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Racing's Gimmicks Don't Work

Have you noticed? Special doesn’t seem quite so special any more.

Baseball’s All-Star game, once one of the most important dates on the American sports calendar, needs a gimmick – World Series home field advantage to the winning league – to gain extra attention.

It’s still miles ahead of the no-defense, modest effort exhibitions known as the NFL, NBA and NHL All-Star contests.

The Academy Awards might still be the most important night of the year for the Hollywood elites, but out in ticket-buying country, the folks want to see Avatar but not the latest 15-minutes-of-fame nominee.

The local congressman used to be an esteemed figure. Now, do you even know the name of your representative?

Time was when The World Heavyweight Champion was one of the greatest titles in the world. Can someone please tell me who wears the belt these days?

The Indianapolis 500?  Forget tradition: They don’t even call the cars “Special” any more.

This is what happens in a society where people are thought of as celebrities for no reason other than they are on Facebook or Twitter a lot.

All of the above comes to mind in the aftermath – and I use that word as opposed to afterglow – of Bruton Smith’s go at something special in drag racing, the Four-Wide Nationals.

Enough time has passed that the politically correct answers of race weekend have given way to a more candid assessment: Most drivers didn’t like it. One concern, among others, was the impact such a true wild-card format could have on the Full Throttle points and making it into the top 10 to qualify for the Countdown.

That led to talk that such a radical – showbiz -- format might be OK as an exhibition event. And that really got to me, because one thing we all should have learned by now is exhibition or All-Star races don’t work. History tells us so.

Fans don’t consider them to be special.

When Winston was its series sponsor, NHRA had an All-Star gathering, and even tried Top Fuel vs. Funny Car matchups. CART’s Marlboro Challenge, except for 1988 when Michael Andretti won in the rain at Miami, also was an example of a showcase that produced a lot more smoke than fire.

As far back as 1971, USAC scheduled a Championship Trail exhibition in Argentina. Faced with the embarrassment of disinterest in the form of few entries, at the last minute, officials were forced to make it a points race.

NASCAR still insists on staging a Sprint Cup All-Star race, even though its original purpose – to get national publicity for stock car racing in May vs. the Indianapolis 500 – was erased 15 years ago by the IRL-CART split. Every year the format has to be tweaked to try to keep it “special” – this time, there will be a mandatory pit stop before the final dash-for-cash segment.

At least double-wide restarts and three green-white-checker attempts and spoilers-replacing-wings and the “Boys, have at it” officiating philosophy are legitimate rules within the context of a season-long championship. Entertainment  enhancers? Sure. But there is a difference.

Whatever the future of four-wide, this much is clear in motorsports, where all the stars are eligible for every race:

Non-championship, All-Star, exhibitions don’t work.

They just aren’t special.

[ Next column:  April 26 ]

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(I.N. Sider is the pen name for an independent motorsports business-person who has a quarter-century of professional experience working in almost every major North American racing series. The writer is not an employee of Valvoline or Ashland Inc. The column is intended to inform, entertain, and stimulate thought on the contemporary motorsports scene. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Valvoline or Ashland Inc.)