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NASCAR riding away from its base
As sport grows nationwide, Southern roots grow thin
Published on: 03/19/06 There's no disputing NASCAR's phenomenal growth in recent years. The sport sprouted from its Southeastern roots and opened tracks in Kansas City, Chicago and California. Fortune 500 companies lined up to sponsor cars and drivers. Networks paid $4.5 billion for a TV contract. Officials say the fan base is 75 million.
But in its race to claim a place beside other professional sports in a world of glitz and glitter, NASCAR is jeopardizing the grassroots fan base that helped build it.
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DAVID TULIS /AJC
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>Some NASCAR fans complain that the circuit has become 'too citified,' and some proudly produce symbols of the Old South at races.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--startclickprintinclude--><!--begintext-->There are ominous signs that NASCAR is losing the Old South:
? Nextel Cup races rarely sell out at traditional venues such as Atlanta Motor Speedway. Last season, there were empty seats for both Atlanta races, three Charlotte races and the fall race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
? No driver has emerged to take the spot of Dale Earnhardt, an icon for working-class Southerners, who died during the 2001 Daytona 500.
? Moving races from small, traditional tracks such as North Wilkesboro Speedway, North Carolina Speedway and Darlington Raceway has been unpopular with Southern fans.
? And many Southern fans are put off by NASCAR's rock-concert mentality. Officials truly turned the 2006 Daytona 500 into the Super Bowl of racing, emulating the NFL with a pre-race performance by the rock group Bon Jovi. The national anthem was sung by Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.
Linnie Walker, who operates a convenience store near the track in Rockingham, N.C., that NASCAR abandoned in 2004, said she feels bitter and jilted by the sport she helped build.
"It has become too citified, too much about the money," Walker said. "People worked and sweated and saved their nickels and dimes so they could go watch it and help build the sport, and now racing has run off for the big money. They took it away from where it all started."
It didn't help that NASCAR President Mike Helton essentially confirmed the feelings of many disenchanted fans last month during a diversity conference in Washington. "We believe strongly that the old Southeastern redneck heritage that we had is no longer in existence," he told reporters.
NASCAR is sending its old fans signals that are hard to ignore, said Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center for Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.
"When NASCAR went from being primarily focused in the South . . . to trying to be a national sport with a television contract and having so many non-Southern-born drivers, it has downplayed and diminished the targeting of Southerners," Wilson said.
"I think there has been an intentional downplaying of their core audience, and maybe the core audience knows that."
Helton said he doesn't want fans to feel that way.
"What it boils down to is NASCAR has tried to grow the sport and take advantage of opportunities that allow that to happen," he said. "In doing so, we made a national sport of it over the years.
"But our heritage and our roots are from the South, and we're proud of that and have no desire to leave that behind."
Lost that Southern charm
Perhaps the biggest loss was the dominance of Southern-born-and-bred, swashbuckling, intimidating drivers. Early on, that role was played by Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall. Then it was Curtis Turner, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and David Pearson. In the 1980s, the sport was dominated by a redheaded country boy from the North Georgia mountains, Bill Elliott.
They walked like Southern fans. They talked like Southern fans. They fought like Southern fans.
But since Earnhardt's death, no driver has emerged to capture the hearts of working-class Southerners.
"I felt like I knew Dale Sr. and Bill Elliott personally," said Brian Entrekin, who operates West Georgia Speedway in Whitesburg. "I felt like they were my friends. I'm a Dale Jr. fan now, but it's just because of his daddy. He seems friendly, but I don't feel about him like I did about his daddy."
Meanwhile, drivers from elsewhere have seized control. More drivers are from the Midwest and West, in part because short-track racing ? where most NASCAR drivers get their early training ? is flourishing in those areas while it struggles in the South.
Last year, drivers from California, Washington and Nevada won 20 Nextel Cup races; Southern-born drivers won three. Last month at the Daytona 500, only 16 of the 43 drivers grew up in Southeastern states. Only one Southern driver (Jeremy Mayfield of Kentucky) made last season's playoff, the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup.
Wilson, the Ole Miss historian, said the loss of Earnhardt couldn't have come at a worse time for Southern fans.
"When we lost Dale Earnhardt, that almost coincided with this new marketing approach and the national campaign," he said. "His death was so devastating. Look at the funeral and emotions after his death. That was a turning point.
"Somebody needed to come forward to represent that same constituency and have that same appeal, that same Southern earthiness, and nobody has done it. Junior has been as close as anybody, but it's not the same for that core crowd.
"Something was lost with Earnhardt's death that never has been replaced."
