielr4640 I used to love Dale! God i miss that old Gritty NASCAR from the 80's and 90's
How about you put more of the "stock" back in stock car racing?
how are they not just racing?
@@mootsym Staggered races, the chase is way too confusing. Bring back the days of The Winston Cup!
The Oppermans from Texas will always love and miss Dale Earnhardt Sr, your fans forever. Yes, Dale Earnhardt Sr was the only reason we followed Nascar because we were devoted to Dale and his racing. When we lost Dale we lost our desire to watch afterwards. We followed Neil Bonnett plus Dale since they were best buddies. We have not watched since 2001 when Dale Sr died. Thank you from Jerry and Sugar Bear and Gloria and Bear, Dale Earnhardt Sr fans forever
I was a NASCAR fan ever since I was a kid - - I'm not anymore. I mainly didn't care for the new drivers - - they are too young and whiny. When I started watching, most of the field was in their 30s and raced competitively, not recklessly (more or less). Plus the constant rule changes made winning feel less "earned" and more "given." Don't change the fundamental rules - - that messes everything up.
TrebleWoofer I’m a Jimmie fan and once he’d done I’m done
Completely agree. No one races like that anymore. The why Dale Earnhardt was called The Intimidator. He wouldn't think twice about putting someone into the wall or pushing them out of the way in order to win. Today if someone does that everyone starts crying and talking about how unfair it is. Please, it's like all the participation trophies has taken away peoples drive to be the best.
NASCAR is a big commercial it's like watching commercials for 3 hours
yup overcommericaziled like the nfl,nba,ngl etc. etc.
Brandon Plaisted without these advertisers, nascar would’ve been dead awhile ago
@@TylerTinsley75 well go back to how it was back when the moonshiners ran it.
And too many safety changes that have dumbed the sport down. No one grows up and says "I want to be a Nascar driver cause it's safe". Like football players, you know the risks when you sign that contract.
ronald lorang
You think this is bad? you should watch some futból soccer the advertisements are on the field. Out of bounds of course.
As a Brit I can tell you one problem that befell Nascar: no international appeal. Sure, if you're big enough you can get along solely in the US just fine, but it is hard to claim that here and those foreign dollars are large and tasty should you get hold of them. The NFL for example is taking off massively over here now because they saw just how much more they can make if they can export the game and put in the effort to do so.
To be fair, most US sports do not have international appeal.
Even worse than that is the fact that nascar just has REGIONAL appeal. It doesn’t even have nationwide appeal. The American south is fanatical about nascar and goes crazy for the races and events. Most of the rest of the country just either doesn’t care, or does care but not at the level the south does
@@Kazanov1936 I mean I see a lot foreign people outside the U.S who big fans of American Basketball teams.
@@alexandergilles8583 For real? I live in South I never seen one person who say they like Nascar.
Alexander Gilles i second that... they love nascar here in Charlotte 🙄
The decline in sponsor monies, shifts to more 'corporate friendly' drivers took over, no more fights in pits, stopped races at popular traditional locations, politics, Toyota, aging out of the audience and failure to be more diverse, too difficult to cheat to win.
RJ Reynolds and other tobacco sponsors got into the sport to advertise on cars when TV ads were banned in the early 1970's. By the late 1990's, Federal and state laws ended such marketing and tobacco demand was much lower so their money disappeared and not replaced at the same level and still much higher costs to operate cars. Today many companies find auto racing connected marketing to be of limited benefit, they get a much bigger return with better targeted ads on other programs, sports
No doubt the drivers changed, to more 'corporate friendly' ones, stiff penalties if even looked at a driver the wrong way. They were good drivers for sure, like Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson but not traditional in personality. Some like Stewart were the last of 'old school' style but his causing in part the death of a driver in a non-Nascar race, some of his toughness, wasn't liked anymore.
Many races left fan favorite (North Wilksboro) traditional tracks to 1.5 mile cookie cutter ovals with no personality and owned by the France family or 2 other big groups. Only a few are left that are owned by independents. Some had to be ended as couldn't meet modern safety standards.
