Brian France In Denial

Brian France remains in denial about the recent erosion of popularity of NASCAR. His comments about maintaining two annual dates at Fontana, drops in attendence, and drops in TV ratings display the denial that has permeated his tenure in NASCAR. Sagging attendence he blames on fuel prices, pointing to Talladega's sellout crowd and some other tracks. That, though, doesn't wash because attendence was down at Talladega last year when fuel prices were lower and this past May Talladega attendence surged to a sellout even with the spike in fuel prices.

He further blames lack of promotion of the sport by outgoing TV partner NBC, except the ratings are down across the board, with Charlotte's National 500 ratings down some 14%.

Fontana has not sold out any race since 2003 and attendence there has never struck anyone as really animated. That it may be because it is not a good racing market and that the competitive product NASCAR presently has isn't that good does not seem to be taken into consideration.

I've never seen much outside confidence in Brian France, and certainly he's done nothing to date to give me reason to think he knows what he's doing. The Car Of Tomorrow, the Drive For Diversity, expansion into new markets - all are programs that don't work yet continue to get the push from him. The COT's recent test at Homestead went the way all the other COT tests have gone - the car pushed badly, could not pass, and was slow. Fontana is not a good racing market, and NASCAR's rather heavy-handed push for tracks in New York City and Seattle has blown up in their face, proving that new markets are not worth the effort that should instead be used in shoring up existing markets. The Drive For Diversity is the same as everyone else's drives for diversity - pursuing a project in order to make someone feel better about themselves.

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Ironically, it dovetails with the firing of Steve Lyons by FOX Sports for innocuous remarks to Lou Pinnella during a baseball playoff game - Lyons was fired because his remarks were said to be "racially insensitive" even though a listen to the full conversation showed no such insensitivity - and why anyone is supposed to be "sensitive" to start with is a mystery. The firing of Lyons was motivated strictly by wanting someone to feel better about themselves.

Thomas Sowell had a book subtitle for such an attitude - Self-Congradulation As The Basis For Social Policy. It's not the way a network is supposed to operate, and it's not the way for a racing sanctioning body to operate. Brian France needs to come to grips with all of this.