[mitchntx]

After watching a some of the coverage of the Daytona 500 this weekend and hearing a lot of discussion about the costs associated with feilding a competitive team and hearing the gnashing of teeth surrounding the dwindling sponsorships and hearing the concerns about enough cars to field a full grid and seeing Waltrip's wild tumble and seeing that tumble re-played on network after network after network ....

I began to wonder ....

Because it's all about the number of minutes a specific sponsor get's it's name on TV, when will a driver, who is an "also ran", purposely wreck his car, just get gleen a few extra minutes of sponsor coverage?

Is it cost effective to spend a $100,000 race car in order to keep a $10 million sponsor?

NAPA received tons of exposure from networks to local TV stations replaying his wreck. I would hate to see that happen on purpose, but ... it has to be there in someone's mind ...

[Rob Hood]

Boyce, Pepsi probably paid for the "mom and pop" differential to get built nowadays in NASCAR, due to the escalating costs. That's at least one reason that Pepsi gets mentioned in the pre-race/during-the-race/post-race interview, since Pepsi is primarily footing the bill. Another way to look at this is with Pepsi footing the bill, more people are now employed in NASCAR-related companies (teams, support infrastructure, component manufacturers, etc.) than ever before. So what if Pepsi is all over the car? That's no different than F1 or CART or IRL or any other top tier series. I'm on your side as well on the commercialization issue. I wish it wasn't as bad as it is. It gets in the way of the race. And NBC's coverage (Nuthin' But Commercials) is pathetic. Even their producer admitted he didn't know much about covering a race. ESPN's coverage was much better, but Fox is pretty good.

Mitch's comment on the number of cars further reinforces my point of having only one car built vice a specific car for a track. That would significantly reduce costs. I highly doubt that 80 cars would be needed then, perhaps only 10 total. But the way that NASCAR has written the rules (and keeps re-writing them), the competition has gotten so tight that most race-day fields are only separated by a couple of seconds (Is a spec Miata race field much different, at least through the first few rows?)

NASCAR is a circus, no different than any other race series or professional sport being played today - but it's the best circus now. Open-wheel racing in America is dying, and that is unfortunate. I was fortunate to attend the Indy 500 twice before the split. To me, Indy no longer holds the same appeal since the split. It would be great to see that race's reputation repaired, particularly since it is a longer running event and has a lot more world-wide history attached.