For years NASCAR has been drowning in its own expectations.
After spending much of the early 2000s bragging about how hot it
was, the sport cooled off. The problem is that NASCAR was never
as hot as it claimed to be. It was popular, yes. It had rabid
fans, no doubt. But it never had 75 million fans, as it so often
claimed. It was never the second-most watched sport, as it liked
to tout.  So now after years of declines in attendance, TV
ratings and the ever-sought, ever-elusive buzz, NASCAR is trying
desperately to get back to where it was. The problem is, it was
never there in the first place, and the sport's leaders fail to
understand that getting there shouldn't be the goal anyway.
NASCAR officials spend too much time concentrating on what will
make NASCAR more popular and not enough time on what will make
it better.  The latest grasping at straws broke Friday night and
will be front and center for the sport at least until the
Daytona 500 (Feb. 23) and probably long after that, too. As
reported by Jim Utter