NASCAR Flipping the Bird at New England Fans

Yes, I'm a NASCAR fan.  If you're not, don't even bother reading this.  I don't need lectures on how I shouldn't be watching it as a liberal or how sports are stupid.  I like NASCAR, baseball and football quite a lot, although baseball games are the only ones I really enjoy live.  The rest I enjoy from the comfort of my living room.

The boys in my life are at the race today in Loudon, NH.  It's the last time New Hampshire Motor Speedway will host a race that's part of the NASCAR "playoffs" known as The Chase.  This is the last year there are two races there - the only place that hosts NASCAR races in New England.  From now on, there's one race there, in July.

The answer can't be the fans.  There are racetracks operating all over New England on a smaller level.  Joey Logano considers this his "home track" even though he's from Connecticut.  The only other places close to here that host races are Watkins Glen, NY, Pocono, PA, and Dover, DE.

NASCAR is basically saying to anyone north and east of Connecticut who is a fan that you are not important enough for two races, never mind a "playoff" race.  Other areas of the country are saturated with tracks and get two or three races per season (which runs from February to November - plenty of time to spend more time in under-served areas of the country).  I've been watching the grandstands especially hard this season, to see if there are really much larger crowds in other areas of the country - there aren't.  I see just as many bare grandstands in places that have two or more races each season.  If the answer was one race would make for a better turnout, then they would cut the schedule at these tracks as well.

New England doesn't rate to NASCAR.  I guess they figure we have the Patriots, so that's good enough.

At a time when NASCAR officials are saying they want to entice fans, they are cutting the schedule in the most under-served area of the country.  California may only see two races, but they're taking this race and sending it to Vegas, effectively giving Californians four races (not counting Phoenix if they wanted to make the hike there).

There was a time when the Xfinity Series (level below Monster Series with shorter races) ran at least one race up in Montreal at the road race course there.  That's gone.  And the crowds at the other tracks where NASCAR races are frequent have diminished.  I wouldn't be surprised to see NASCAR depart New England completely - they just don't care about the fans up here.

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