The NASCAR Stimulus Package

Watching the first four months of the season unfold it's obvious NASCAR is feeling the ill effects of an economy gone bad. It's not their fault that people can't spend money on tickets and souvenirs like they could some 3 or 4 years ago. With sponsorship dollars down and the financial problems of GM and Dodge hanging over their head, NASCAR has done an admirable job of simply hanging on.

Yes, people still come to races and people still buy souvenirs, but the excitement and popularity that NASCAR once had has slowly dwindled away. Now, more than ever, would be a great time for NASCAR to consider making drastic changes to its current set-up.

Here are just a few ideas to boost and help re-energize a sport once thought by many to have the capability of competing year in and year out with the traditional "stick and ball" sports. Here at The Spotter Stand we proudly introduce The NASCAR Stimulus Package.

Regional Racing-Economically this makes a lot of sense. Instead of starting the year in Daytona and then turning around and traveling out to Las Vegas and California lets work on keeping the races in a regional setting as the year progresses. For example, after Daytona the series could then head to Homestead. After Homestead the series could make an east coast swing through Charlotte, Bristol, Richmond and Martinsville. After the east coast swing head down to Atlanta and then on to Talladega and once the southeastern swing is complete head over to the mid-west and then out west. This would save teams money and could help free up finances to do more testing, put better equipment under a driver, and even pay crews competitive salaries to keep talent around or bring better talent in.

Shorter Races-With TV ratings down and attendance dropping, NASCAR needs to look at shortening races to keep fans interested in each race. Spending 4 hours watching a race unfold is not very appealing. As fans we all hope for that exciting ten-lap dash for the cash or an intense green, white, checker finish that has everyone buzzing the next day. Sadly, the first 2-3 hours of a race have become so uneventful that people turn the race off and ultimately miss the finish. Shortening a race to 300 miles or 300 laps instead of 500 would be just long enough to keep the intensity up on the track and the fans in the seats from green to checkers.

Halftime-Each major sport has a built in rest period that allows teams a chance to adjust for the final part of the game. This is something NASCAR might want to take a good, long look at. How many times have you watched a race and your favorite driver spends 100-150 laps struggling through minor changes hoping the car will come to life? With a halftime break of 10 to 15 minutes teams can look at notes, chat with teammates and then make the necessary changes to the set-up to make the car competitive for when it counts. Just look at how exciting the last segment of the All-Star race was when 15 cars were fighting it out for the win instead of 2 or 3.

Double File Restarts/Caution Laps Don't Count-The IROC, Bud Shootout and All-Star Race promoters have it figured out. Instead of lining up lead-lap cars on the outside with lap cars on the inside (basically in the way) NASCAR needs to let guys line up double-file according to position. With the Lucky Dog in play lap cars now would have a chance to race each other without the risk of taking out the leaders.

Another way NASCAR could tweak the yellow flag period would be not counting caution laps. Using laps during a caution period goes back decades, but now days its taking way too long to clean up wrecks and blown motors and it's not fair to the fans who pay to see a full race at the track. Those fans, more so than those at home, travel to the track and drop hard earned money at the track and they deserve to see a full race start to finish. They don't deserve to see cars ride around for 5-8 laps while the safety crews clean up and load up wrecked race cars.

Bring Back IROC-As difficult as it sounds, bringing the best race car drivers in North America together for essentially a continental all-star race could really boost Saturday ticket sales for both NASCAR and IRL racetrack promoters. Who wouldn't want to see Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, Ryan Briscoe, Jeff Gordon, Scott Pruett and the like in equally prepared cars at different types of tracks racing to see who's the best of the best.

When I was a kid there was nothing better than an IROC race at Talladega. Dale Earnhardt, Sr going up against Davey Allison, Al Unser, Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi and Steve Kinser was worth the price of admission. There's just something about the best of the best flexing their muscles and showing what they got without any points on the line. Those were the good ol' days....