Monday Night NASCAR on Tap for 2015? Brad & DW Agree

For all those screaming for NASCAR to leave Saturday night to the weekly tracks, here's an option. Personally, I'd expect better television ratings, but even more empty seats at the track. But, you've got to keep the TV networks happy so they'll continue to shell out the kind of bucks that let a back marker driver like David Gilliland own a $5 Million Lake Norman Estate.

Also, it's pretty scary when you have Brad Keselowski and Darrell Waltrip agreeing on something. I really don't like the idea of running all the races in a region one behind the other or all the short tracks together or all the superspeedways together. Part of the vast appeal that grew NASCAR was watching a driver on a big track one weekend and on a half-mile the next.

When you put all the races in a region close together, you get dying attendance such as was experienced at Rockingham and Darlington competing near Charlotte's dates. I do agree, of course, with the concept of returning Darlington's Southern 500 to Labor Day weekend.

Having worked at a track for a decade promoting Cup and Nationwide and Truck and Modified and Late Model Stock Car events, I can assure you there's a lot more to successful scheduling than Darrell Waltrip or "Wreck 'em Brad" could ever conceive.

Are you ready for some Monday Night NASCAR?
May 8, 2014
By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star

Tinkering with the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule is underway.

While Kansas Speedways swap of dates with Darlington Raceway for Saturday nights Sprint Cup race was the only switch on the 2014 calendar, NASCAR might be making significant changes next year.

With new television partners NBC and NBC Sports coming on board for the second half of the season for the next 10 years, Monday Night Racing may be one of the new wrinkles, depending if a track is interested in making such a move.

Stronger than expected television ratings when the rain-delayed 2012 Daytona 500 was pushed into a Monday night could be an impetus for prime-time racing on either Fox or NBC.

I wouldnt necessarily be opposed to do one here, Kansas Speedway president Pat Warren said of a Monday night race, particularly in June or July. That would be a television-driven issue.

NASCAR expects to receive requests for schedule changes from tracks over the next few weeks and will see if it can make changes for a track such as Kansas, which was able to move its April date to early May for its first night Sprint Cup race with the hope of eventually moving to June or July.

Everybody would love that June, July summer date. Unfortunately were not able to deliver 36 of those, said Steve ODonnell, NASCAR executive vice president/racing operations. We do our best to really manage all expectations with tracks, particularly with Kansas.

We were well aware a night race was in high demand. We werent able to get them all the way to where they wanted to be in terms of June or July, but with some working through (International Speedway Corp., which also owns Darlington) we were able to get them that night race. As we go forward, well look to continue to see if we can do to get further in the summer window.

The 5-hour Energy 400 will be the first Saturday Sprint Cup event at Kansas Speedway since it opened in 2001 and the third springtime race since the facility was awarded a second Cup date in 2011. Warren is aware moving to a Monday night would cause problems for fans who travel great distances for a weekend race when they are off work.

Fans from 49 states (all but Rhode Island) and eight foreign countries Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Croatia, Germany, Mexico, Zealand and Switzerland have tickets for this weekend.

If you race on a weeknight, its hard for people to come from out of state, Warren said. It becomes a more Kansas City-based event, which isnt necessarily a bad thing but creates different marketing challenges.

There is also something to be said for establishing equity in a race date, such as the fall race at Kansas Speedway, which has been held on the final weekend of September or early October since the track opened.

Fans make plans well in advance and travel long ways to our races, ODonnell said. If Kansas remains on Mothers Day, and it works, thats something fans will put on their calendars. If we change that every single year, it becomes a challenge.

What we want to do, especially with the new TV partners coming in, is take a real hard look at the schedule. If there are some opportunities that work for everyone, this would be a great year to put things into play. When you look at Kansas this weekend, well look at what the fans think of being there at night.

If there are some dates that make sense for the fans and are a win-win for the tracks making those requests, I think youll see us make that move.

Scheduling issues have been bubbling for a while. Brad Keselowski, the 2012 Sprint Cup champion, recently made a detailed proposal a Dream Schedule on his blog, calling for radical changes.

It included grouping together the West Coast races California, Phoenix and Sonoma; scheduling midweek races to create doubleheaders with nearby weekend races; moving the All-Star Race to the penultimate weekend; and shifting the season finale from Homestead-Miami to Las Vegas.

Why is the schedule so sacred? Keselowski wondered. Everything else has been cut, changed, chopped, and rebuilt. Why not that?

We all agree we could do better, but nobody knows what are all the logistical issues, why the schedule is what it is, so its not really fair to criticize it because no one really understands it.

Hall of Famer and three-time Sprint Cup champion Darrell Waltrip agrees with Keselowskis grouping of tracks, saying he would like to see a series of West Coast races, short-track races and 1.5-mile track races.

Ive been saying for a long time that NASCAR should quit focusing on changing rules for the cars, and look at something that really needs to be done, and the schedule is in dire need of revamping, Waltrip said. Its hodgepodge. They cant just move one race around and call it a new schedule.

Put the Southern 500 back at Darlington on Labor Day where it belongs.

Waltrips partner in the Fox booth, former crew chief Larry McReynolds, would like to see NASCAR experiment with a midweek, night race in Bristol, Tenn.