Not what it used to be
There's also a feeling among old-school fans that NASCAR has gone too uptown to suit them.
In the old days, the sport was about cars: Ford vs. Chevy, with vehicles on the track closely resembling those in showrooms. It was about Petty from the small North Carolina town of Randleman vs. Pearson, from the mill villages near Spartanburg, S.C. They raced without power steering at tracks like Rockingham and Darlington.
Today, it's racing cars with common templates running in places such as Las Vegas and Chicago with rock stars singing the national anthems. It's Carl Edwards posing shirtless for ESPN magazine covers, and Kasey Kahne endorsing products as nonautomotive as Avon.
Joe McNulty, an attorney from Greensboro, N.C., said NASCAR has changed so much it has lost its soul.
"It's just another reality show on TV," he said. "I don't think there's a lot of racing going on. Fans used to get into fisticuffs over it. . . . It's like with everything else, though: The Old South is gone, never to be reclaimed again."
Helton said NASCAR's goal is to have a show that offers something for everybody.
"The heart and soul of what made NASCAR is still there," he said. "In the meantime, there have been a lot of other elements added to it. I'd like to make the argument that what NASCAR is based on is still very much as traditional today as it's ever been; there's just a lot of elements added to it to make it bigger and better and bolder. But when that green flag falls, it is what it's always been."
A 'different' motorsport
Some short tracks in the Southeast have made it a point to distance themselves from NASCAR-style racing, and have gone with more of a throwback form of the sport.
Mike Swims, vice president of the highly successful Dixie Speedway, a dirt track in Woodstock, said he has seen promoters suffer at the gate when they try to imitate
NASCAR. His track packs in the fans, he says, because the racing and atmosphere are nothing like NASCAR.
"Our product, dirt racing, is a different brand of motorsports altogether," he said. "We have NASCAR fans come see us, but the bottom line is we really don't claim to be a part of NASCAR or resemble NASCAR in any way. . . . Dirt racing is just motorsports in its purest form. There's not a lot of politics involved in it. It's just good old-fashioned competition."
NASCAR's own weekly short-track racing series has lost tracks nationwide, going from 98 to 60 in the past 10 years. Two tracks in Georgia ? Oglethorpe Speedway near Savannah and Lanier Speedway in Braselton ? currently run the series. Lavonia Speedway in North Georgia dropped the program in the 1990s.
The South's highest profile asphalt circuit, the All Pro Series, now owned by NASCAR and known as Elite, will be shut down after this year due to dwindling interest among fans, drivers and promoters.
H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, said the high cost of short-track racing ? a competitive Super Late Model car costs $60,000 ? also is having a ripple effect on the higher divisions of NASCAR and on fans in the South.
"I'm not sure that there's not a Dale Earnhardt or a Richard Petty or a Bobby Allison out there right now that's not even racing," he said.
Economics a factor
Ticket prices are keeping some people away, too. Grandstand tickets for today's race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway range from $30 to $115.
Wheeler said he sensed that people in the Southeast had cut back on the number of races they attended each year because of money.
"That's what's happened with the loss of traditional industries like tobacco, textiles, furniture, and, to a certain extent, farming," he said.
Helton, the NASCAR president, said some empty seats are due to tracks overbuilding their capacity, but he acknowledges that economic factors are at work, too.
"We still have large crowds, 38 races a year that are well-attended, and TV ratings are good," he said.
"We kind of hang on to the positives, but there is a consciousness of the economic environment that's changing in America and how that affects major gatherings."
One factor often cited for Southern fans' attending fewer races is the loss of "home" tracks like Rockingham that always produced exciting side-by-side racing. Rick Sago, director of development in Richmond County, N.C., the home of North Carolina Speedway, said race fans in his area don't seem as interested in NASCAR as they once were.
"I just don't think the competition is there on these new tracks," he said. "At California, they've had two races decided by gas mileage and one with tire wear. Go look at the last three races at Rockingham and tell me which one is racing.
"My God, two races at Phoenix, two at California, two at New Hampshire and two road races, and there's not room for one race at Rockingham or North Wilkesboro?"
Team owner Rick Hendrick points out that NASCAR has gained far more fans elsewhere than it may have lost in the South. But will the new fans be as loyal to the sport?
"I think that's a reasonable fear," car owner Bill Davis said. "We know how die-hard these people are down here and how long they've been fans and how passionate they are about it."
Wilson said NASCAR better hope the new fans stay loyal, because it could be too late to win back the old crowd.
"NASCAR would have to really want them back bad enough to court then, and I don't see that happening, not in the immediate future," he said. "[The Southern fan] may well be gone for good."
