Evidence shows NASCAR interest wanes despite changes
The bartender looked at me in a bewildered fashion, as if I had just dropped in from Neptune or somewhere. This was Sunday, at Victory’s Bar & Grill at the Cannery on Craig Road. Down in Florida, Kyle Busch of Las Vegas was getting ready to race for his first NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.
The aforementioned watering hole is just a long straightaway from Las Vegas Motor Speedway; the big sign out front even features crossed checkered flags. Inside is an auto racing mural that runs wall to wall, and auto racing memorabilia that includes a hood from a Cannery-sponsored racecar.
If you worked in a Sinclair station, this would be your kind of place.
The Cannery website said I would “never miss a NASCAR race …” at Victory’s. (It did not say Victory’s probably should be spelled “Victories,” unless a guy named Victory owns the joint.)
Had I stayed, I would have missed Sunday’s season finale, and missed seeing Kyle Busch hoist the Sprint Cup above his head and toss tiny packages of green M&M’s into the crowd.
“It’s going to be amazing just to be a Sprint Cup Series champion and carry that label and come to Las Vegas to celebrate, hopefully, with a lot of my hometown fans I drove with at the Bullring,” Busch said Monday morning as the thought of possessing stock car racing’s heaviest right foot continued to sink in. “Hopefully, they’re as pumped and excited as I am for that.”
Hopefully, there won’t be a pro football game on TV when he arrives for Champion’s Week in Las Vegas.
Things have changed since 2004.
The last time a Busch brother of Las Vegas won the stock car championship, the NASCAR Cafe at the Sahara was packed and everybody was watching stock car racing on TV.
NASCAR was cruising on all cylinders then.
It was coming up fast on the high side; the NHL was looking over its shoulder as its place among the Big Four sports was being threatened. Interest was high in stock car racing. Sponsors were abundant. One of the cars was sponsored by Spam.
Alas, the Sahara and the NASCAR Cafe eventually would come crashing down, as if it they were Joey Logano and the wrecking ball was Matt Kenseth. The ostentatious new hotel-casino that replaced it apparently isn’t doing so hot, either.
And now, judging from the bartender’s reaction, neither is NASCAR.
He was wearing a Jets jersey with Darrelle Revis’ name and number on the back. When I asked if anybody had inquired about switching one of the big screens from pro football to stock car racing, he said not a soul.
When Kyle Busch’s name was brought up, he continued to shake his head — not in a way that indicated empathy, but in a way that said I should not dare ask him to switch one of the TVs to NASCAR, and who is Kyle Busch?
There was a rain delay down in Florida, but nobody would have known it, because every TV in the Cannery — 13 in Victory’s, 121 in the race and sportsbook, 10 in the blackjack pits, eight in another bar whose distinguishing feature was “Christmas Story” fishnet stocking leg lamps, one in the back bar by the movie theaters — was tuned to pro football, or other sports without engines.
I believe this is why most tracks are removing seats to put in RV viewing areas and fan experiences for which you have to pay extra.
The numbers bear it out as well: Sunday’s race had a 4.4 overnight rating on NBC and NBCSN — up 52 percent from last year (2.9) on ESPN. But that’s a fraction of the 17.0 rating the NFL drew head-to-head for the Packers-Vikings game on Fox.
The Chase for the Cup — the NASCAR playoffs which many traditional fans detest — was supposed to create more interest in stock car racing during football season. NASCAR said it wanted huge, postseason moments, such as Ralph Branca pitching to Bobby Thomson in a best-of-3 playoff.
On the last restart, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, last year’s champion, were running nose to tail. One of them would win the title.
It was as close as NASCAR probably is ever going to get to Ralph Branca pitching to Bobby Thomson.
Busch wins the Cup! Busch wins the Cup! Busch wins the Cup!
But it wasn’t the restart heard ’round the world. And there weren’t exclamation points, at least not based on what was witnessed at the Cannery, which was the Redskins playing the Panthers, and the Bears playing the Broncos, and Duke playing Georgetown at Madison Square Garden.
So perhaps NASCAR should quit tinkering with its championship — what it has now is fine, or we’ll eventually get used to it — and alienating more people from Kannapolis, N.C., where the Earnhardts are from, and Alabama.
Maybe NASCAR should just start its engines earlier, in the warm-weather cities that have tracks. Maybe it should quit racing around Labor Day, when Alabama plays Middle Tennessee, and before pro football starts.
Either that, or bring back the Spam car.
— Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.