Big challenges ahead

As NASCAR closes the book on the 2006 season and turns its full attention to 2007 and beyond, a gaze into our crystal ball shows a less-than-clear future.

America's biggest and most popular motor sport faces several important challenges – including what some perceive are two of the most critical in its history.

THE BIG TWO

Car of Tomorrow
After years of development, NASCAR's all-new and designed-to-be-safer stock car has finally been deemed ready for prime time. Thousands of developmental hours, critical input from teams and several hundred laps have gone into producing the next generation of stock cars.

Nextel Cup teams have already spent millions to build an infrastructure to assemble the new car, although it still faces strong criticism from within the Cup garage.

NASCAR officials stand by the new car and say that there is no turning back. However, the proof will be in its on-track performance.

The new car makes its debut on March 25, 2007, at Bristol Motor Speedway. Circle that date as the start of a new era in NASCAR.

Declining television ratings/Sinking attendance figures
Lower television ratings for many key races in 2006 have some NASCAR officials concerned, but they're nowhere near panic mode. That decline, coupled with empty grandstand seats in markets like Charlotte, Texas and Talladega, has them searching for answers.

Some may be obvious.

Watching a NASCAR race broadcast, which admittedly can be a boring affair, has become even more difficult. The constant bombardment of television commercials (usually every five minutes) has made it nearly impossible for even the most diehard fans, much less the casual fan, to watch a race in its entirety.

Ticket prices have steadily increased over the past five years and now the average cost of a NASCAR weekend for a family of four has easily surpassed that of any other major sports activity. However, creative ticket pricing, such as free or greatly reduced admission to fans under 15 or over 60, could help soften the blow to the family's pocketbook and encourage more fans to fight the crowds and traffic to see a race in person.

Despite the flat or declining television ratings and the apparent drop in attendance, NASCAR officials see this as part of the natural cycle of growth of the sport and wave off any serious concern.

TWO FACTORS THAT SHOULD TURN THINGS AROUND

Toyota
The introduction of the Toyota nameplate to Nextel Cup and Busch Series racing in 2007 is seen by many in the NASCAR community as changing the face of the sport – permanently.

For a small but vocal segment of NASCAR's competitors and fan base that see the Japanese manufacturer coming to NASCAR to conquer and pillage the series while spending an inordinate amount of money to achieve its goals, it is the beginning of the end. But despite having spent millions and even billions in other racing series, Toyota has had its racing accomplishments, for the most part, exaggerated.

After more than a decade in American open wheel racing (CART and IRL), Toyota walked away with just two championships. The manufacturer has spent billions (that's with a "b") in Formula One over the past five years and has yet to win a race. And although Toyota did win the 2006 Craftsman Truck Series manufacturer's title, it did as so as the only manufacturer supplying full-time support to its teams.

The real key to the on-track success of Toyota in the Cup and Busch Series will be its teams, and not one of the teams campaigning Cup and Busch cars for Toyota in 2007 are strong enough to be considered as title threats – at least for the foreseeable future. However, the manufacturer has historically spent huge amounts of money marketing its involvement in motorsports and that may very well be where its biggest impact will be felt.

ABC/ESPN
When ABC/ESPN was shut out from the original big-dollar, new-era NASCAR television contracts five years ago, some saw it as a slap in the face to the network that helped put the series on the map.

The exclusion of the all-sports network in favor of Fox and an NBC/TNT combination prevented ESPN from covering the sport from the inside, and it was forced to position its reporters outside the race track in order to talk with drivers and officials.

That was then, this is now.

NASCAR now sees the network as being the perfect partner and companion broadcaster to Fox Sports, which has established a strong national television presence for the sport. And for the first time, the Busch Series will be seen exclusively on one network, ESPN2, helping its transition into being seen as more of a stand-alone series and less as "Cup-lite."

There still may be too many commercials during a race broadcast, but with its decades of sports broadcasting, ABC and ESPN – one can only hope – have found a way to minimize the annoyance.

