I recently gathered Kyle Petty, Jimmy Spencer and Larry McReynolds in a room to discuss the state of NASCAR and other key areas. What was supposed to last 30 minutes went an hour as these three did not hold back on their opinions and even joked afterward that they might be getting a call from NASCAR (or someone else) based on their comments.

 

           Each day through Sunday, I’ll post a segment of the conversation here on my blog. That will coincide with a story that will run Sunday that features comments made in this roundtable discussion.

 

           While some will not agree with what they say about the sport or certain drivers or some other issue, their voice remains relevant. They’ve seen the inner workings of the sport. Now they view it differently from their TV jobs but they still retain close contacts to those in the garage and they know what’s going on before most do. They know what drivers and others are really saying even if those people won’t say it to the media.

 

           So without further delay, here’s part of the series. Today’s topic: The state of the sport:

 

           You talked about the car. A lot of people question the car. They look at TV ratings. You have some fans say it’s boring racing or the races are almost becoming like NBA games, you don’t need to worry about it until the last few minutes. Where is this series now? Where is it headed? If it’s not headed in the right direction, how do you point it in the right direction?

           JIMMY SPENCER: I’ll tell you how to point it in the right direction. This series is in trouble. This series is in serious trouble. All you’ve got to do is look at the grandstands. And when you see less and less people involved in this sport. It’s not the drivers. It’s not the car builders. It’s simply competition is not where it needs to be.

 

           People say it’s also the economy that’s keeping people out of the stands.

            SPENCER: I don’t agree with that. I think the people will come to events if it’s worth coming to. One of the best races I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, ever seen in my lifetime, was right here in the all-star race. I will put that race up against any race in the history of the sport. Six guys had a shot at winning that race.

 

           LARRY McREYNOLDS: The one recently?

 

           SPENCER: Yes. Six guys could win the race. They had 10 laps to do it. I had goose bumps. It takes a lot for me to get excited. I have never in my life seen such intensity that there was. They could make this work. Now getting back to it, I listened to Kurt Busch last week at California. The poor (guy) was scared to death. They didn’t want to make no adjustments. Problem is when you take the fear, you get the driver in a fear factor, that’s one thing that Earnhardt, Pearson and Petty and Allison, they never had any fear. You know why? They knew how far they could go with their car. These guys don’t know who far they can go and (it) goes on deaf ears. I could fix it really quick. I could take five teams to Charlotte or Kansas or wherever we go and I would let those five teams figure out what we could do to this car within reason to make the driver comfortable. Then I would take five more teams to Atlanta and I would take five more teams somewhere else. I would sit down with them and say, “OK, let’s come up with 10 items and let’s do this again.’ Very easy to do.

 

           But you know why NASCAR won’t do it? They’d have mud on their face. This is the best thing that ever happened to our sport (the car). Bull… It’s the safest thing that has ever happened to our sport. Absolutely the worst car you will ever see in your life. No driver will tell you that because they’re scared to … death. But you can’t go into no corner. Kyle could you go into a corner at 200 mph and not know what to expect?

 

           KYLE PETTY: No.

 

          SPENCER: And that’s what they’re faced with.

 

           PETTY: Here’s …

 

           SPENCER: You need to watch how you phrase this. But I think they can fix it but they don’t want to.

           

           PETTY: What was your question again.

           

          (The question above is repeated about the direction the sport is headed)

          

         PETTY: OK, here’s what I think. To me that is the big problem. The sport is not headed anywhere. I think that is the issue with the sport. It’s not headed anywhere. That’s why everybody is questioning things. We felt like the sport was doing this (sloping up), so nobody questioned anything while we felt like it was crowning. Now that we’ve plateaued, now which direction do we go in? I am going to say this, as Jimmy said, part of the blame goes to the cars. Part of the blame goes to the complacency and the vanillaness of the drivers. Part of the blame has to go to the economy. But at the same time, it circles back and you can say there’s not as many butts in the stands and there are just not as many eyes on the TV on Sunday afternoons. That’s got nothing to do with the economy. I’ve already paid for that TV.

           

           McREYNOLDS: You would think that would help.

           

           PETTY: If I’m making payments on my house, and I’m making payments on my TV and I’ve got a couch and a refrigerator and I’m a race fan, I’ll be sitting there watching it. But they’re not. That’s an issue, too. That circles back to the drivers an the cars and that. 

 

          We’ll use Earnhardt as an example to this. You get Earnhardt close with 10 or 15 laps to go then he does this (Petty’s sits up in his seat). He gets right there. By God he’s going to make up that much. You can’t carry this thing. It is what it is. You give me a 10-lap shootout, I got what I got, dude. I’ve been up on this wheel all day long.

 

           Juan Pablo Montoya has driven more miles in these first four races. Left. Right. Left. Right. Then anybody out there. He is driving the wheels off that machine. He can get to third or fourth. That’s his progress. He’s driving harder than Jimmie (Johnson is) driving. If you watch him in the car.

 

           SPENCER: No question.

 

           PETTY: He is driving the wheels off that thing. That’s my complaint about the car more than anything else. As the car did this (pointing to his right) it took the driver away from the car.

 

            This car was intended to be safer but also …

            PETTY: It is safer.

           

           SPENCER: It is way safer.

 

            But it should be a showcase of driver ability.

            PETTY: In my opinion it’s moved the driver farther away from the car. Then you have drivers just as your analogy with Kurt Busch, I’m afraid to make an adjustment.

 

           McREYNOLDS: You can’t race when you’re standing on a razor blade the whole time. Our old car, it got to where it wasn’t quite the plateau it used to be because of technology and aerodynamics and all those things but at least you could stand up there and if you put half a round of bite in it, you’d go dadgumit that was the wrong way, get that back out.      

 

           PETTY: But you go from second to fifth.

 

           McREYNOLDS: Now you put a half turn in. You’re half a turn away from hell.

 

           PETTY: Yeah, you’re getting ready to get lapped. If it’s a long green, you’re going to get lapped.

 

           SPENCER: What Larry is saying is right. Just watch years ago, you could make an adjustment for a driver just like he said, half a turn and the driver could still win the race because the driver could figure out how to say, OK, Larry it got a little bit tight off so what I’ll do is enter here and here. You can’t do this with this car. You cannot fix this car. (For example) Kasey Kahne at Atlanta. Adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. One-eighth of an inch, that’s all they did, he goes from second to 14^th. One-eighth of an inch. The average person doesn’t even know where an eighth of an inch is on a tape measure. To me, that ain’t right.

 

           McREYNOLDS: But the biggest problem and I say this when it comes to anything, not just race cars or racing. It’s not a problem if you realize there’s a problem.

 

           PETTY: Yeah.

 

           McREYNOLDS: It’s only a real problem when people don’t realize it. And that’s what scares me. You know what’s the biggest thing that scares me? They (NASCAR) are fixing to do the same … thing to the Nationwide series.

 

           PETTY: Exactly.

 

           McREYNOLDS: You like it? Let us work on it longer.

 

           PETTY: Back to this. I think if you look at the sport, it’s just sitting still right now. Even though we like to point at the car, and you like to point at the economy, you’ve got to point at the drivers, you’ve got to point at yourself. We’re all responsible.

 

           SPENCER: We’re all part of it.

 

           PETTY: We all want it to work. It’s not that we’re criticizing and don’t want it (to work). We all want it to work.

 

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

 

            More to come throughout the week as they discuss drivers, debris cautions and what just might happen to NASCAR down the road.

 

 

            What do you think of what Petty, Spencer and McReynolds said? Agree or disagree? Why?