January 21, 2010
By Doug Demmons
Jack Roush is a level-headed guy, an astute businessman who did not rise to his level of success in NASCAR by failing to see what was going on around him.
Which is why his answer to a rather routine question on Tuesday during the NASCAR Media Tour was rather astounding.
Roush lashed out at folks in the media who he says have been putting forth the idea that fans are unhappy with the quality of the racing in NASCAR.
Fans are not unhappy, he said. The racing the past season was superb. To bolster this idea he cited statistics about the number of passes, the number of different race winners.
He said that International Speedway Corp. did a study “And for all of last year all of their race tracks had not had one complaint from anybody who bought a ticket about something regarding the race not working the way they thought. So there's no complaint from the fans regarding competition. The complaints have come from reporters and from media that has maybe a vested interested. If you look at Darrell Waltrip, you look at all the other ex-drivers, Rusty Wallace, the ex-crew chiefs that are out there, it's not unreasonable to say that they've got some ax to grind over something that frustrated them in their careers on the firing line. We need to reel that back in. That needs to be something that is not carried out front to the fans and to the public.”
Does Roush really believe that there are no complaints from the fans about competition?
If he does, he probably doesn’t read the comments sections on any of the blogs or the emails that we in the media receive from fans or listen to the callers to any of the NASCAR radio shows.
Because if he did, he’d get an earful. There were plenty of races last year that fans complained about but perhaps none quite as vociferously as the fall Talladega race which reverted to a single-file parade that put everyone to sleep.
The TV commentary on that race especially seemed to trigger a pushback of sorts against some broadcasters – the thought being that the racing is not really bad, but the sport is down because of the economy and thus doesn’t need critics dragging it down even further.
And so it seemed to stand until a couple weeks ago when NASCAR did a rather remarkable thing. They decided to give fans what they’ve been shouting for – less interference from NASCAR.
On Thursday that will all shake out. But it’s likely that there will be no more wing, a change to the yellow-line rule at Daytona and Talladega and open season on bump-drafting and push-drafting.
And all because fans have been complaining. Loudly.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.