NASCAR, which zoomed into prominence on the American sports map over the last two decades, may have to hit the brakes. The economy has forced many NASCAR fans to stay home from pricey races, and a host of rules changes have alienated a portion of the die-hard fan base. Host Audie Cornish speaks with Ryan McGee of ESPN: The Magazine about what's ailing NASCAR, and his prescription for a cure.
AUDIE CORNISH, Host: Now, a few hours after the last cyclist crossed the finish line at the Tour de France, a race with a little more horsepower got cranking on this side of the Atlantic.</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: It seems plummeting attendance, sliding TV ratings, and a sponsorship crunch have NASCAR worried. The circuit's president, Brian France, said as much before the race. He promised impactful changes in next season's schedule and hinted that NASCAR may retune the way it crowns a champion.</s>ESPN: The Magazine. He says NASCAR's economic problems aren't unique.</s>RYAN MCGEE: When they look in the grandstands and they see empty seats at racetracks that quite frankly always sold out, and that includes Daytona, then I think a lot of people will suddenly - I don't want to say panic, but certainly some concerns at it.</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: And I've read that some of it could be in reaction to various rule changes that NASCAR has made.</s>RYAN MCGEE: There has been a lot of rule changes, you know, primarily with the cars themselves. You know, about five years ago, NASCAR introduced what they called then the car of tomorrow. Now they just call it the COT. We joke now it's the car of today.</s>RYAN MCGEE: And I think a lot of NASCAR fans kind of missed the innovation. They kind of missed the pushing the rules and, for lack of a better word, the cheating, you know, that went on. It was this kind of cat-and-mouse game between the mechanics, the crew chiefs, the teams and then the people from NASCAR that policed the cars technically. So I think...</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: Right, because half the fun is seeing souped-up, hot cars...</s>RYAN MCGEE: Yeah, absolutely.</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: ...doing things your car can't do.</s>RYAN MCGEE: And I think that the fans miss that. And honestly, the NASCAR officials and the crew chiefs themselves miss that a lot more than I think that the league officials probably speculated or realized.</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: Aren't there also a lot of differences between the way, I guess, what you would call stick-and-ball - football, baseball - type sports make money and the way that NASCAR team owners and drivers do that affect the sport as well?</s>RYAN MCGEE: But these days, that's a lot of jobs that you potentially could have kept in the building. And so it's hard to justify spending that kind of money to sponsor race teams. And as a result, the teams have got pretty creative as far as tracking down sponsorship dollars.</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: So is the sport really in trouble or is this just a speed bump?</s>RYAN MCGEE: So I think we're going to have a little bit of a drought for a little while, but I think we'll all survive. The sport will be fine. It's just - Richard Childress, the great NASCAR team owner, always tells me, this is just an adjustment that we probably needed to make anyway. It's just been forced on us.</s>AUDIE CORNISH, Host: Thanks, Ryan.</s>RYAN MCGEE: Thank you.