We’re doing an Extra Special Monday Edition of Lugnuts this week, and everyone is invited!!

                                                 
LUGNUTSONLINE.COM
 

 Blogtalkradio.com did some upgrading last night and we had to reschedule, but we still have a lot to talk about!

Did you see that the TV ratings are up? The race in Richmond showed a 28% increase in viewership from last years telecast. Were this week’s ratings up as well?

Did you see that the IRL Champion  (Mr. Ashley Judd) is heading over to Nascar, to give some fenders (and a real paycheck) a try?

How about the “Go-Carts on Crack League” adopting a communist manifesto?

We saw all of this, and then some.

So… Tune in to Lugnutsonline.com tonight at 11:00pm(EST) and join the crew!

We’re gonna have CCR from Nascarblackflag.com drop in to help us cover some of these topics, and we might even get the rakishly handsome Jerry Boyd from NascarToday to give us one of his patented exclusives!

And, I’ll finally be answering the listener questions from our “Ask a Lugnut” series.

You can chime in as well!

Just call 1-646-478-4269 to join the show live.

Or call 1-888-450-1568 to leave a message. If it’s really good, we might put it on the air…if it’s really bad, it will definitely get on!

See y’all at the track!

Have you ever tried to drive a nail to hang a picture, hit it that one last time, and made a big dent in the wall?

Have you ever tried to tighten a nut, only to break the bolt?

(Yeah, me too….) My dad used to call this “Over fixing” it.

There are a lot of people talking about the decline of Nascar. I’ve heard the ratings are falling, the attendance is down, and the perception of “fairness” is a big problem. All that may very well be true. But…. Aren’t the Nascar bigwigs already addressing these situations? Let’s take a look…. Shall we….

The ratings: There’s probably a lot of ways to calculate these, and I’m not sure they can really tell who’s watching, when, from where. I’m not a big numbers guy, but I’ve seen reports that the overall ratings are down 10%, but the younger demographics (males, age 18-34) are up 7%. Well, isn’t that what Nascar was looking for? They’re giving us cartoon computer simulations of the race. (Just like a video game) They’ve dressed the reporters up in fire suits. (Are they afraid they’re gonna get into a wreck?) And, they’re breaking away from the pre-show reports to give us a rock concert. (Who is “Hinter”, and why should I care…) There also seems to be a lot of commercials these days. Most companies will not put an ad, where no one will see it. (You don’t see many billboards out in the swamps.) Maybe they know something we don’t.

Attendance: Is it down? Really? Compared to what? Last year? The last 5 years? Has anybody taken into consideration, a lot of Nascar fans are dressed up in desert camouflage, and are off fightin’ a war? Have you noticed that Kentucky Speedway is suing Nascar to get a race there? Have you also noticed that the older tracks are spending a lot of money to upgrade, so they can keep their races? Aren’t they trying to build new tracks anywhere they can find 10 acres of dirt that ain’t doing anything? Do you think all this is happening because nobody is showing up? Me neither…

Fairness: The COT project (It might be time for a name change.) was put into place for two reasons. The first was to make the drivers a little safer. (I’m all for that.) The second reason was to make the car more affordable to the smaller teams. Now they only have to build one car, instead of two or three. (Different ones for different tracks.) They also wrote a big list of convoluted rules, to keep the teams with more technical expertise from tinkering with their cars. They are also slapping fines and suspensions on anybody that even breathes on the dang thing. (Don’t get me started on this. I’m old school on this subject. I believe that innovation and imagination are the cornerstones of stockcar racin’)

In the last few years Nascar has made a lot of changes. They’ve added the “Chase to the Championship”, and modified that into today’s “Chase version 2.0”. They’ve added new sponsors, and car manufacturers. They’ve even revamped the car. Don’t you think we should just stop, take a breath, and see how these changes affect the sport? Shouldn’t we give this a season or two to see what happens? I understand that change is necessary for growth, but we’re not even sure of what we have now. A really smart guy once said… “If you don’t know where you are, how would you know if you were lost?”

Let’s not “Over Fix” Nascar!!! We might break it beyond repair.

As always, that's my story..

**Program Note* Check out Lugnutsonline The new Radio show, for Nascar fans, from Nascar fans. We want to talk about, what you're talking about. So check out the show, shoot us an email, or better yet, call in live...... we'd appreciate your support!!***