NASCAR Cruising or NASCAR Snoozing?

I’m not going to tell you that this past weekends race at California Motor Speedway was boring, but I did not see most of it because I was asleep on the couch until I moved to my bedroom in which I missed even more because I was asleep in my bed. I think I caught what I needed to know about the race on NASCAR.Com later that evening.

I love NASCAR. I’m even in favor of growing NASCAR so that there are more fans than ever. However we were told two years ago that Rockingham was taken off the schedule because they could not sell out, and the weather at times was prohibitive of running the race on time. But, California was a great place to hold the second race of the season. The weather is always great, the racing will be great, we have more seats, and we can sell all of those seats.

I’ll give California the weather, because it hardly ever changes there but I have to make comments on the other “promises”. I’ll give it this much I probably would have fallen asleep that afternoon to anything on television. I did work eight hours that morning, and did not have much sleep the night before. But I’ve watched entire races from Rockingham, and Darlington after less sleep and more work. I give the fact that California sold more total seats than Rockingham has, but they did not hold the promise of selling all those seats. When I was awake I saw many empty seats. I know that ticket sales account for such a small portion of the money involved in one race weekend, but what about television ratings, and the great interest in the west for a good ol’ boy southern sport?

I have to agree with most of the other pundits when I say that while I enjoy the growth of NASCAR, I miss Rockingham, and the Southern 500 at Darlington on Labor Day. Let California have a race, let them have two if need be, but remember Rockingham crowned Champions and Darlington is still the Lady In Black. By the way for all those that say they hope for a Rockingham clone in the Northwest I have to say a clone is not possible. It is the makeup of the area in middle North Carolina that made Rockingham the racetrack that it was, and one day could be again.