By Lou Modestino
What’s going to happen when we finally get a string of NASCAR races that don’t get delayed by rain and the TV ratings are still lousy? Are we going to get another NASCAR/Fox Sports spin? Frankly, I just can’t really get excited about the NASCAR events on TV. Not to mention the fact that the new qualifying for The Chase is “if you win-you’re in”. It’s all meant to make the drivers take chances and quit point chasing. But we’ve seen stories that even if you win that doesn’t assure a driver a spot in The Chase!?!
We think it’s good that Kurt Busch is winning and Brad Keselowski is miffed at him. Is it the rain that’s hurting ticket sales or is it the lack of competition? We’re still waiting for Fox Sports to get up off their duffs and and make a case to the big cable providers to add Fox Sports 2. We don’t mean for extra money either. Cable prices are high but the only redeeming factor is that there’s a lot of competition for Infinity/Comcast who are trying to fight off Verizon Fios and ATT.
Middletown, Connecticut’s Joey Logano had to wait an extra day to put his car into victory lane at Texas which washed out on Sunday after NASCAR tried to get it in to no avail. If you were watching that race on Monday you would have noticed, that in spite of the race going on the next clear day, that there were a lot more fans in the grandstands. Lots of them stayed the extra day!
We’ve also seen reports in the business pages that Comcast/Infinity is trying to buy Time-Warner. That’s obviously an attempt to block competition in the cable market place. We hope that the FTC and the government won’t let that happen. But I wouldn’t bet on it. While we’re at it, where can we get MAV-TV which has a lot of motor head programming? I’ve asked my cable provider some of these questions a month ago and have yet to get an answer.
We read an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal on Formula 1. Storm clouds are moving in on F1 according to author A.J. Baime. A.J. thinks that such things as the new engine formula that will require changes inside out. The principles who handle the money for the world’s most expensive racing entity are not happy about the timing, particularly the Red Bull group. Red Bull is one of four team owners that budget half-a-billion dollars every year to “stay in the hunt”.
Baime is also concerned on who will be replacing the soon to be departing Bernie Ecclestone who could go to jail on bribery charges which will force him to finally retire, after 40 years of raking in all that money. There seems to be nobody around that would replace him according to the folks who closely follow F1 racing. We can name two likely candidates like Jean Todt the head man in the FIA and and Luca di Montezemolo the former CEO of the Fiat group which also owns Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and most recently took over Dodge, Chrylser and Ram. Both have extensive resumes in managing motor racing and the automobile business.
The lament and the “woe is me” crowd continues on in the world of racing. Though, we haven’t heard much about the unified sports car racing efforts other than the fact that the Sebring crowd was fantastic according to the reports and TV cameras that panned the crowd for the mid-March 12 Hour event. Also, the crowd that turned out for the Rolex 24 at the end of January in Daytona was said to be the best in recent years.
The print and electronic media will be getting warmed up pretty soon for the Indy 500 happenings during the month of May. There’s also the Kurt Busch effort to run both the Indy 500 and the Coca Cola 600 on the same day. That will help Indy Car and IMS sell tickets. Also NASCAR’s most popular driver, Junior is also trying to figure out a way that he can do the same thing. The Kurt Busch deal seems solid. But there’s the issue for Junior that Chevy may nix his effort due to the fact that he’s been talking to Indy Car teams that don’t run Chevy power plants.