Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Cup schedule gets a needed tuneup
Changes geared toward ratings, attendance
NASCAR is blowing up its schedule for the 2018 Monster Energy Cup season. The strategy is simple: Boom or bust.
NASCAR has been rolling snake eyes lately. The numbers don’t lie: Sports Media Watch documented that, excluding rainouts, eight of the first 10 Cup races this year had TV viewership declines — five by double digits.
NASCAR needs juice. Enter the 2018 schedule and changes announced Tuesday afternoon:
Las Vegas Motor Speedway will serve as site of the Sept. 16 kickoff race for the playoffs, replacing Chicagoland Speedway. Chicago will host a regularseason race July 1.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s race will move from its date in late July to Sept. 9, serving as the cutoff race for the playoffs.
Richmond International Raceway, host of the 26th race since the playoff format began in 2004, will become one of the 10 playoff races with a Sept. 22 date. That adds a second short-track playoff venue, joining Martinsville.
And for the first time in playoff history, a road course comes into play. Charlotte Motor Speedway will host a Sept. 29 race on the venue’s road course instead of its 1.5-mile oval.
The Daytona 500 will still kick off the season Feb. 18, but Feb.11 will now feature a doubleheader — the Clash and Daytona 500 pole qualifying.
The changes address several challenges facing the sport, including complaints from the fans that the playoff schedule — which has remained the same since 2004 — is too stagnant. (The championship race remains at Homestead-Miami for a 17th straight year.)
“Moving a short track into the playoffs is what we heard our fans loud and clear wanting,” said Jim Cassidy, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing operations. Likewise, Cassidy said it was “loud and clear that fans wanted a road course in the playoffs.”
But NASCAR’s problems won’t go away simply by mixing things up.
The sport is still searching for the next great thing in troubled times. A lot of star power will leave the building when Dale Earnhardt Jr. retires after this season. Danica Patrick, a polarizing marketing queen who has foundered on the track, might step away too.
Attendance remains a problem. Richmond, once a giant draw in a venue that sold 112,000 seats a decade ago, struggled to fill 60,000 for a recent race.
This week’s Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, run on Sunday night, will be a good testing ground for NASCAR, especially after last weekend’s disappointing All-Star race that had limited passing in any of the segments.
“We’ve been talking about our problems — lack of passing, rivalries — every week,” Fox Sports analyst and NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip said. “There are some really smart people involved in this sport, and if there is a solution, they would probably jump right on it.”
Waltrip, a NASCAR traditionalist but a forward thinker, has an idea that makes sense:
Cut down on all the rules. NASCAR has gotten more progressive with technological changes, a not-so-good thing for a sport etched in the fury and fire of individual racers.
“We spend so much time working on the cars and changing the rules on how they inspect the cars. It’s always all about the cars,” he said.
Maybe it’s time to dumb things down from a technical standpoint and let everybody go racin’.
Major endorsement: Alex Bowman has the best possible endorsement to become the guy who fills the No. 88 seat permanently after Earnhardt retires:
A thumbs up from Earnhardt.
“That would be pretty awesome to see Alex in that car,” Earnhardt said last weekend during a Periscope live stream from Charlotte. “That’s the plan, I hope . ... Yeah, Alex in the 88. That sounds good to me. That kid earned it last year. He ran good.”
Bowman, 24, was a replacement driver for 10 races last year when Earnhardt was out with concussion issues. Earnhardt, voted the most popular driver on the circuit for 14 consecutive seasons, will retire from full-time racing after this season.
The final call on who fills the slot belongs to team owner Rick Hendrick. Thanks for your service: NASCAR will recognize Memorial Day weekend with the “600 Miles of Remembrance” tribute during Sunday’s race at Charlotte. It’s the third consecutive year windshield headers on all 40 Cup cars will be replaced with the names of fallen military service members.
“There is no prouder moment for our sport than when the entire NASCAR family rallies to honor and pay tribute to the United States Armed Forces,” said Brent Dewar, NASCAR chief operating officer.