NASCAR: What Does NASCAR Need To Do For More Exciting Races?

In recent years, fans have stressed that NASCAR racing has not been as exciting or up to par as it used to be.

According to a report by FrontStretch.com, Cautions were down by 39% to start the 2016 season compared to 2015. That number kept up for the remainder of the 2016 season, producing  the question, what can NASCAR do to make the races more exciting?

Below, are two ways of how they might be able to do so.

Giving Bonuses

Giving bonuses is one way NASCAR could help ramp up the action on track. A team for winning a quarter of the season. Look at 1984, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company announced they’d put forth 1 million dollars for an annual event called The All-Star Race. Afterwards, from 1985 to 1997 three of the 4 Marquee races (Daytona 500, Winston 500, Coca-Cola 600, and the Southern 500) were put into a “Small Slam” with a million dollar prize at stakes. No driver ever won all 4 races, but many drivers won three of the 4 often, receiving one million dollars. If no driver won three of the races, the first driver to win two races would receive a consolation prize of one hundred thousand dollars. If NASCAR goes back to some of these former races, they could bring back the excitement.

NASCAR runs two special events each year, The Clash, and The All-Star Race. But, if NASCAR could do something such as the “Small Slam” that would instantly bring fans excitement back into the sport. If NASCAR were to do another event like the other two, I feel that could help greatly as well. According to Nick Bromberg of Yahoo Sports, France feels attendance is fine.

"Attendance has been fine. We’ve come off weather issues like we did in Phoenix a year ago [when the race was delayed]. We don’t have Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt. Needless to say, there’s going to be a little impact there."

Giving Fans a better at track experience

NASCAR does great things with their at track experience. However, a sport such as Supercross, their fans get in the pits in certain sections. Last season, Road2Recovery, a non-profit foundation to help wounded and injured AMA riders offer fans Jerseys, track walks, among other things. NASCAR has an opportunity to broaden their market with fan V.I.P. and such. If NASCAR were to revamp their fan experience, I’d suggest starting with the tracks. Offer better tracks and packages. If NASCAR was wanting to overhaul their fan experience, they better take a hard look a themselves also. However, NASCAR’s Gene Stefanyshyn, believes the fan experience is just a product.

However, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Innovation and Racing Development,  Gene Stefanyshyn, said this in an interview with SportsTechie:

"We want the racing product to be exciting but at the same time, if there’s an incident on the track, we want to clean it up quickly. Or if it’s going to rain, and we have a TV schedule, we have to dry the track. The fan experience isn’t just the race product. It’s also everything that supports the race product — whether it’s trying to handle the rain, the cleanup, how we officiate the race."

While the fan experience does not translate 100% over to the on-track action, it is a good way for NASCAR to get fans engaged and interested in the sport that they have not had in recent years.

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NASCAR will bounce back from this just like they always have, it’s just a matter when, and for the sake of the fans I hope it’s soon.