NASCAR riding away from its base
As sport grows nationwide, Southern roots grow thin
Published on: 03/19/06 There's no disputing NASCAR's phenomenal growth in recent years. The sport sprouted from its Southeastern roots and opened tracks in Kansas City, Chicago and California. Fortune 500 companies lined up to sponsor cars and drivers. Networks paid $4.5 billion for a TV contract. Officials say the fan base is 75 million.
But in its race to claim a place beside other professional sports in a world of glitz and glitter, NASCAR is jeopardizing the grassroots fan base that helped build it.
<!--endtext--><!--endclickprintinclude--><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=175 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>Some NASCAR fans complain that the circuit has become 'too citified,' and some proudly produce symbols of the Old South at races.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--startclickprintinclude--><!--begintext-->There are ominous signs that NASCAR is losing the Old South:? Nextel Cup races rarely sell out at traditional venues such as Atlanta Motor Speedway. Last season, there were empty seats for both Atlanta races, three Charlotte races and the fall race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
? No driver has emerged to take the spot of Dale Earnhardt, an icon for working-class Southerners, who died during the 2001 Daytona 500.
? Moving races from small, traditional tracks such as North Wilkesboro Speedway, North Carolina Speedway and Darlington Raceway has been unpopular with Southern fans.
? And many Southern fans are put off by NASCAR's rock-concert mentality. Officials truly turned the 2006 Daytona 500 into the Super Bowl of racing, emulating the NFL with a pre-race performance by the rock group Bon Jovi. The national anthem was sung by Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.
Linnie Walker, who operates a convenience store near the track in Rockingham, N.C., that NASCAR abandoned in 2004, said she feels bitter and jilted by the sport she helped build.
"It has become too citified, too much about the money," Walker said. "People worked and sweated and saved their nickels and dimes so they could go watch it and help build the sport, and now racing has run off for the big money. They took it away from where it all started."
It didn't help that NASCAR President Mike Helton essentially confirmed the feelings of many disenchanted fans last month during a diversity conference in Washington. "We believe strongly that the old Southeastern redneck heritage that we had is no longer in existence," he told reporters.
NASCAR is sending its old fans signals that are hard to ignore, said Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center for Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.
"When NASCAR went from being primarily focused in the South . . . to trying to be a national sport with a television contract and having so many non-Southern-born drivers, it has downplayed and diminished the targeting of Southerners," Wilson said.
"I think there has been an intentional downplaying of their core audience, and maybe the core audience knows that."
Helton said he doesn't want fans to feel that way.
"What it boils down to is NASCAR has tried to grow the sport and take advantage of opportunities that allow that to happen," he said. "In doing so, we made a national sport of it over the years.
"But our heritage and our roots are from the South, and we're proud of that and have no desire to leave that behind."
Lost that Southern charm
Perhaps the biggest loss was the dominance of Southern-born-and-bred, swashbuckling, intimidating drivers. Early on, that role was played by Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall. Then it was Curtis Turner, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and David Pearson. In the 1980s, the sport was dominated by a redheaded country boy from the North Georgia mountains, Bill Elliott.
They walked like Southern fans. They talked like Southern fans. They fought like Southern fans.
But since Earnhardt's death, no driver has emerged to capture the hearts of working-class Southerners.
"I felt like I knew Dale Sr. and Bill Elliott personally," said Brian Entrekin, who operates West Georgia Speedway in Whitesburg. "I felt like they were my friends. I'm a Dale Jr. fan now, but it's just because of his daddy. He seems friendly, but I don't feel about him like I did about his daddy."
Meanwhile, drivers from elsewhere have seized control. More drivers are from the Midwest and West, in part because short-track racing ? where most NASCAR drivers get their early training ? is flourishing in those areas while it struggles in the South.
Last year, drivers from California, Washington and Nevada won 20 Nextel Cup races; Southern-born drivers won three. Last month at the Daytona 500, only 16 of the 43 drivers grew up in Southeastern states. Only one Southern driver (Jeremy Mayfield of Kentucky) made last season's playoff, the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup.
Wilson, the Ole Miss historian, said the loss of Earnhardt couldn't have come at a worse time for Southern fans.
"When we lost Dale Earnhardt, that almost coincided with this new marketing approach and the national campaign," he said. "His death was so devastating. Look at the funeral and emotions after his death. That was a turning point.
"Somebody needed to come forward to represent that same constituency and have that same appeal, that same Southern earthiness, and nobody has done it. Junior has been as close as anybody, but it's not the same for that core crowd.
"Something was lost with Earnhardt's death that never has been replaced."
