TV deals and Road courses

    Let me start with the television deal set  to go into place in 2015 and run through 2025. We now have 3 networks broadcasting 38 races, with a 4th channel doing other shows along with some qualifying and practice days also. Those are TNT, Speed (turns into Fox Sports 1 in a week or so, we will get into that in just a minute) ESPN/ABC, and Fox, right now the only channel not on a cable network, but that's about to change. As most of you probably know, Fox bought the Speed Channel and will be changing the name to Fox Sports 1, which will now turn into an all sports network and will show everything stick and ball, that's right, no more motorsports based channel. All that cool programming will either have to be picked up by another network, or just go bye bye. With the network change will come a drastic change in NASCAR coverage. Fox also picked up 3 of the races that formerly TNT had, that's right, HAD. TNT along with ESPN will end the their NASCAR broadcasts at the conclusion of the 2014 season. It will then just be Fox and NBC, who also has a sports channel on cable, and fans, those 2 sports cable channels will hold about 85% of the races with just 16 races being on network television. 16......so the remaining 22 races including most of the chase races will be on cable. Oh did I happen to say that the new Fox Sports 1 wants a huge jump in money from the cable and satellite companies? Right now they do not have a deal with any cable or satellite provider because of the substantial raise in money. Jumping from around .25 cents a customer they now want .80 cents a customer. If they reach a deal with providers, as of right now Fox Sports 1 will be the only channel I get, so I will miss the second half of the season entirely.
    This deal brought a GIGANTIC amount of money to NASCAR, we are talking billions of dollars, with NBC paying 4.4 billion and Fox choking up 3.8 billion dollars....just over 8 billion dollars, 8.2 billion, that's $8,200,000,000 of which 65% goes to the tracks, 25% goes to the teams through the points earnings, and 10% goes to NASCAR its self. The sad thing about this is, that means more boogity boogity crap that makes me want to mute the sound....Hopefully this all works out and my provider will pick up both channels and I can at least watch them, the problem is when money gets tight, the first thing people start dropping is cable and satellite TV because lets face it, cable/satellite isn't cheap and its not getting any cheaper and its a want not a need.

I will say this about Pocono, THANKFULLY JIMMIE DID NOT WIN!!! That was probably one of the best races in a long time at Pocono, I was totally predicting a snore fest and it actually was not a bad race. The last couple restarts made for some great racing action and I for one was unable to predict who was going to win, just when it looked like Kasey Kahne was going to get it, along comes teammate Jeff Gordon and he stole the lead on a restart, then when it looked like Jeff was going to cruise to the win, another caution came out and the restart brought us another surprise, Kasey regained the lead. It was actually a fun race to watch. Yes they did get spread out during the middle of the race, but the commentary and the TV coverage showed the whole race all race long and I think they did a great job.

ROAD COURSES
   
    Ok who is excited for the road courses this weekend? ME! I love road courses specially when Marcus Ambrose is racing, the winner of the last 2 races at Watkins Glen. He is so good at road courses he has to be the favorite this weekend. Between him and Juan Montoya, Jeff Gordon, and new road course winner Martin Truex Jr, even Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch, and lets not forget NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski, and hey, lets also not forget AJ Allmendinger either,  he will be in the 47 this weekend, and his first and only NASCAR win in the Nationwide Series came just a couple weeks ago at what kind of track? yeah that's right a road course. Watkins Glen is a fast road course with long straightaways, and some sharp corners, I personally like this road course more then the one is California.
    In the first practice Martin Truex Jr paced the track with a best lap of 127.238mph with a lap time of 69.319, with Marcus Ambrose coming in second, Carl Edwards 3rd and Juan Montoya 4th and Casey Mears 5th. The second practice Carl Edwards paced the field with Michael McDowell coming in second, Clint Bowyer 3rd, Juan coming in 4th and Brad Keselowski coming in 5th. With qualifying only a few minutes away, with the new qualifying format, who do you think has the better chance to claim the pole? Starting up front here is very important because the farthest back anyone has come from to go on to win was 18th and that was Steve Park in 2000. Closer to the front is a must here. Also driving a Chevy has been a big plus here also, with 16 wins by a Chevy, 7 from Fords, 4 Pontiac's, 1 each for Buick, Mercury, and Toyota.