Then you had the audience getting older as noted, not replaced by younger fans some of whom are more into other action sports, if into vehicles then into Japanese brands. Toyota in and Chrysler brand out. Many like me never accepted Toyota as a NASCAR brand as not a USA based company. Politics was part of it, they banned the CSA battle flag from being displayed at race sites, turning off some fans. NASCAR was and still is a 'White Southern Male' dominated sport, failing to attract Black and Hispanic/Latino drivers, owners, with a few exceptions and not getting a more diverse audience.
And yes no innovations, no cheating, cars much slower, for sound safety reasons. Too many races too long with long multi crash endings and supplement laps to have a race to the end.
The reason: The Chase. I am a lifelong fan of NASCAR and for the first time ever in my life, I did not watch or attend one race.
How can Kyle Busch miss half the season and still be the champion? The chase.
Agreed I remember exactly where I was when I first heard about the chase and I thought it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It killed the sport
Sport? That's a real stretch.
cjnower Yeah biggest reason I stopped watching... that and the constant rule changes.
DaRon Thornhill I agree
@@dme1016 You may want to review the definition of a sport. a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job: It would appear you have other issues with racing then the definition.
EmperorLemon made an excellent video about Dale Earnhardt that touches on this topic, really good watch even if you aren't informed about it.
Born in ‘62 and became a NASCAR Grand National fan in ‘73. I missed a lot of great racing action before my time as a fan. Richard Petty was my guy. STP was “The Sponsor”; The Racers Edge! My dad drove a Dodge, so I was locked in. Grand National Stock Car Racing was of a different time. A time when real drivers and their gutsy crews stepped up to work their asses off on the track to support their families while thrilling all the fans. Those guys were heroes for the shows they put on and sometimes gave their lives for. NASCAR and NHRA’s brand association motto, “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was a real thing. All the factory Hi Perf cars Dodge, Plymouth, Ford, Mercury, Chevrolet, Olds, Pontiac, Buick and AMC put out during the golden years of muscle cars was one of the most special times of my life. I was lucky enough to be around when these masterpieces were just cars on the streets. It really was a great time to be alive. Now many of the same cars are rare, highly coveted and super expensive. Today, all we have is the Challenger, Mustang and Camaro. None of these Pony cars were in NASCAR back in the day. They were built for the TransAm Series. The fact that they are in present day NASCAR along with the Toyota Camry is one of the many the reasons that NASCAR is dead. I haven’t been to or seen a NASCAR race on TV since the “Car of tomorrow”. I had become a Jeff Gordon fan. When the 48 team won 5 straight championships, that’s when fat lady sang on NASCAR.
Other reasons:
-When the cars stopped being derived from actual stock full sized factory 2 door rear wheel drive coupes.
-When big money sponsorships became a necessity to compete.
-When single car Owner/Driver teams were forced out.
-When NASCAR became a spec racing series like IROC. What happened to “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’!?
-When NASCAR alienated their core Southern fans and tracks to “Grow the sport”! They were just greedy. Had they had the intelligence to know the audiences NASCAR was already reaching in the early 70’s without stepping on too many toes they would have taken baby steps toward improvements and expansion.
-NASCAR pissed away it’s product. The intrigue of the moonshine runners outrunning the police in their specially modified and tuned cars. Now it’s just good money after bad aimed at the goal of making something that was once so relevant, so American die a disgraceful death.
Earnhardt's death did more than bring on the boring safety rules. He was called the intimidator for a reason. He was the lovable antihero that fans loved to see, and drivers hated. When he died, noone did or could have (new safety regs and sportsmanship rules) taken up the mantle. The fun was just.. sucked out for most.
Any good NASCAR race should be part demolition derby.
He was the only reason I watched.
He was the Nascar version of Stone Cold Steve Austin, before there was a Stone Cold Steve Austin. God how I miss seeing that black Goodwrench Chevy #3 on the track.
Very true. When he died, I said it this way,, I hated Dale Earnhardt, and I’m gonna miss him. Sports needs a bad guy. Wrestling has what they call heels. Hockey has their goons. Football has their cheap shot guys. Baseball has cheaters. NASCAR chose to go with clean, corporate, vanilla sponsorship reps. Blechhh !!!! 😖
🙏AMEN🙏To THAT Friend.