Weekly Review and Power Rankings
Food City 500
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| Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images |
By Richard Tix
Attendance? Does that affect your viewing pleasure whether you're at the track or at home? Does it change the race? The answer is no. I understand fans are interested in it for the fact of keeping tabs on how well the track is doing. However, I think something like attendance is hard to fully equate to how well the sport in general is doing.
We're at an age in sports that attendance has been hard to come by. Twitter accounts like @EmptySeatsPics are around and have 20.2K followers. It's an age where everyone is struggling at times to bring fans to an event. Some sports are worse off than others, but that means they just need to start doing other things better to bring in viewership. The market crashed, HD TV's became a thing and then they became less expensive, and social media options became more relevant. Everything in a few short years and you can start to realize it isn't easy for track's to keep attendance up.
Eventually if the product is good enough fans will come back to the tracks. Tracks are coming up with better and less expensive ticket packages and some tracks give A+ experiences on race day.
All in all, do not decide whether the race was good based on who was at it, because if you do you will be dead wrong.
Sunday at Bristol we had a fantastic race from start to finish (full disclosure I did miss some of it). The racing action was great and guys got to beat and bang around and still have a shot at the end of the day.
On top of the racing action plenty of other storylines came from Bristol that you can't beat. Bristol might be even more unpredictable than Talladega when it comes to where drivers finish. Chase Elliott went back to back top 5 finish's. Trevor Bayne finished in the top 5 which is only his second top 5 ever (the other was the 2011 Daytona 500 win). Matt DiBenedetto took the No. 83 BK Racing car and finished 6th. You could actually see the emotion pouring out of him post race which was a great moment. Clint Bowyer also finally had a moment of light in a dark season when he finished 8th on Sunday.
Just a ton of storylines to go along with some fun on track racing. After two rain hurt races last year, Bristol should have shown fans why it's worth coming to the track later this season for some night racing.
We're at an age in sports that attendance has been hard to come by. Twitter accounts like @EmptySeatsPics are around and have 20.2K followers. It's an age where everyone is struggling at times to bring fans to an event. Some sports are worse off than others, but that means they just need to start doing other things better to bring in viewership. The market crashed, HD TV's became a thing and then they became less expensive, and social media options became more relevant. Everything in a few short years and you can start to realize it isn't easy for track's to keep attendance up.
Eventually if the product is good enough fans will come back to the tracks. Tracks are coming up with better and less expensive ticket packages and some tracks give A+ experiences on race day.
All in all, do not decide whether the race was good based on who was at it, because if you do you will be dead wrong.
Sunday at Bristol we had a fantastic race from start to finish (full disclosure I did miss some of it). The racing action was great and guys got to beat and bang around and still have a shot at the end of the day.
On top of the racing action plenty of other storylines came from Bristol that you can't beat. Bristol might be even more unpredictable than Talladega when it comes to where drivers finish. Chase Elliott went back to back top 5 finish's. Trevor Bayne finished in the top 5 which is only his second top 5 ever (the other was the 2011 Daytona 500 win). Matt DiBenedetto took the No. 83 BK Racing car and finished 6th. You could actually see the emotion pouring out of him post race which was a great moment. Clint Bowyer also finally had a moment of light in a dark season when he finished 8th on Sunday.
Just a ton of storylines to go along with some fun on track racing. After two rain hurt races last year, Bristol should have shown fans why it's worth coming to the track later this season for some night racing.
Pit Road Power Rankings Week 8 (Week 7)
- Kyle Busch (LW-1)- Consider this a one week pass. Between Kyle and Kenseth I am confident they would have pushed Carl for the win if they hadn't had issues on the day. Kyle still has 6 top 5's in 8 races. Finish: 38th
- Carl Edwards (LW-4)- In NASCAR many times the best car on the day doesn't win, well on Sunday that wasn't true because Carl absolutely dominated. Big win for the No. 19 this week. Finish: 1st
- Dale Earnhardt Jr (LW-2)- What a day. From issues early all the way to the back and then to the front, it was amazing Junior was even in the conversation late. That's a quality day that will be forgotten later in the season. Finish: 2nd
- Kevin Harvick (LW-6)- Harvick started 7th and finished 7th. It was a huge improvement from last week at Texas. He ran on average in the third position and never was outside the top 15. Finish: 7th
- Joey Logano (LW-5)- Sunday was not a good day overall for JoLo, but they fought through once again. This continues to be a weekly trend that is stopping them from winning. Finish: 10th
- Jimmie Johnson (LW-2)- It's not easy coming back after going a lap down (just don't ask Junior because he is making it look easy). Bristol was a bit of a slip up on a otherwise great run for JJ lately. Finish: 23rd
- Kurt Busch (LW-7)- Kurt looked like he had a shot down the stretch, but Carl Edwards was just too good on Sunday. Finish: 3rd
- Chase Elliott (LW-12)- It's starting to look more and more like Chase won't even need a win this year to get into the Chase. On Sunday he notched his second top 5 which is also back to back top 5's. A few more top 10's and he will sky rocket up this list. Finish: 4th
- Martin Truex Jr (LW-9)- Only one top 10 in his last six races. It hasn't been pretty overall lately, but the team still has some speed from time to time to compete. Finish: 14th
- Brad Keselowski (LW-8)- Penalty after penalty. Its a bad trend to have, but the plus side is they're happening now. They can smooth these over before the Chase and be competitive down the stretch. Finish: 18th
- Jamie McMurray (LW-NR)- McMurray hasn't really been that great or that bad all year. After 2014, Ganassi just hasn't found "it" since. Six of his eight finishes have been 17th or better but he only has one top 10. Finish: 13th
- Denny Hamlin (LW-11)- For how many wins JGR has already this season, Hamlin and Kenseth have really struggled. Consistency has been a key with both as has penalties. JGR as a whole had tire issues and really only Carl overcame. Finish: 20th
Dropped Out: Austin Dillon (LW-10)
Just Missed: Ryan Newman and Trevor Bayne
Really enjoyed watching Matt DiBenedetto's interview.
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