Ratings, early stories have season already on the up

Junior, struggling champs, new car all breed optimism

By Ron Lemasters, NASCAR.COM
March 5, 2008
10:59 AM EST

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After three races, a horrendous -- yet revealing -- weekend in California, the 50th Daytona 500 and the debut of the new Sprint Cup Series car, there's a different feeling in the air these days.

It almost feels like optimism, and we love the smell of optimism in the early part of the season. It feels like victory.

And why not? A pretty racy Daytona 500 saw a first-time winner crowned in Ryan Newman. Dale Earnhardt Jr. hit Daytona harder than Hurricane Floyd, winning the Budweiser Shootout and his Gatorade Duel before finishing ninth in the race.

Unlike the first restrictor-plate race with the new car, last October at Talladega, the 500 was anything but a parade, with lead changes galore. The driver leading under the white flag was not the leader coming to the checkered, and that, sports fans, is a great race.

OK, California was a wash (in more ways than one) on the optimism index, but when they actually got to race, it was pretty good.

Finally, if you take away three wall-banging superstars at Las Vegas last week, you've got a heck of a race in Glitter Gulch. Carl Edwards repeated his California triumph, Dale Jr. was second, Jeff Gordon was racing for the top spot when he took a detour to the inside wall five laps from the finish. What's not to love?

Well, there's that whole just-missed feeling to Gordon's crash, which shredded his Chevy from the splitter to the A pillar, and the fact that Tony Stewart limped off the track like a football player who had just gotten his bell rung, but hey, it's a win-win because both will be back in the car come Sunday, right?

The answers to three questions that loomed largest in the minds of most NASCAR fans -- on both sides of the pit wall -- are well on the way to being answered, at least short-term.

Question No. 1: Could Earnhardt adapt from family driver to corporate driver in less than an offseason?

Answer: It sure seems like it. Earnhardt in the hunt again makes NASCAR CEO Brian France's earlier comments about how Junior goes, so goes NASCAR seem downright prophetic.

Question No. 2: How will the fans like the new car, now that it's Option A-Z instead of a 16-race novelty?

Answer: Apparently, they like it just fine, and the drivers are certainly making hay with the new piece, swapping the lead 94 times in the first three races compared to just 69 in the first three races last year.

Question No. 3: Can NASCAR's TV ratings hold steady or increase in 2008 after two seasons of steady decline?

Answer: After three races, it appears they can. Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas was up 13 percent from last year and logged the best rating ever at the track.

So far this season, FOX has aired four Sprint Cup programs that were not impacted by rain, and all four of them have posted better ratings than last year (Budweiser Shootout, Daytona qualifying, Daytona 500 and the Las Vegas race). Looking just at Sprint Cup races, FOX is up 1 percent for the season including the rain-impacted Fontana race (7.9/14 vs. 7.8/15). Excluding Fontana, FOX is up 2 percent for the two races that ran as scheduled (8.6/17 vs. 8.4/17)

Excluding the Daytona 500, this is FOX's highest-rated NASCAR race since the 2006 Fontana race (7.4/14). The long-sought elimination of the bye week between Fontana and Las Vegas was the primary factor in this weekend's big ratings increase.

More viewers means that FOX, NASCAR and the sport all benefit. FOX sells more ads, NASCAR gains critical exposure during the NFL's down season, and the sport gains some momentum, which it was sorely lacking at the end of the 2007 season.

Compelling storylines like the Earnhardt saga, the new car and the struggles of perennial championship contenders like Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have boosted NASCAR's stock in major media outlets at a time where nothing else is going on.

The NCAA basketball tournament gets under way in two weeks, followed by the start of the Major League Baseball season at the end of March.

Now is the time, and Atlanta and Bristol will be the places, for NASCAR to drive an early stake in the ground, ratings-wise, before traditional spring pastimes crank up.

A solid performance early in the year will sustain the sport through the dog days of summer and up against the 2008 NFL season at the end of August.

Optimism indeed abounds for the sport, as the storylines show no signs of petering out just yet, and the Atlanta-Bristol-Martinsville triple over the next four weeks usually provides its share of fireworks.

Yep, that smell in the air is indeed optimism. Get used to it.