NASCAR: Will fans really quit watching over recent announcement?
By Randy Smith
NASCAR recently confirmed that the Next Gen car will see the car numbers moved forward, an announcement that received mixed responses.
When 23XI Racing announced on Friday that they had signed current Chip Ganassi Racing driver Kurt Busch to drive the #45 Toyota for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, they also revealed that the car numbers will move from the door toward the front.
This led NASCAR to confirm this particular change for the Next Gen car.
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https://twitter.com/23XIRacing/status/1431422557668925440
A change in number placement was done in last year’s All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway and had been rumored for 2022 for several weeks, but 23XI Racing were the first to show the physical evidence of a number change.
This change will allow more room for sponsorship, and 23XI Racing have given a clear illustration of how paint schemes can be altered in response to the change.
Now that 23XI Racing and NASCAR have confirmed the change, plenty of fans have voiced their displeasure. But is it really warranted?
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Fans across social media, including commenters on the 23XI Racing tweet, have voiced their lack of approval over the new number placement, with some not minding the change but wanting the numbers a little more to the right. Some fans, however, want the numbers to stay on the door.
But is this displeasure really warranted? A decal number will not change the racing; the Next Gen car will. Additionally, other forms of motorsport such as IndyCar and Formula 1 have even smaller number placements, considering the body style of their cars.
If the number placement opens the door for more sponsors and existing sponsors to have more “wiggle room” in their advertising design, which is what NASCAR feels like they need to do in order to keep the money coming in, there shouldn’t be this much of an uproar.
The “NASCAR is dying” rhetoric has been echoed for years, and it seems as though the sport is doing everything it can do to prevent that.
Yet fans still are upset.
It’s baffling to see that viewpoint if this is what the sport feels like it needs to do to make sure fans still have a stock car racing series to watch.
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While it remains to be seen if fans will actually quit watching the sport over a number placement change, one thing is for sure: the new number placement is real and will be effective regardless of opinion.