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[h=2]How Wheeler would change NASCAR[/h] Monday, 23 January 2017


Kelly Crandall / Images by LAT, Getty Images for NASCAR

Humpy Wheeler thinks NASCAR needs a new script.

At the inaugural Motorsports Symposium at Belmont Abbey College (where he co-founded their Motorsport Degree), Wheeler was asked by an audience member what he would do to make NASCAR events better. It was a fitting question for Wheeler, who spent over 30 years in the racing business and developed the reputation of NASCAR's best salesman and promoter.
While he unceremoniously left the sport in early 2008, Wheeler has continued to watch and says he offers suggestions – meaning Wheeler didn't hold back when asked what he would do in today's NASCAR.
"I would change the whole deal, and it would just send people into the ninth orbit of Pluto," Wheeler said.
The example Wheeler used is similar to how Hollywood treats television and movies. When something, perhaps sitcoms, start to lose viewer interest and ratings, they end up being replaced. Movies go through fads, such as when everyone once wanted to see Westerns, but suddenly are all about action.
Here's his point: Hollywood knows how to change and isn't afraid to do so. NASCAR needs to do that, Wheeler believes.
"The movie people know how to do it and that's who's going to end up owning this whole deal because the patriarchs of both companies, SMI and ISC, are getting very long in the tooth and when they go, their heirs are not going to sit around and want to go through all that you have to go through to run one of these companies," Wheeler said.
So what are his ideas? First, adjust the length of the racing action and its makeup.
"I would not run any races where the total racing action would be more than three hours," he said. "The guys would come to the track and qualify like they're doing now; [it's] crazy qualifying but it puts cars together and that's what people want to see. And I don't care who you are, I don't care what kind of franchise you got, it's the top 40 cars that get in the race.
"If you did that, right away you have 50 or 60 cars (entered) because we'd lower the cost 50 percent. That's the biggest thing we need to do right away. Then what I would do is say, OK, we qualified, now we're going to run two 20-lap heat races and the way you finish in those heat races is the way you line up. So you've given people racing action."
Next would come what Wheeler calls the equivalent of a B Main. With the top 20 cars from the heat races starting the main race, the rest of the competition, no matter where they finished, would compete in a 90-mile race.
"That's how I would line up [cars] 21 to 40 or 42, 43 because you'd have to expand the field because you get a lot more cars," Wheeler said. "Then the main event would be a 150-mile race. Now you're talking about some racing then. You would see racing."
Making the racing action better was a main point of contention for Wheeler. There needs to be constant action to keep fans interested from start to finish. Wheeler pointed out the excitement of recent NFL playoff games, saying the action in the second quarter can be as good as the action in the last quarter.
"It's not like the second 200 [miles] of a 600-mile race where everybody's just kind of riding," Wheeler said. "You want to get rid of that riding."
To spice the action up, Wheeler would implement a system where the leader can earn a point for a re-pass. A re-pass would be if the leader lost the lead but then went and earned it back within 10 laps. Give the drivers an incentive to consistently run hard.
"That's what we're missing right now," Wheeler said. "That's why the Indy [500] race (in 2013) was so great – they had 68 lead changes. That's what people want to see. We don't have that in NASCAR anymore. So, you put that point deal in there, and it changes the whole thing. Yeah, people say, well, teammates will get together. So what? It's like drafting at Daytona used to be: Guy running first is burning too much gas, guy running second is getting hot, so they exchange positions. Well, people in the grandstands went crazy, they didn't know [it was strategy], it was a pass, and that's what we gotta get back to."
Wheeler also offered thoughts on NASCAR going international (calling racing's greatest tracks Dubai and Malaysia, pictured) and capitalizing on international TV money. He said he also knows people on Wall Street who are ready to spend money in NASCAR by buying ISC. Wheeler believes all of that will happen one day and it will result in a "whole new type of NASCAR."
But the main concern, as Wheeler kept going back to, is the racing – as well as those who are responsible for making it the most entertaining it can be, which Wheeler believes has shifted over the years due to engineering and strategy.
"The other thing I would do: Give us a whole new group of race drivers," he said. "These guys that sit back, run, and work their pits out, having those engineering geniuses in there, they'd be gone. Because this is pure racing, this is who can go in the corner the furthest."
Wheeler knows his ideas would send many into a tailspin, just as it normally happened during his tenure as president of Charlotte Motor Speedway. It would be crazy, Wheeler said, all the opinions his ideas and changes would elicit.

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