That's Racing: NASCAR becoming NAP-CAR

NASCAR fans are a hardy lot who don’t ask for much. They’ll park two ZIP codes away from the track, endure every extreme of weather and tolerate motel price-gouging so outrageous that it would embarrass a Mafia loan shark.

All they ask in return is an interesting race.

Increasingly, they are getting short-changed says H.A. (Humpy) Wheeler, the P.T. Barnum of racing promoters. That’s why turnstiles are rusting and TV ratings are sagging like an aging supermodel.

“Racing has to be exciting and entertaining,” Wheeler says. “If movies weren’t exciting or entertaining from start to finish, theaters would die.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently put it this way: “95 percent of the racing isn’t worth the price of a ticket.”

Wheeler says drivers put too much emphasis on “points racing” — driving conservatively in order to avoid mistakes that could result in a bad finish and a plunge in the point standings. They take a safe fifth over a risky first and that’s why fans see more riding than racing.

“I’ve never seen a fan buy a ticket to a points race,” Humpy says. “Drivers need more incentive to race to win.”

NASCAR tried to rev up the action earlier this season by implementing double-file restarts, intended to bunch up the lead-lap cars and make for more exciting racing. Several drivers immediately complained about the congested restarts.

For years drivers griped about the aerodynamics of the cars, saying they were too sensitive to air flow and too hard to drive. NASCAR changed the design to bulk up the cars, but drivers continue to complain.

They don’t like sleek cars. They don’t like bulky cars. They don’t like close restarts. They don’t like the banging at Bristol, nor the tingle at Talladega.

More and more fans yearn for the old days when the engines did the whining.

Wheeler believes that slowing the cars would create more competitive balance and lessen the domination of the three or four mega-teams.

He says racing is not just about going fast, and he’s correct. The most popular track on the circuit is Bristol, where speeds don’t approach those of the big tracks. Yet its races consistently draw 160,000-seat sellouts.

Humpy wonders what part of a “packed house” NASCAR and track owners don’t understand.

Wheeler left Lowe’s Motor Speedway last year to form a Charlotte-based company specializing in motor sports management. That’s a fancy term for what he’s been doing for four decades: promoting races and selling tickets.

He has always operated on a simple premise: racing is entertainment. If fans are entertained they’ll come back for more. If not …well, we see what’s happening.

If NASCAR is wise it will heed Humpy’s advice. It needs to liven up the show and light a fire under racers who seem increasingly reluctant to race.