Move it from the middle of March to when we know well have better weather, McReynolds said. Weve been trying to race there in March, and it just doesnt work. Even if the forecast is good, there are still no butts in the seats. We go back there in August and have a great crowd. Put it in late spring or early summer.

Keselowski doesnt buy the argument that midweek races would be tough sells for tracks.

If we have great racing that you cant miss, theyll still come, Keselowski said. A million people went to Woodstock. They still played during the middle of the week, didnt they?

If its a cant-miss event, people will come.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/05/08/5011201/are-you-ready-for-some-monday.html#storylink=cpy

As much of a traditionalist as I am, I agree it's time to re-work the schedule. A couple of thoughts about this particular proposal:

• Right out of the gate, it's beyond laughable to invoke "equity in a race date" when it comes to Kansas. Covitz should get blasted for that one. I get that he is a homer because of living and working in KC area. But the Southern 500 was ripped from its Labor Day weekend after decades. And now this year, KC traded with the fake Southern 500 so that KC could get a Mother's Day weekend race. So cry me a river of about possibly moving that track's "equity in a race date".
• A Monday night race is an intriguing idea. However, to use Daytona as the benchmark is a farce. Daytona always gets the strongest ratings whether it be Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening or Monday evening. But it's hardly the bellweather for the rest of the tracks the rest of the season.
• If fans want to see a Monday race, they'll come from out of town. Folks coming from out of town for a Sunday race are likely already taking Friday and Monday - maybe even Thursday. If a race is moved to a Monday, they'll likely work Thursday and Friday and take off Monday and Tuesday instead. The race has to be attractive enough for folks to want to visit though. For me, KC wouldn't do it for me.
• Even with a local audience, a track could lose parents with young children on a school night. That is a risk football, baseball, hockey and basketball take with all mid-week games. For all but football, the teams likely expect it and the gaps aren't as noticeable in 15,000 to 40,000 seat venues. But at a race track where you'd like to have 80,000 to 100,000, those gaps could be quite noticeable.
• If the goal is to have a made-for-TV event, that's fine if it fits their business model. But seems they'd better adjust to what they want at the gate. If they could have solid TV ratings to drive up advertising revenue, they may be willing to trade down the number of butts in seats. I'd think TV, NASCAR, the track and the teams could adjust to that (and probably already have) than fans could. In recent years, several NFL games have not had full attendance yet ratings and revenues are at full strength. Football fans get it. Race fans watching on TV still seem to expect to see full stands, and we often criticize the networks when camera angles tend to stay away from shots of the partially filled stands.
• So will a Monday or even a Thursday night race work? Perhaps. But I personally think it would need to be somewhere such as Bristol, Richmond, or All-Star race to work. Maybe they could even light Watkins Glen where an in-person experience has so many obstructions to begin with.

I should have added that many of us at this site are old enough to remember when we DID have weeknight races. It was called Grand National, pre-Winston.

Brad would have loved the 1964 schedule. He could have have raced weeknights and weekends in the same week.

For instance, check this week in April 1964:

April 11 - Weaverville

April 12 - Hillsboro

April 14 - Spartanburg

April 16 - Columbia

April 19 - North Wilkesboro

Wonder how Danica or some other of today's "Tiny Tims" would have fared that week with no wave around, no lucky dog and no power steering?

Agreed. Not old enough to remember them - but care enough to learn about them! Certainly a different era. Wasn't TV driven - yet promoters and publicly traded track holding companies weren't trying to pack in 100,000 people at a cost prohibitive price point.

But that also speaks to my point. Look at that list of tracks and the variety of surfaces and styles they represent. All popular tracks because the racing was solid. 100-250 mile lengths. Compact evenings.

NASCAR and TV could return to something like that on a weeknight basis. But they'd need to do so with shorter race distance, good racing/passing, etc. - not a 300-400 mile race with follow-the-leader racing.

Many have heard me say here before that to this date, the best major league race I've ever seen was one I attended at Beltsville, Maryland on June 15, 1966 when Tiny Lund beat James Hylton for his third career Grand National win.

The distance was 100 miles and the track was a half-mile. The race was run on Friday night under the lights and the stands were full.

Of course, there was no television. If that race had been televised, they'd have had to at least double the seating capacity at Greenville, SC for the next race and I'm sure the TV audience would have doubled.

It wasn't the Cup series, but I think NASCAR/ISC let a really good thing slip away when the made for television "off season" Winter Heat Series from Tucson, AZ was cancelled.

Chase, I don't disagree with one single point you make and concur with most.

Wasn't last year's Eldora truck race a mid-week event also? If so, another interesting experiment. But again, hopefully someone in Daytona is smart enough ... [pause for comedic effect] ... to realize it too shouldn't be viewed as fans' general interest in weeknight racing.

And to think that I once had the opinion that Brad was a smart guy.

Seriously though, I recently read that Saturday night is the least watched night for television of any night, no matter what is on. Nevertheless, NASCAR insists of scheduling more and more Saturday night races. Figure that out. Going way back in time, however, I remember that "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" were back-to-back on Saturday nights and were both a huge success. Obviously, though, a tall dude in a totally white three piece suit standing next to a midget with a terrible accent who had a passion for spotting "De Plane" made for better television than certain Kentucky dummies we are forced to endure.