Let’s dream for a minute – let’s dream we all get along perfectly in the racing world. While we are dreaming let’s have a song playing in the background, Why Can’t We be Friends, Why Can’t we be Friends. Let’s dream there is only one sanctioning body in the entire country, and that sanctioning body controls the rules so they are the same for everyone same rules for stock cars, for NASCAR, for sprint cars, for modifieds, for midgets, for hobby stocks, for street stocks, for all the classes out there instead of everyone dividing the rules and making them specific for their benefit, there would only be one set of rules controlled by one sanction body.

Let’s further break it down, this one sanction body has established a means of all the local tracks fall under its sanction and tracks depending on classes are designated A league, Double A league, Triple A league and of course then the Professional league. This will allow drivers to come up through the ranks to become national champions. Oh wait a minute that is the successful business model of the 2015 World Series Champion Kansas City Royals.

As NASCAR has changed the championship format over the last few years to a format similar to the professional stick and ball sports maybe they should change their business model to match their championship format. The current championship format allows a process where drivers can literally get knocked out of the championship whether it be the latest incident (Logano-Kenseth) or the one from a few years (Gordon-Bowyer) back. Whereas baseball and hockey have the minor leagues, Football and Basketball utilize the colleges, soccer has both college and a minor league system, and maybe it is time for NASCAR to develop their minor league system.

Of course this is assuming NASCAR would be the predominant sanction body. The truth is the empty seats say a bunch. It is the same empty seats at the national level that are hurting the local level. There was a time you could get on an airplane and have a chance the seat next to you was empty. The airlines conquered this empty seat by reducing the number of flights thus ensuring the seat was filled next to you and thus making money.

The empty seats we see today are the lost generation of race fans we failed both locally and nationally to capture. When computers were becoming as prevalent as they are today our sport went and hid from the computer. We still utilize carburetors in racing when the cars we drive use computers. This generation is gone, but the next generation we need to be putting their butts in those empty seats even it means giving the seat away.