Until next time........

p.s. I get almost all of my NASCAR facts from a great website that is so full of information that I haven't even touched the surface of information this website has to offer and it is www.racingreference.info. Go check it out, it has everything you could want to know and more about all kinds of racing, not just NACAR.
    

INDY AND BEYOND

    First I will say sorry that it has taken me so long to get the second half of this topic done. Work has finally picked up and I have been busy, busy, busy.
Second lets get to on to Eldora Speedway and what I thought of the racing action there.
    Never actually going to a dirt race before I was very interested to see the racing action at this track. Would love to see it in person because being a race fan,  watching a race on a dirt track is like number 2 on the bucket list. Do I think it lived up to all the hype? That's the question I have been trying to answer for myself since I watched the race last week. In some instances, yes it did live up to what was hyped, but....yes there are always buts in a statement like that isn't there? Only a few times during the night of racing did I think it met expectations. The problem I seen and my son even commented on it, it didn't look like dirt to me, not the dirt that I would of imagined that it was. It looked like asphalt with golf ball size holes all along the track. When I thought dirt I was thinking something very different. I was not thinking hard packed clay that looked like it was so hard it could be used for paving. The racing action at times (mostly restarts) looked like what I envisioned, but other times it looked like the same thing we see on most asphalt races, single file no passing, ok wait wait just a second, don't start yelling at me yet. I know there are a lot of dirt track fans that don't see it like I do, we heard what Tony Stewart said about passing isn't racing after Indy, well actually yes Tony, passing is a very big part of racing and a very important part. Passing at that track was much like Indy in that, if you didn't set your truck up to run the very bottom of the track you had to run right against the wall as the winner of the race did. Only a few drivers had to run the bottom and it looked like that only 2 drivers really made that work for them, Ron Hornaday and Kenny Schrader. Watching Kenny go down to the bottom and slide it sideways in the turns trying to gain spots was exactly what I thought dirt racing was all about. In the top groove you couldn't sling the truck around and slide through the corners because, as I think every driver learned, you hit the wall and crinkle the right rear of your truck. I don't think even 1 truck escaped the right rear fender crunch, they all had the 100 mph tape on the right rear.
    Congratulations to Austin Dillon for winning the first ever NASCAR Camping World Truck Race on dirt at Eldora Speedway. Lets try this again next year and see if they can improve the track just a tad bit. I'm sure Tony would love to have them back next season and I am sure NASCAR would love to have them back there also. Folks that's the first time since maybe the first couple races at Iowa that a truck race sold out and it sold out extremely fast. That was a good sign, lets hope that race got a few more fans to say they need to go see one in person.

ON TO INDY

    Only one way to describe this race...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. BOOOORRRRRIIIINNNNG!!! This is one race on the list of ones that I can skip next year and not feel bad to just read what happened online. The highlight of the race for me was seeing if Dale Jr could come back from a lap 13 loose wheel, pit stop, and losing a lap. And he did, he came back and finished 6th. When Jimmie Johnson was out front and leading the race like by what seemed like 100 miles, I was wishing and chanting "anyone but Jimmie, PLEASE!!!!!" Now I am in no way whatsoever a fan of Ryan Newman, in my opinion he is a mediocre driver at best, but staying with my "anyone but Jimmie" pleading, I was praying the racing gods would let him, a native Indiana boy, actually win the race and as we all know he did and he was way out front with Jimmie only hoping he would blow a tire or have a last lap engine failure. Maybe even then, with the 2.657 second lead he could of just coasted to the victory.

