NASCAR responds to Frankly Speaking series

You may have seen the ongoing online series we're doing where I sat down last week with Kyle Petty, Jimmy Spencer and Larry McReynolds and they discussed various aspects of the sport. I've been running segments of what they said and will through Sunday. A NASCAR official has posted an online response to what the broadcasters said. 

If you haven't seen the Frankly Speaking series yet, here's what's run so far: Day one was: Frankly Speaking: "This sport is in serious trouble'' and Day two was: Frankly Speaking: "Debris cautions drive me freaking crazy.''

Ramsey Poston, NASCAR's managing director of corportate communications, wrote a rebuttal to some of the comments stated in the series. Here's how he starts his response:

"There's been a lot of chatter about comments made by Jimmy Spencer, Larry McReynolds and Kyle Petty, all TV personalities, about the state of NASCAR.  Their words were harsh to be sure.  The most common question I've gotten is, "what is NASCAR going to do to them?"  Simply, nothing.  There is nothing we can or would do.  We've long believed in having an independent media.  One of the things that makes NASCAR, or any sport great, is debate.  That's healthy for sports.  However, I have had my share of strongly worded discussions with members of the media when their coverage was inaccurate or unfair.  So, it's a reasonable question to ask, were their comments accurate?  Were they fair?

"Spencer contends that the economy has absolutely nothing to do with attendance.  "People will come to events if it's worth coming to," he says. In a sense, that is true and quite frankly I'm damn proud of the crowds we've had this year.  By any estimate the average attendance is over 100,000 fans at each race.  NASCAR has 17 of the 20 largest sporting events of the year - that's good in any economy.  But to think the economy hasn't had any affect is just wrong.  Going into the season, more than a third of NFL teams were in danger of having local games blacked out this year because they could not sellout. Those worries were indeed justified, as several games have already been blacked out. In addition, MLB had the biggest drop in ticket sales in 50 years.  So, has America turned against all major sports?  Of course not. 

"Spencer also takes a shot at the on track competition, "it's just not where it needs to be," he claims.  Anyone can throw out an opinion like that but what does it mean?  What's that based on? ...

To read more of what Poston writes, please click here.

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