NASCAR: Where's My 15 Seconds?

Smoke was in Chicago last night promoting the July night race at Chicagoland. He won that race last year after JJ spun out with less then 50 to go.

He was at 10pin bowling alley in the city bowling some frames with local media and discussing how he feels about Chicagoland and how much a win here means. Really cool to see.

NASCAR around here isn’t very big often only around the race do we hear about NASCAR and it’s frustrating.  I know we don’t have any local drivers in the top three series right now, but the only time you hear about it is on a Sunday in the 15 second clip of a crash and the winner.

I know it’s not a popular sport around here, and people don’t ask about did you see the speeds posted at Dover a few weeks back around the water cooler, but this sport is popular and it is growing both in northern markets and around the world.

I look forward to the race in Chicagoland because it’s a chance to show off this great city and the suburbs and what we offer to amazing fans and such.

Local media is at the track for pole day and maybe the race day.  It doesn’t top the sports segment because baseball is in full swing and Bears mini camp is starting up. 

So to them there are more important sports stories to cover, and maybe they are right, but for the thousands of racing fans that don’t see the race a 15 second blib is not enough.

I am not asking for a full fledged hour of NASCAR but give a driver interview or something. Do justice to racing fans locally. We have tracks around here; Rockford and Milwaukee and dirt and short tracks. 

I would love to see something once in awhile on those drivers gritting there teeth through those races.

I write this because last night a local station went to the clip with Smoke, and they cut it off and went to the reporter placing a bet of bowling a strike and the station reporter buys dinner, funny stunt?

Yes, but I would have loved to hear the rest of the interview. I am not sure if they only asked him three questions, but that's all they showed.  They cut it off, which made me a little peeved.

I know this sounds silly to write about, but I feel like if you’re not in the south or southeast, racing is a back burner sport, which to me is untrue. 

I would love to see more racing up here, not adding more races to schedule but maybe take a few of those duplicate races that seem not necessary off the race and replace them.

Maybe the media would pay more attention to racing in the Midwest and northwest.  Maybe these drivers at in the USAC and ARCA divisions would get more light on them.

There are so many sponsorship opportunities in this market and it’s untapped due to low exposure.

Would it kill the media to cover longer than the winner? Probably not? A story once in awhile on racing locally would be great for these teams struggling with higher cost to operate.

All I am asking for is just more then my 15 seconds….