    Now on to the passing issue. I don't give 2 flying figs what Tony Stewart says, passing is a very big part of racing and I think a huge problem with the lack of fans putting their butts in the seats at the track is the racing action. NOBODY really wants to spend all that money to go to a race, yes I used to go to 2 races a year and each race costs me about $2500 to $3000 to go to, now I only go to one because of the cost, and watch single file, follow the leader racing. As you can see in that statement, yes I also think cost of the races is the second major factor in the slow seat sells. But folks, that race sucked. There were 20 passes for the lead......only 1 was actually a pass on the track, the other passes were on pit road, yes you read that right, 19 passes on pit road, 1 pass for the lead on the track. That doesn't make for a good race and the fans are voicing that by not going to the races. The stands at Indianapolis were virtually EMPTY, I never heard the seat count, but usually when they are that empty 2 things can happen, they either don't report it, or they inflate the numbers a little so it doesn't sound so bad. But man they sure didn't fill the seats. What I thought was funny is the NASCAR Mobile 13 app, they put the race on the screen as a 3D rendering of the race, actually looks like a cartoon, even showed the empty seats, not sure how that works, but it did.
    The racers and crews think the racing was good, in their eyes they don't see what the fans see. They look at it with a different perspective though, they see it from a strategy point of view and not from a fan point of view. The majority of the fans want to see side by side for the lead racing and as of late, there have been very few tracks that actually provide that. The short tracks, road courses, and......that's it. The 1 1/2 mile tracks and bigger have produced boring, single file, follow the leader, snorefests. Now I have no idea what to do about the style of racing that we are seeing, I don't know what the answer is on how to fix what we are seeing. I hate saying this, but I think the folks at Fontana had the right idea for the race there this season, they shortened the race from 500 miles to 400 miles and they helped make that race a little better then what it once was. I still think that track needs a little more help to make it a great race. I would like to see them shorten that track by a little bit and bank the turns a few degrees more and see what that could do for the racing action. I think most of the races on the bigger tracks need to be shortened to give the sense of urgency to the teams and maybe, just maybe make it a little more racy.
    Indy was and has been a terrible race for a long timeas far as the racing goes. Even the IRL have had boring races and seeing fans not showing up at that track. The race, from my point of view, was not much of a race, would the way the TV coverage is presented help these races seem more exciting then they actually are? Yes I think the way its covered might help the fans at home, but as far as the fans in the stands, I'm not sure. No passing for the lead, no side by side racing except the first few laps after a restart, no excitement during the race, this is not the product a fan wants to see. I have been to several tracks on the NASCAR circuit, everything from Talladega to Phoenix, Vegas, and a few in between. Even Phoenix has changed the shape of the track trying to make the racing more exciting. It has helped the racing action there as far is what you see when your at the track. The banked turns (just a little banking made a big difference because it was virtually a flat track before) and then they changed the back stretch turn just a little and that has got the drivers trying something different to get through that little turn by going on the apron which has proven to be challenging. Do you know that Indy has a road course also at the track? hmm maybe they should use part of the road course there and do the half oval half road course race thing and see how that works to make it exciting. Much like the 24 hour race at Daytona does, that might help that race become something better then what it is. Just my crazy idea.

    On to Pocono this weekend, what will we see here this weekend? Looking like another Jimmie Johnson blow out. But most important, will it be yet another single file, spread out, boring race? Yes I am afraid so. This is another one of those tracks that needs a little help. They get so strung out with the leader usually being anywhere from 2 to 7 and even 10 seconds ahead of second place. The one bright spot is with the rules changes awhile back, they can once again shift in the corners, that always has a chance to break something if its done wrong and could lead to a few seconds of excitement. With Jimmie on the pole, can he take that all the way to the checkered flag and sweep this years 2 races at Pocono? After he was disappointed with a measly 2nd place finish last weekend, look for him to stay out front all race long and do it in a dominating fashion as he tends to do.

Until next time.........
P.S. I will try and include my opinion on the TV contracts signed by NASCAR with NBC and Fox for 2015 and beyond.