NASCAR President Steve
Phelps met with the media yesterday, just hours before Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost
400, delivering an annual “State of the Sport” address that hailed the 2019
campaign as a positive one for the sport.
“Our competition right
now on the intermediate tracks and superspeedways… is the best we’ve ever seen,”
he said. “I’ll start with myself as a fan. I love watching and am super excited
when we get to the intermediate tracks and superspeedways, (for) the type of
racing we are going to see.
“The results from the
competition side are working from a consumption standpoint,” he said. “Our (television)
ratings are up 4% this year. All of sports is down 9%, we’re plus 4%. There are
fewer people watching television in all sports, obviously, (and) fewer people
watching television overall. So when they were watching… they were watching
more NASCAR. We’re taking share from someone else, which is important.”
While declining to name
names, the NASCAR president said there is strong interest from other manufacturers
in joining Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota in the sport, once the new NextGen race car
comes online in 2021. Published reports had executives from Honda in attendance
two weeks ago at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, and Toyota Racing Development President
and General Manager David Wilson said he had a lengthy conversation with that
unnamed manufacturers last week, answering questions about the requirements and
hurdles associated with fielding a new NASCAR brand
“We had some folks in
Phoenix that were interested in coming into the sport,” Phelps said. “It’s
important for us. We are working hard to try to determine kind of the timing of
that, what that looks like, and what that partnership would look like moving
forward bringing someone in.
“The world is a lot
different than it was. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible to have an
OEM come in, plug in, and start to compete on the racetrack.”
Phelps confirmed that hybrid
technology will be a part of NASCAR’s engine plans, calling it critical to the sport’s
effort to attract new OEMs. He assured, however, that full electrification in
not a part of the sanctioning body’s plan.
“This engine is going to
sound significantly the same as the current engine,” Phelps said. “We’re not
going to have a bunch of electric cars going around. That’s not what this is
about. It’s about having a relevant engine to our OEM partners; Ford, Chevy and
Toyota, as well as the new OEMs that we’re looking at.”
While hailing the impact
of the sanctioning body’s new rule package on intermediate tracks, Phelps
admitted that more work is needed to resurrect the sport’s short tracks and
road courses. NASCAR originally proposed that the new package be used only on tracks
longer than one mile this season. Team owners resisted the idea, saying that two
packages would create a financial hardship. NASCAR elected to implement the
package across the board, a decision that negatively impacted competition on short
tracks and road courses
Phelps revealed that
despite his promise to make no additional rule changes in advance of the
NextGen car’s projected rollout in 2021, changes will indeed be made next
season.
“Do I think we need to
work with our industry, Goodyear, our race teams and OEM partners to improve
what we’re seeing on the short tracks? I do. We’re going to do that in the off
season, for sure.”
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