Getting back to racing

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. -- As NASCAR stands on the doorstep of its 60th season, it faces tough questions.

By objective measures, the series that brought shape and form to the void that was racing's early organizational dysfunction is a true success story.

But amid all of NASCAR's changes -- championship format, national venues replacing regional ones, a new breed of drivers -- some of those who once were among its biggest fans now often sound like its harshest critics.

Fans in the Carolinas feel betrayed because races were taken from tracks in North Wilkesboro and Rockingham and spread out across the country, then seem to revel when the new venues, such as California Speedway, struggle to sell tickets.

This undercurrent of discontent prompted NASCAR chairman Brian France to declare the sport will reach out to "core" fans whose fervor has cooled.

"Change is good to a certain point," France said. "But we've got all the change we think the sport can stand and needs. Now we want to build on that, and we're going to minimize change and we're going to zero in on the best racing in the world. We're going to get back to that."

So far, there is good news heading toward Sunday's Daytona 500.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s victory in Saturday's Budweiser Shootout earned overnight TV ratings of 4.8, up from 4.2 last year. Grandstand tickets for the 500 have been sold out for weeks, and Fox Sports sold all of its 30-second commercial slots for Sunday's telecast. According to Ad Week magazine, those slots went for $550,000 each, up $75,000 from a year ago.

But overall TV ratings, ticket sales and questions about the health of the industry in a perilous economy are a part of the story.

Last year, nearly 1 million fewer viewers, on average, tuned in for each of the races in the top series.

There are other ominous signs:

* Of the 53 cars trying to make Sunday's 500, at least 17 lack full-season sponsorships.

* Morgan-McClure Motorsports, which won the Daytona 500 three times from 1991 to 1995, closed its doors recently.

* Multi-car teams are dominant. Cars fielded by five team owners won 34 of 36 races and accounted for 81 percent of all of the top-five finishes.

NASCAR officials insist stock-car racing is not doing poorly. But the verdict ultimately might have more to do with feel than facts.

"We have to get back to fiddles instead of violins," Lowe's Motor Speedway President Humpy Wheeler said. "What's the difference? It's a matter of perception, and one of the positive things we have going for us is the fact that we recognize that."

Wheeler said NASCAR's desire to polish its image is nothing new. He remembers during the 1960s when it was suggested seven-time champion Richard Petty needed diction lessons.

"It got completely out of hand right after Dale Earnhardt died and the new television contract came along," Wheeler said. "We had so many people making decisions who didn't have a clue what the common man wants. The common man is who got us here and is who is going to keep us here."

Driver Kyle Petty said NASCAR might be paying too much attention to what the fans, media and marketplace think.

"Whatever the topic is that week, we run it into the ground and then, boom, there's another topic next week," he said. "All we do is react. Nobody is being proactive and getting anything fixed."

Everything about NASCAR is bigger and more complicated.

"Every move is important now," Petty said. "I think NASCAR has grown to a point where ... the decisions have a bigger ripple effect. Success and failure happen on a much grander scale."

That, he believes, has made NASCAR officials less decisive.

Talking about mending relationships with the core fan is well and good, Petty said.

"But it's like talking about Britney Spears' problems," he said. "We can talk about it all we want to, but until she gets her head right, it's not going to change.

"We can talk about everything, but until the powers that be establish a solid plan and work that plan. then we're wasting our breath, and I am at that stage in life where I don't have a lot of it to waste."