Full Throttle

Here are a few of the items that have crossed the wires in the last few hours. But first a couple related stories on NASCAR tracks and their promotion.

The Full Throttle Club (Why aren’t YOU a member yet?) featured a rather heated discussion - “heated” if that means universally against the idea - over Bruton Smith’s idea that NASCAR should black-out local broadcasts of races as a way to boost ticket sales.

The fact Smith dove into the Deep End of the Pool without his arm floatees wasn’t lost on Fox Sports head honcho David Hill. Dustin Long asked Hill, “What did you think about Bruton Smith’s idea of blacking out races in local markets if the events are not sold out?”

“I thought it was total bullshit It just upset me. The fans have made Bruton a multi-billionaire. What he in effect was saying by blacking out, ‘Well, I don’t want the fans who can’t come and pay me money to watch the racing in Charlotte.’ “I thought he had absolutely turned his back on the fans to do that,” related the Fox Sports chairman and CEO.

Precisely. (UPDATE: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says screw you fans. Even the sad-sack Lions fans (Sorry [not the Tuna] Charlie) a team that failed to sell out it’s final 6 home games this past season. Damn the economy, full speed ahead to local TV blackouts.)

In a related item Matt Humphrey directs us all to a Dale Earnhardt Jr. interview at SI. Junior reacted to news coming out of a discussion held with Smith’s SMI track promoters saying drivers should be doing more to promote tracks and the sport.

“The race track owners want drivers to do more? Yeah, right. They need to go back to work,” he said. “They forgot what it’s like to sell tickets. That’s their problem. They ain’t had to sell tickets for a long time and none of them remember how or knew how or ever learned how.

“They need to get back to working hard and doing their promotions and putting packages together for race fans. They don’t want to cut the ticket price but they probably should and get these hotels to quit gouging these people. They can dump that responsibility on drivers all they want but the responsibility really lies in their hands to sell race tickets and they have to get creative in doing it. We already do a lot. We do [bleeping] plenty and they are full of [bleep].”

Put another way, the promoters have gotten fat, dumb and happy, although to be fair since mid-season 2008 tracks have been slashing ticket prices dramatically.

I haven’t spent any time tracking the numbers but would be willing to bet NASCAR drivers spend more time in NASCAR ticket booths, making pre-race local appearances, compete at local bull-rings in the geo-area of NASCAR events and in general do far more race/sport promotion than the top three stick and ball sports combined. When was the last time you saw an NFL or MLB star promote the sport of football?

Hell, a common thread of thought among many fans is there’s too much NASCAR promotion. There’s hardly a week goes by I don’t see a comment thread peppered with criticism of Speed Channel’s over-saturation of NASCAR coverage.

For full disclosure, while I don’t whine about it, I would agree with that train of thought. It is what it is, when a cash cow is full it needs milking and that’s what Speed and other networks do. If a fan dislikes 2 hours of pre-race coverage don’t watch it, period.

Anyway, ranting aside, here are the news items crossing the wires on this “Pre-Stupid Bowl” Saturday:

Andy Lally, recent Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona winner, will drive the #28 FDNY Racing Chevy Silverado in the Camping World Truck Series event at Daytona International Speedway.

The status of Chip Ganassi’s (Now EGR) #41 has been resolved. The #41 has been registered to Jeremy Mayfield in 2009 for his Mayfield Racing Enterprises (Huh, what woodpile did they crawl out of? - ed), but the points didn’t go with the number, according to a Mayfield spokesperson. The team will field a Tpyota Camry and attempt to make the up-coming Daytona 500.

Jimmie Johnson and wife Chandra, singer(?) Nick Lachey, Playboy Playmates Amber Campisi and Shannon James, Marco Andretti, 600 friends and Red Carpets - Oh My!

Speaking of over saturation, do we really need a Budweiser Shootout Draw Party? Based on the nearly universal thumbs down given the new Shootout format I suspect not, but what the hey. Tickets are free.