Daytona

I remember when I used to be excited when the race was on.

I made time to watch NASCAR whenever it was on.

Then, and quite suddenly, I no longer gave a fuck.

The constant rule changes just kept sucking the Stock out of the S in NASCAR.

The cars on the track bear no relation at all to the cars on the road.  That makes me sad.

There's lots of other kinds of car racing that don't even pretend to have this relationship to real cars that are just as interesting... well MORE interesting now.

The constant rule changes to make the racing more "exciting" to people who aren't race fans or car people served only to drive the race fans and car people elsewhere.

Somewhere they forgot that accessible is not the same as pandering.  They pandered to the new crowd and alienated the core group of fans.

NASCAR has not yet figured out that the people attracted by the "exciting" rule changes are not long term fan material and the ratings show it.  The core constituency is gone and not coming back and the excitement fans are wandering to the next thing that attracts their short attention spans.

Most of us old fans have ideas to make the racing more interesting and would draw the old fans back in.  But we're not near the huge group the sport was at its peak.  There will be no getting that number back, no matter what.  Sorry NASCAR.