An open letter to the suits at NASCAR

Some people are reporting dramatically decreased attendance at NASCAR races for the 2007 season. Of course the NASCAR P.R. people will be out in force trying to distract or confuse everyone about this fact, one can't deny that the series is getting even more boring as time goes on. I'm not talking about to the people that see NASCAR as a bunch of rednecks driving in circles, I'm talking about to the people that, in past seasons have watched every race and attended more than one, are now not even watching the races when NOTHING else is on.

The high that NASCAR has been riding on for the last few years as they increased the fan base was bound to eventually stop, if not come crashing down. As former fans find other interests or move to the more interesting, versatile, and exciting open wheel series (Formula 1, Champ Car, IRL), NASCAR needs to make some changes over the next few years that will slowly but dramatically change the series to attract new fans. Here are a few places to start:

1) There are too many races in a season. Most tracks don't warrant a second race (some don't even deserve a single race). Having a race almost ever single weekend takes away from the uniqueness of a race. F1, Champ Car, and IRL have known this for many years and restrict their seasons to around 15 races a year. Each race is a special event every season instead of a repeat of something that happened a few weeks ago.

2) Drivers should not be able to score points in both the Nextel Cup and Busch series. The Busch series is designed to hone the driving skills of up-and-coming drivers, not a 250 mile practice run for the big race the next day. The top drivers from the Busch series are almost always drivers that have been in Winston/Nextel Cup for years. Let them race, but they aren't given any final position in the race standings and they don't score points.

3) Reduce the maximum number of cars per team to two. Team owners like Roush can participate in new teams by providing engines, chassis, and technical support, but cannot be more than 25% direct financial partners. This would encourage new startup teams by still allowing Jack Roush to receive testing and race data while decreasing the cost of owning and operating a race team.

4) Fewer cautions!!! Don't throw a caution for every piece of debris or spin. If a driver spins without hitting anything, there's no reason to stop the race!! The races are already too long (see my next comment), cautions only drag out the races to four hours or more. It also encourages the drivers to throw out a water bottle if they are in trouble and need a pit stop. If there is debris on the course, throw a yellow, get the debris, and start the race again. If someone wants to pit, they might be caught by the green flag.

5) The races are too long. Some races can stay at 500 miles like Daytona and Bristol, but cut the rest of them to below 300 miles. In fact, the races should be kept under 2.5 hours from Green to Checker with some allowance for a lot of cautions (see previous comment) or a red flag for a bad accident/rain.

6) Increase the diversity of the tracks. California, Texas, Atlanta, Charlotte, even Daytona are cookie cutter tracks. You can argue with me that the banking and length of these tracks are different, but be realistic and admit that they are very similar. With multiple races at a lot of the cookie cutter tracks, it definitely makes for a boring season. In addition to getting rid of most of the duplicate races, replace some of the remaining races with road course races, and possibly a temporary road course in the streets of a city. CASCAR has had quite a few of these, and I can't imagine that you haven't noticed that.

7) Cut down on the number of scoring opportunities in a race. The top 20 cars should be the only ones allowed to score a point with a possible bonus point for pole position. This will keep the barely running cars off the track and, combined with a dramatically reduced season, make every point that much more valuable.

Well, that's my 2 cents. I'm sure there are a lot more things that can happen to maybe make the series worth watching, but this is a start.