Not what it used to be
There's also a feeling among old-school fans that NASCAR has gone too uptown to suit them.
In the old days, the sport was about cars: Ford vs. Chevy, with vehicles on the track closely resembling those in showrooms. It was about Petty from the small North Carolina town of Randleman vs. Pearson, from the mill villages near Spartanburg, S.C. They raced without power steering at tracks like Rockingham and Darlington.
Today, it's racing cars with common templates running in places such as Las Vegas and Chicago with rock stars singing the national anthems. It's Carl Edwards posing shirtless for ESPN magazine covers, and Kasey Kahne endorsing products as nonautomotive as Avon.
Joe McNulty, an attorney from Greensboro, N.C., said NASCAR has changed so much it has lost its soul.
"It's just another reality show on TV," he said. "I don't think there's a lot of racing going on. Fans used to get into fisticuffs over it. . . . It's like with everything else, though: The Old South is gone, never to be reclaimed again."
Helton said NASCAR's goal is to have a show that offers something for everybody.
"The heart and soul of what made NASCAR is still there," he said. "In the meantime, there have been a lot of other elements added to it. I'd like to make the argument that what NASCAR is based on is still very much as traditional today as it's ever been; there's just a lot of elements added to it to make it bigger and better and bolder. But when that green flag falls, it is what it's always been."
A 'different' motorsport
Some short tracks in the Southeast have made it a point to distance themselves from NASCAR-style racing, and have gone with more of a throwback form of the sport.
Mike Swims, vice president of the highly successful Dixie Speedway, a dirt track in Woodstock, said he has seen promoters suffer at the gate when they try to imitate
NASCAR. His track packs in the fans, he says, because the racing and atmosphere are nothing like NASCAR.
"Our product, dirt racing, is a different brand of motorsports altogether," he said. "We have NASCAR fans come see us, but the bottom line is we really don't claim to be a part of NASCAR or resemble NASCAR in any way. . . . Dirt racing is just motorsports in its purest form. There's not a lot of politics involved in it. It's just good old-fashioned competition."
NASCAR's own weekly short-track racing series has lost tracks nationwide, going from 98 to 60 in the past 10 years. Two tracks in Georgia ? Oglethorpe Speedway near Savannah and Lanier Speedway in Braselton ? currently run the series. Lavonia Speedway in North Georgia dropped the program in the 1990s.
The South's highest profile asphalt circuit, the All Pro Series, now owned by NASCAR and known as Elite, will be shut down after this year due to dwindling interest among fans, drivers and promoters.
H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, said the high cost of short-track racing ? a competitive Super Late Model car costs $60,000 ? also is having a ripple effect on the higher divisions of NASCAR and on fans in the South.
"I'm not sure that there's not a Dale Earnhardt or a Richard Petty or a Bobby Allison out there right now that's not even racing," he said.
Economics a factor
Ticket prices are keeping some people away, too. Grandstand tickets for today's race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway range from $30 to $115.
Wheeler said he sensed that people in the Southeast had cut back on the number of races they attended each year because of money.
"That's what's happened with the loss of traditional industries like tobacco, textiles, furniture, and, to a certain extent, farming," he said.
Helton, the NASCAR president, said some empty seats are due to tracks overbuilding their capacity, but he acknowledges that economic factors are at work, too.
"We still have large crowds, 38 races a year that are well-attended, and TV ratings are good," he said.
"We kind of hang on to the positives, but there is a consciousness of the economic environment that's changing in America and how that affects major gatherings."
One factor often cited for Southern fans' attending fewer races is the loss of "home" tracks like Rockingham that always produced exciting side-by-side racing. Rick Sago, director of development in Richmond County, N.C., the home of North Carolina Speedway, said race fans in his area don't seem as interested in NASCAR as they once were.
"I just don't think the competition is there on these new tracks," he said. "At California, they've had two races decided by gas mileage and one with tire wear. Go look at the last three races at Rockingham and tell me which one is racing.
"My God, two races at Phoenix, two at California, two at New Hampshire and two road races, and there's not room for one race at Rockingham or North Wilkesboro?"
Team owner Rick Hendrick points out that NASCAR has gained far more fans elsewhere than it may have lost in the South. But will the new fans be as loyal to the sport?
"I think that's a reasonable fear," car owner Bill Davis said. "We know how die-hard these people are down here and how long they've been fans and how passionate they are about it."
Wilson said NASCAR better hope the new fans stay loyal, because it could be too late to win back the old crowd.
"NASCAR would have to really want them back bad enough to court then, and I don't see that happening, not in the immediate future," he said. "[The Southern fan] may well be gone for good."