Of course, a real question remains: How will the performance of former driver and now ABC analyst Rusty Wallace behind the microphone compare to his longtime rival Darrell Waltrip's?

THE REST OF THE STORY

Performance gap
Success for a driver at the Nextel Cup level is harder to achieve than ever before.

Some see the increased Cup competition alone as being the reason. Others cite that, in years past, a driver had two or three seasons to mature into his role. That no longer applies. Because of the intense pressure to perform, a driver usually gets one season (or sometimes less) to show his worth. By failing to do so, he (or she) usually doesn't get another chance at the big time and finds himself looking for a Busch or Truck series ride.

That has caused an apparent drought in quality drivers ready to take the reins of a competitive Nextel Cup ride.

Although several major teams as well as GM Racing have driver developmental programs, many teams will still choose not to risk putting an inexperienced driver in the seat. Instead, they prefer to keep an older and more established name driver on their team, even though that driver may not be delivering the kind of performance expected of him.

As the level of competition in NASCAR rises, so does the importance of pairing a qualified driver with a competitive team.

More often than not, a qualified driver will find himself driving for a lesser-financed team, thus adding to the performance gap in the field. However, on any given race weekend, there are still 12 to 15 cars in the field that have a realistic chance of winning the race.

Local short tracks around the country have historically been the supply line for NASCAR, but with the increased costs of building and maintaining a race car, the closing of more and more small tracks and the loss of local sponsorship dollars, short track racing is struggling to survive.

To address this issue, NASCAR has recently stepped up its efforts at the local short track level by announcing a new title sponsor, Whelen Engineering, and a new points structure for its newly retitled Whelen All-American Series, which was the starting point for drivers such as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin, Greg Biffle and Bobby Labonte.

New cars/new engines
Both Chevrolet and Dodge debut new cars in 2007. Chevrolet will debut the Impala SS as its model for the Car of Tomorrow, while Dodge is expected to introduce sometime before the Daytona 500 the all-new Avenger as its model for the Car of Tomorrow.

Anytime a manufacturer brings a new car into competition, there are teething pains. Dodge knows this all too well as teams struggled for nearly a year and a half after the Charger was introduced.

Ford teams, despite having some success in the first year with its new Fusion, faced challenges, too, but to a much lesser extent.

Chevrolet also debuts an all-new engine design, which the manufacturer hopes will ensure a level playing field with the new Nextel Cup engine being introduced by Toyota as well as the anticipated new engines from both Dodge and Ford in the near future. Because of manufacturing limitations and availability of parts, the new Chevy engine won't be in use by all teams until the spring of '07.

Dodge teams will have a new nose for their Charger, which the manufacturer hopes will address the aerodynamic issues it has struggled with since the introduction of the Charger in 2005.

Single-car teams
A prominent Nextel Cup team owner was recently quoted as saying that competing in today's Nextel Cup Series with a single-car team is like "showing up for a fight with both hands tied behind your back – and blindfolded."

Only a few years ago, two-car teams were pretty much the norm. Now three- and four-car teams seem almost mandatory. There are several reasons. First and foremost, the more cars you have, the more performance data you have to share and the better all of your teams become.

In the 2006 season, there were only a handful of single-car teams remaining somewhat competitive: Robby Gordon Racing, PPI Racing, the Wood Brothers, CNC/Haas and Michael Waltrip.

In 2007, all but the Wood Brothers plan on increasing their organizations to at least a two-car team and Cal Wells' PPI Racing may end up closing its doors permanently.

Teams also find that they can also offer their sponsors an opportunity to win as a sponsor partner with not just one or two of their cars, but on three, four or, in Jack Roush's case, five cars. But having more doesn't guarantee success, as the key ingredients to winning in NASCAR still are chemistry, hard work and dedication.

NASCAR's mythical "offseason" begins officially next week. But those who win at NASCAR's highest levels never stop working.

Preseason testing begins on January 8.