NASCAR driver Kyle Busch talks the 1990s race fan versus today’s fan
NASCAR is in a new era. It sort of started with the Car of Tomorrow. Fast forward just a few more years, and the sport now looks drastically different.
First, the Next Gen car has leveled the playing field. Cars are identical from team to team, far different than the cars of the 1990s.
But, a bigger change from then to now is the tracks themselves. The short tracks were all but erased from the NASCAR schedule, replaced by a string of similar 1.5-mile speedways, nicknamed cookie-cutter ovals.
The drivers themselves have also changed. Kids are now making it into the sport. Gone are the days of the working man making his way into the sport. Instead, a line of young drivers with boat loads of money are climbing the NASCAR ladder.
The costs of the sport have caused that. Teams need money to survive and it’s easier to survive, especially in the lower divisions when a driver is paying his way and funding the team.
In the modern era, even Cup drivers have to pay to drive when they race in lower divisions. How would a no-name kid make it without funding?
But, that same driver didn’t build a fan base to get there like they used to. And, maybe that’s a problem as fans come to the racetrack to see their favorite driver…
The tracks, the cars, the type of drivers, it’s all different. Basically, everything has changed. The sport looks very different to a fan. Sure, a few of you stuck around but it’s hard to believe many are still here…
Kyle Busch talks NASCAR fans in the 1990s
“You have die-hard fans of NASCAR, the Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Mark Martin, Harry Gant, you name it. The guys from the 90s. Our world today in 2024 is a lot different fan base following along,” Kyle Busch stated ahead of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“I don’t feel like we were able to transition a lot of the fans that were fans of those drivers that I just mentioned into a William Byron fan or a Kyle fan.”
“They kind of probably went away and just stopped following as much. Which is hard to say because honestly when you look at NASCAR, the fans love the drivers.”
How much did Kyle Busch sell his NASCAR team for?
Comparing NASCAR to the NFL
“Driver star power, that’s what brings people to the racetrack. When you look at the NFL, for instance – those players on that team change so often. You guys think my pit crews’ names changing every week is a lot, look at the roster changes of NFL teams and what they go through with their 53 man roster.”
“But fans are fans of the team and a lot of times, I’ll throw out a name, Jacksonville for instance. The last few years, they’re coming back because of Trevor Lawrence, right? They’ve got somebody back that has brought the team back into the forefront.”
“But, before that, their stadiums were empty, you know what I mean. You can find the same struggles across different sports, is what we see sometimes.”
The fans from the 1990s might be mostly gone. But, they would have loved Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Links
Kyle Busch | Bristol Motor Speedway | NASCAR
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