Is NASCAR ruining itself?

Nascar is chasing away the real fans of nascar. You can tell by the races not selling out , when you could never get tickets for 10 years ago. Look at the TV ratings? They are down big time. The true Nascar fans are no long coming to or watching the races. When these bandwagon fans of nascar now get bored nascar will have NO fans and it will be no longer on TV.

COT... we'll get a better indication next year when they use them for the full season.

Chase... I like that they now have a playoff format although I definitely feel that they have to change up the tracks... all they did was make the last 10 races the playoffs regardless of location but many of the most popular tracks aren't included!

Own engines... why not? It would probably make it cheaper for 1 and 2 car teams so they can compete with the big boys. The same few teams winning all the time is getting boring and it's turning into an F1 situation.

I don't think so, although I have to qualify this. I can't say I agree with all of the changes they are making. But I have to agree with a couple of things they are at least trying:

COT - well designing a car that is safer for the drivers is hard to argue with - have they gone too far though - IMO looks like it.

Chase format - well, to be honest, people were complaining with the old system that a guy like Kenseth won without winning a race all year, so that wasn't perfect either. At least they are trying. And lets be honest when the champion was decided with 4 or 5 races to go - that wasn't very exciting either. I don't have a better suggestion so I guess we have to live with what we have until somebody comes up with something better.

Engine design - NASCAR already has very strict regulations on this, so I guess it is sort of already happening.

I guess overall what I am saying is nobody really likes change, but to try and keep it fresh, safer, or bring everybody to a closer level really isn't a bad thing.

NASCAR's nonconsistancy is the easiest thing to complain about. The rules are changed year to year. But NASCAR is doing it because they truely believe it is for the best of the fans and the competitors. The COT - for the safety of the drivers...the top 35 - to help owners without the same resources to be able to compete week in and week out...the Chase - to make it exciting for the fans all the way down to the last race!

I still love it, though!

I hate to say it but NASCAR is killing itself. If you look at all the T.V ratings and Attendance, NASCAR has had a big decline in the last 3 years. (Check out jayski.com) With the new COT, moving races, and all these "judgment calls" now, they are slowly running off all the true fans. The cars don't even resemble factory cars anymore and the races are more predictable now than Professional Wrestling is! It has been a great run but I am sick of it. As a fan for over 20 years, I hate to say it but this is going to be my last year.

Yup

I'm a Yankee and a longtime NASCAR fan . What I used to like the most about NASCAR was that it was the real deal .Real stock cars driven by real rednecks -nothing pretensious about it.

I liked the idea that these guys were actually driving stock cars and if I had the money and a good parts guy at my local dealer I could pretty much get the same stock car in a street legal form

I liked the idea that NASCAR was an American sport that didn't allow rice burners onto it's tracks

That's all gone now The name should be changed to NAR .NASCAR has become what a lot have great American sports have sadly become; a money delivery system for the parasitic pencil necked marketing geeks

I JUST Got through reading an article,about Nascar testing a car to run on 1/2 ethanol 85 and 1/2 Sunoco fuel....

Indy car's use ethanol 100. Maybe,in the future, they plan on running a IRL engine? Whoo knows !!! Roger Penske's idea,probably ???

Yes, NASCAR is eating itself

Brian France is destroying the sport

I don't think there will ever be a uniform NASCAR engine, but I do think that there will be only one engine per manufacturer... Dodge, Ford, Chevy, Toyota... all teams of that manufacturer will run the exact same engine

yes the cot , the chase and of later starting times. ratings has dropped since the starting times has moved from noon or 1 pm to 3 or 4 pm. dont need saturday night races either, they are reserved for local tracks . nascar needs to listen to the fans or the sport will decline

abproff04 has it right, you know why nascar rotates between fox, tbs, and abc/espn? because thay are bidding on each and every race, as opposed to irl and champ car wich couldnt get a t.v. contract unless they signed a deal for the whole season, that speaks volumes about how well nascar is doing

on a side note, the manufactures dont build the engins the its mostly done by teams