balance we have had a very good season. You would expect me to say that, and we have had our ups and downs, in a long season with as many races as we have. But we are very pleased with a lot of things we did accomplish in this difficult economy, very difficult on our race fans...And we are very pleased with the initial promise to the teams that we would react in an accelerated fashion if we could, in testing and rules changes, to take additional costs out of their racing budgets. And we'll continue to do that…because 2010 doesn't look to be an awfully lot better.
Mad Mikie: History will be made this weekend. Whether or not it comes down the way you want it to remains to be seen as I’m writing this. As to a good season of racing, I think the empty grandstands and the poor TV ratings pretty much speak as to how good this season has been for the Cup Series. If you’re pleased with how boring the races have been, the number of complaints from the fans and drivers, the poor TV ratings, and the lack of attendance, then you need your head examined. At least you’re having a moment of sobriety by admitting you don’t see 2010 being much better. Unless something drastic happens over the winter, like you are being forced to resign, you can expect to see the ratings continue to sag, more fans staying away from the races, more teams shutting their doors, souvenir sales continuing their death spiral, and the ledgers continuing to be in the red in a major way.
Drug Policy
France: "On the drug policy, we believe we made the right decisions to make an already tough policy even more tough," France said. "We think we have to do that due to the circumstances that go on in the country today, and in sports in general. We have a 200 mile an hour race car. We felt it was very imperative that we improve our policy, which we did. We will stand behind that very clearly."
Mad Mikie: Tough drug policy? Sounds like you’ve been hitting the pipe yourself Your Highness. When was the last time you actually were tested for drugs or alcohol as specified in the drug testing policy? As an official of NA$CAR, you’re subject to the same testing as every driver, owner, crewmember, and track official. So, when were you tested and what were the results Your Majesty? Improve your policy? What improvement? Aaron Fike wasn’t even caught during one of your drug tests. So you have a knee-jerk reaction. You implemented random testing, which can be a good thing. But the Cup drivers still don’t have an official list of prohibited substances. Drivers who have been involved in alcohol related incidents haven’t had to meet the criteria laid down in the official drug and alcohol policy. And what about the accusations made by Jack Flowers involving your own drug use? You still haven’t addressed those. If you’re going to clearly stand behind the program then you need to set the example. A real leader would.
Plate Racing
France: "Those are our signature races, no question about it -- starting with the Daytona 500, going to the Pepsi 400 (at Daytona International Speedway in July) and going to Talladega twice," France said. "Those are the highest-rated television races, and we've got to make certain the racing is safe for sure. And then we need to make sure it's a typical Daytona-Talladega kind of race, and that's what we work on."
Mad Mikie: Hold your horses there Your Imperial (Im)Potent-ate. So all the empty seats at Daytona and Talladega are what your signature races are all about? You work on making the races boring as we saw at Talladega? I wouldn’t say the ratings for those races were the highest rated races. The 2009 Daytona 500’s ratings were lower than 2008 and 2007. It was the highest rated race of this entire season but the spring California, Las Vegas, and Atlanta were higher than both Talladega races and the Firecracker 400. With the ratings dropping the way they are, maybe you need to rethink things a bit. Fans were injured at the Talladega spring race when Carl Edwards’s car came apart. Your solution? A higher catch fence. Nothing to really keep the cars from becoming airborne. Just a higher catch fence. Numerous solutions have been offered over the years to make the races at Daytona and Talladega more exciting and safer but none of them have been implemented. And please, be honest about the restrictor plates. The only reason they’re still being used isn’t to make the racing better or safer because they aren’t. It’s to keep the cost of your insurance down for both tracks.
As poor as the racing has been on the majority of tracks this season, you need to be working on making all the races better. Not just 4 of them. And if the empty seats at every track this season are any indication, you’ve got your work cut out for you Your Moronic Majesty.
Cutting Back Race Lengths
France: "We've done that in the past at Dover, some other places. We have done that when that makes sense," France said. "We wouldn't just cut the laps back or the distance back unless we thought it would make a big difference [to the fans]."
Mad Mikie: This is very interesting Your Highness. You brought in the short attention span crowd, the ones who can’t pay attention long enough to remember where the bathroom is, to replace the long time, hard core fans and you’re not going to cut back on the lengths of the races unless it would make a big difference to the fans. Well, considering the short-attention-span crowd forgot to buy race tickets and are now pursuing something that can keep them easily enthralled, you’re trying to appeal to the fans you drove away in herds. You’re going to have to do better than that Your Highness. If you really want those fans back, you’d better start listening to the fans. Especially the ones who know what racing is supposed to be about.
The reason why some of the races have the distances they do are based on history. Your granddaddy wanted a race longer than the Indy 500, so we got the World 600. He wanted to kick the season off with a bang, so he came up with a 500 miler. The idea being to test the durability of both man and machine. So if you don’t want to be disowned by the rest of the France family, you better stick with your granddaddy’s wishes.
Well folks, that’s about it. For everyone heading
into winter hibernation til February and the
Daytona 500, have a great winter and holiday
season. For those folks who’ll be hanging around
during the winter, I’ll still be here. Maybe not as
often during the off-season, but I’ll still be around.
So have a great holiday season one and all, don’t
eat too much turkey and pumpkin pie, and enjoy
Christmas with the ones who mean the most to
you.
For all our service members and their families, I
hope the good Lord keeps you safe and brings
you all back together soon. For you folks who
want to help make the Christmas season a little bit brighter, you can help out by going to http://www.treesfortroops.and find out where you can purchase a tree which will be donated to military families around the USA. Also, Dollar Tree is partnering with Operation Homefront to launch their 2009 Holiday Toy Drive, running November 15th through December 15th. Simply purchase a toy or care item and drop it off in a “Toy Platoon” collection box located in any of the 3,700 Dollar Tree stores nationwide. Operation Homefront will collect and distribute these items to military families in your area.
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