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Mayfield diary Boring races are rare in the Winston Cup Series
Posted: Monday April 03, 2000 04:08 PM
We're feeling pretty good right now. We had a great run at Texas and that followed a great run at Bristol. Everybody's spirits are really picking up. This Mobil 1 Taurus has been running pretty well all season long. For awhile, we weren't getting the finishes we deserved. We'd have really good runs but something would raise up and bite us. Either it was rain at Las Vegas or just a small part in the transmission at Atlanta or somebody spinning at Darlington. All of those were top five cars, maybe even winning cars. We look back at those finishes and think, "What if?" but try not to do that for too long. You'd better always be looking ahead in this sport. We're back in the top 10 of the standings now and that's important. It just changes how everybody looks at you, and it can really change the perception of yourself. We're excited about Martinsville and Talladega coming up too. I've kind of followed some of the stuff going around about how close the racing is or isn't, how the rules ought to be changed for this and that, and all of that kind of stuff. The rules part we all follow pretty closely. We don't have much choice in that regard. Anything going on we want to be a part of and make sure we get our say, just like everybody else does. But a lot of the stuff that has been controversial or kind of controversial this year, well, some of it seems to me like it's just people trying to turn a sport into a business. It is a business in a lot of different ways, there's no getting around that. But stock car racing is supposed to be fun too. This is a sport as much as it is anything else. The people sitting up in the grandstands and the people watching on television, they come around because they want to have fun, they want to have a good time. They like watching us race. NASCAR racing is what they do instead of going to the movies or watching basketball on television or whatever else people do. This is their entertainment, plain and simple. As long as they are paying the bills by buying tickets or being part of the television audience or buying Mobil 1, they pretty much have a right to say whatever they want and to feel any way they want to feel.
I have my opinions and they have theirs. I have a right to mine as a competitor. They have a right to theirs because they have an investment in this deal too. As far as I'm concerned, the fans and the drivers and the teams are all partners in this. We have to work together. Now, since they have a real stake in racing and since they pay the bills, we ought to do everything we can to make the racing as good for them and as exciting for them as we can. NASCAR does what it can with the rules, and everybody needs to work with them. The teams are all working as hard as they can to beat each other but that hard work is a lot of what helps make the racing good. Sometimes it's going to work out, and there are going to be finishes like Atlanta where two cars come down to just a few inches meaning the difference between winning and losing. It's just like somebody hitting a home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. There is a lot of drama with both -- even though I think the racing thing is a heck of a lot more exciting - but that's just me. And sometimes it's going to be a runaway where somebody gets hooked up and takes off -- just like a basketball team where somebody wins by 30 points or so. Those kind of things just happen in sports, whether it's here or anywhere else. What's important is to make sure it's always fun to those people in the stands. Even the runaways can be entertaining. Those are pretty frustrating to the guys trying to catch up too, so I know how the fans feel. But there is always something to watch and always somebody racing for a position. The racing is pretty good all through the field, sometimes you just have to go back a few positions to find it. But a guy trying to pass for fifth (place) is running as hard as he can, just like a guy trying to pass for the lead. Maybe sometimes circumstances work out that a particular race isn't really close but it is usually pretty entertaining, and it's the best racing around. To me, the only thing worse than a boring NASCAR race is an exciting race by anybody else. Fortunately, those runaways are far and few between. The media is going to have its own opinions and that's part of the deal too. We're not going to always agree with them and they're not always going to agree with us but the bottom line for everyone is still the fans The fans are the teams' "customers" and the fans are the media's "customers." What they think and what I think might be different sometimes but we're both still trying to please the same people - the fans. The fans expect one thing from the teams and they expect something totally different from the media, and both of us usually work pretty well together in taking care of the fans. The race at Texas was something pretty neat and the race at Martinsville is going to be something totally different. The racing styles are two totally different deals. There are some people who like short tracks and others who just like the speedways. Me, I like racing anywhere. From the race fans I've talked to, most of them like the differences in the tracks. This is still a lot of fun for me. Yeah, it's a business and, yeah, it's the way I earn a living. But I've worked all my life to get to the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and I'm really enjoying being here. Everybody on the Mobil 1 team is working hard to win here, to win races and win championships. But we love what we do and we have fun doing this. This is everything we've ever wanted. How could you ask for anything else?
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