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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
SPENCER: Shorter Sundays
Want to draw more fans back to NASCAR?
Jimmy Spencer  |  Posted June 18, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Jimmy Spencer calls it like he sees it on SPEED. (Photo: SPEED)
Want to draw more fans back to NASCAR?

Then NASCAR should look to last Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan for a cheap and easy fix to some of what ails the sport.

While “fixing” various problems in NASCAR often involves complicated modifications to the cars and rules, there are a couple of moves the sanctioning body could make that wouldn’t require laying a finger on the race cars.

Shorten the races to no more than three or three-and-a-half hours and you’ll see more fans eager to watch the events in their entirety and more often. I loved the length of the Michigan race, slightly over three hours, and it was a breath of fresh air after the previous week’s marathon at Pocono. Despite the surprising brevity of the Michigan event, it still featured an exciting fuel-mileage finish, while Pocono seemed like it pushed an eight-hour ordeal.

There is no reason we can’t shorten these events to three-and-a-half hours maximum for the 2010 season and there is nothing to be gained by dragging them into the fourth hour. Extra miles don’t improve the competition or pit strategies, and lengthiness only serves to drive more viewers away from their TV sets or put them to sleep in the grandstands.

Fewer laps to fine-tune a car’s handling would jerk teams and drivers into action more quickly than 500 miles to contemplate their handling issues and subtle adjustments. Drivers would have to get up on the wheel and teams would be forced to take a big swing at drastic, wholesale changes when the car isn’t running well. Pit strategy would come into play more often and the on-track product would be better, just as it is in the shorter NASCAR Camping World Truck Series events, which virtually everyone agrees put on better shows than the Cup Series.

I’d even go so far as to say we should shorten the Coca-Cola 600 by making it a 600 kilometer race instead of 600 miles. It would still retain its name and remain as the longest event on the NASCAR schedule, testing the team, driver and car’s fortitude, but wouldn’t drag on all day.

Promoters don’t want to hear this but the attention span of the average person is probably in line with mine and I can’t tolerate watching anything longer than three-and-a-half hours, no matter what sport or how captivating it may be. Not too many people sit in front of their television sets anymore and watch the races from start to finish because the middle of the races are basically disposable. We need to give NASCAR fans a reason to stick around for the entire duration, so make that overall time commitment shorter.


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