Full Throttle

If you’re the Chairman and CEO of NASCAR what do you do the day after your 2006 season closes out? Go fishing in Lake Norman? Check on the progress of the new NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte? Or maybe just sit back and do nothing for a few days.

After all it’s been 38 weeks since you could say the worries of the coming week didn’t include an avalanche of fines for bending the rulebook or tossing rollbar padding onto the tarmac.

If you’re really the head of the sanctioning body (as opposed to a bloviating blogger) you load up your metaphorical shotgun and take aim at the media.

NASCAR chairman Brian France said the pulse of NASCAR is strong despite lagging television ratings and attendance, and took aim at recent negative media coverage. He ripped USA Today for publishing a story entitled, “NASCAR’s growth slows after 15 years in the fast lane.”

The story, which ran on the front page of the newspaper Wednesday, stated that NASCAR’s popularity has hit a plateau evidenced by fewer than half of the Cup races this season selling out.

”I think that was done in incredibly poor taste,” France said Sunday. “The timing was wrong.”

He also criticized USA Today for burying its coverage of Ford Championship weekend in Friday’s editions.

Despite being the second-most watched sport in the country, France said NASCAR is the most “undercovered sport in the country.”

Questioning the timing, where have I heard that before?

I wonder just when the correct time for noting the decline of TV ratings would be. If the decline was fairly consistent throughout the year any time frame would be appropriate as long as a trend was apparent.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no where close to defending the media. France is correct in the belief NASCAR receives less coverage than is warranted as the second most watched sport in America. The USA Today burying its Chase coverage behind the front sports page is inexcusable when the championship was still up for grabs.

To be clear coverage isn’t only column space or the number of writers assigned but placement of stories and subject matter.

For example the New York Times ran next to nothing NASCAR related during the Chase until France had his get together with a south Florida tree. They ran three stories in three days with no mention of what was occurring on the track. Suddenly it was front page news when the President of Bubba Country had a bit of trouble.

Here’s another example from this mornings media in New Jersey; Speeders turn Laurel St. into NASCAR. Check their sports section, not a single story, in fact not even a section dedicated to NASCAR or auto racing as a whole. There’s a whole bunch of stick & ball sports with some puck tossed in but no auto racing of any kind.

It’s acceptable to tie the “evil speed demons” of auto racing to the childish antics of punk kids racing through neighborhood streets, but it’s beneath their dignity to cover the sport. At ALL!

The media flacks came out of the woodwork during the Mayfield/Evernham Side Dish debacle but the majority of those writing about it had little to no racing coverage.

The same can be said about the Gordon marriage story. The Gordon nuptials feeding frenzy out numbered any race coverage 3 to 1 by most of the largest papers and many of the websites.

Some in the media and on the net have taken the TV ratings and attendance drop story and run with it without any context. Not a single story has mentioned the cost of travel and gasoline through most of the summer and how that could have contributed to the drop. Not one.

As for television ratings, who cares except ad execs and others that troll Madison Avenue for a living. A little research seems to indicate they are very similar to the burning paper bag sometimes found on doorsteps. They just sit there and burn themselves out. But if disturbed, if you peek inside, they stink and are of little use.

The Media; You can’t live with them, but you damn sure can live without them most of the time.

Now, lets get on with the off season. There’s a banquet to attend, Johnson has to book a flight to Paris for the Race of Champions (as a true Champion), and surprisingly enough, the Little Speedway That Couldn’t is in action today. Evernham Motorports will test the COT Monday and Tuesday at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham.

And last but not least in importance is France has to find a way to weasel out of the biggest boondoggle since the Edsel.

But that’s a story for another day. And another, and another and another I have a feeling.

UPDATE: Look around the media today 30 hours or so after the final event. The headlined stories that all claim Jimmie Johnson is the Champion… but he ” lags in fan popularity” or some variation of it have nearly reached the uncountable stage.

NASCAR, Media, NEXTEL Cup, Brian France, Sports, Car of Tomorrow, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle