NASCAR: An Open Letter From A Concerned Fan
Dear NASCAR,
It appears that you have gotten exactly what you wanted out of your brand new Chase format; excitement, a standard playoff format and an emphasis on winning. While you may think this is a cause for celebration and a good old pat on the back, I’m here to warn you that you’re on a slippery slope.
Yes, you’ve emphasized winning, a thing that was never particular emphasized in championship campaigns of the past, but at what cost did it take to achieve these means? In my opinion, it cost you the integrity and respect that your sport once held so dear to its heart and now treats like an afterthought as long as the result at the end of the day is intense and attracts the attention from the media.
Take for example your latest snafu at the end of The Camping World.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It is many fans opinion that defending champion, Kevin Harvick, intentionally caused a wreck on the last lap of the race in order to secure his spot in the next round of your grand scheme of a Chase format.
While evidence is mounting in favor of this theory, mainly radio communications between Harvick and his crew chief and the fact that he could be seen turning up into Trevor Bayne’s quarter panel right after the six car passed him, you continue to sit there. You continue to look at the chaos that has ensued, but still do nothing to rectify it.
Not only is there something wrong with a finish like this, there’s something extremely wrong with desperation like this. Desperation that you made a by-product of this monster you call a playoff system. Gone are the days of good hard racing, replaced by the days where drivers mumble to themselves the creed, anything to win a title at the end of the season.
Is that the kind of champion you want representing the sport that you worked so hard and so long to build over the years? A champion who’s defining moment in your playoff system was to wreck half the field in order to advance to the next round? Is that any kind of champion that the fans or you can be proud of?
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What makes this worse is the fact that you don’t even want to rectify the situation at all. Honestly, you probably can’t anyway, because doing so would go against the very nature of the Chase format that you have worked so hard to build during the 2013 offseason. Doing so would also draw a very confusing line between what kind of desperation is allowed and what kind of desperation isn’t.
Tell me NASCAR, what is the difference between what you have allowed to happen during Sunday’s race at Talladega, and scandals in another major sport? The only one I can see is that while the NFL, NBA NHL would punish and rectify a situation like this, you choose to just sit back and bath in the controversy that you have created.
In a way, your highly hyped playoff system is no better than pro wrestling, scripted and full of artificial excitement. That’s not to say that you personally script the outcomes of your races in the championship playoffs, but you have various rules in place to make sure that there are enough twists and turns to keep fans gasping for air.
Unfortunately for you, once NASCAR fans gather their collective breaths and realize what I already have come to understand, they will leave your sport in favor of more legitimate and rewarding forms of entertainment. This is your future NASCAR, unless of course you decide to compromise and restructure this monstrosity you call a playoff system.
It’s up to you NASCAR, start making changes, or fans will start making changes in what they watch during their Sunday afternoons. The best news I can give you at this time, is that you have an entire offseason to make changes, I just hope you will choose to make the right ones and restore the sport to the days where a fan could be proud of their champion.
Yours Truly,
A Passionate Fan That Is Ready To Move On After 2015